Ecologies of Belonging

How does home-building shape people’s life stories and their sense of belonging in Lamu? What do common building materials such as coral stone and mangrove wood tell us about the future of Lamu?

Most new houses on Lamu island are built with local coral stones and mangrove wood. These ancient building materials are key to Lamu’s world-famous architectural heritage, yet home-builders often integrate them with modern techniques such as poured concrete. These building practices raise pressing questions of who belongs to Lamu.

Lamu’s coral stones come from the quarry of Maweni on nearby Manda Island. Workers in this village carve the stones by hand from the coral stone bedrock of the island. They transport the stones by boat and donkey to Lamu, where they are used to build new houses on the outskirts of the historic town. Prospects of prosperity have long attracted people to work and live in Maweni, which has been a site of coral stone extraction since at least the 1980s. Many in this community of stone workers hail from western Kenya and are considered to be outsiders to the region.

Our research focused on the relationship between Lamu and Maweni. What do they share? What separates them? And how do these communities depend on each other?

Building a house out of permanent materials is a common aspiration. Yet living in Lamu and Maweni comes with very different challenges. While most inhabitants of Lamu’s neighborhoods enjoy tenure, the inhabitants of Maweni face precarity and the risk of eviction. Few of their homes are built with the precious stones around which they have organized their livelihoods. Most homes in Maweni are made out of a combination of thatch, mud, and wood. Despite these inequalities, residents’ lives in both Lamu and Maweni are interlaced with complex stories of aspiration and belonging that are not contained by either of these locations.

Our urban research with community organizers, stone masons, house builders, home owners, and neighborhood residents combined hand drawing with photography, mapping, interviews and ethnographic walks. We used drawings and maps to convey the ecological relations of belonging that structure these stories. Someone’s sense of belonging cannot be easily pinned on a map or represented in a drawing, yet the dialogical practice of drawing together with community members allowed us to better understand what it means to belong.

Nasba’s story

Nasba comes from the coastal area of Kiwayuu, she is Swahili and Muslim. Nasba’s father is a fisherman and her mom owns a shop. She moved to Lamu Island for her studies because the university was close to home. She has been living in Lamu town ever since. Nasba still goes and visit her family in Kiwayuu - she buys groceries in Lamu and brings them to her mother’s shop. She initially lived with relatives and later moved from one rental apartment to another in the town.

This is why Nasba says she has so many neighbors. She greets all of them when she walks her streets. Today, she lives in Bombay, one of the new neighborhoods on the outskirts of the historic town. She rents an apartment there and has a close relationship with her neighbors, who she says are like family. In the future, Nasba wants to invest and build a big house back in Kiwayuu, and she also wishes to own a shop there. But she can also imagine living in Lamu, buying a plot of land and building a house of her own.

Mary’s story

Mary was born in central Kangundo in Machakos County. She is Christian and identifies as Kamba. She was brought up in Mpeketoni, where she attended school and learned Kiswahili and English. Her parents could not fully finance her education, so she started working on a farm when she was still young. Her husband was an alcoholic and could not provide for their four children. She divorced him and moved to Maweni for work all by herself. She first lived in a rented house and started working in the quarry to save money for her childrens’ education.

After ten years of hard work, she saved enough money to take over a restaurant lease and build a house of her own. She is currently renovating it with a tin roof and wishes to build a four-bedroom house. In the future, Mary also wants to build her own restaurant and manage employees in order to welcome more customers. Mary may decide to return to Mpeketoni in the future, but she does not think there will be work for her there.

Dida’s story

Dida was born in the nearby county of Tana River. She is Orma and Muslim. She came to Lamu town with her parents when she was six years old. Her family first lived in the neighborhood of Kandahari. Halima does not have any memories of her home village in Tana River. Her father lives in Witu, a town on the mainland, while her siblings are still living in Lamu Island. For work, Halima sells groundnuts, milk and tobacco in town. Sometimes, she sends her children to sell her products when they are not in school. She lives in her late husband's house together with them.

Dida’s house is a temporary structure made out of Makuti. She does not feel secure in her house because the land does not belong to her. It belongs to an old Swahili family of Lamu. She understands she is a squatter and can be told to go away anytime. She aspires to own a plot in Lamu town and build a permanent house of her own.

Projects

Ecologies of Belonging #2301

The Violence in Maweni’s Coral Stones

Maweni, 2023

Maeva Yersin

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Anticipating the economic prospects of the new port, the region has witnessed a surge in land speculation, sparking intensifying disputes about belonging in the region. These disputes encompass not only matters of land adjudication and ownership, patronage politics and corruption, but also about the stewardship and transformation of lived-in landscapes and ecologies.

Maweni is a small town nestled on Manda Island within the Lamu archipelago. Since the 1980s, people from various parts of Kenya have flocked to Maweni, attracted by the economic prospects offered by the local quarry. This quarry is pivotal in providing an ongoing supply of coral stones to Lamu town and the surrounding region. Coral stone, as the primary construction material of the town, carries profound cultural significance for Swahili coast residents, tightly interwoven with their sense of belonging, extending along the coastal expanse of Kenya.

In contrast to the predominantly Muslim population of the Swahili coast, Maweni's workers and residents, recently counted to be around 2,000 people, are mainly Christian. Many identify as Luo—an ethnic identification of communities initially settled around Lake Victoria in Western Kenya.

A shipment of coral bricks from Maweni, stacked at Lamu waterfront

Postcolonial politics in stone

Coastal Kenya’s prevailing political landscape bears the marks of colonial history. European-imposed racial hierarchies intersect with Arab culture and Muslim notions of belonging within a Christian-dominated Kenya. The ambiguous relationship of coastal communities with “Kenya” can be traced back to the British colonial era when Swahili-speaking communities were racially classified as distinct from Africans. Compounding such clafficiations is the fact that since Kenyan independence, coastal communities have suffered state-led marginalization, manifesting in absent or deteriorating infrastructure, imposed security, and limited education and employment opportunities.

Perceptions of neglect by the postcolonial state have intensified the idea of a distinctive coastal identity, which serves both to gain political legitimacy and establish an alternative narrative of belonging independent of the Kenyan nation-state. How do these complex politics of belonging inhabit building materials such as coral stone?

Since the 12th century, coastal communities have utilised coral stones to construct houses, tombs, and mosques, thereby transforming coastal towns such as Lamu into powerful nodes of trade and civilisation. Coral stones symbolise the aspiration to be part of the civilisational order of urban Islam, as art historian Prita Meier has shown. They perpetuate the celebratory narrative of Lamu Island as a stone town. However, they also evoke the painful legacy of plantation slavery.

"Coral stone masonry encapsulates political and social tensions, embodying both the violent racial histories of dispossession and the celebratory narratives of belonging to an ecosystem."

Examining building exclusively through the lens of architecture or development today falls short of capturing these profound historical and political complexities.

Reaching Maweni

The commute from Lamu to Maweni begins with a 20-25-minute journey aboard a public boat to Manda Island. From there, the trip then involves a 15-minute ride on the back of a motorbike (known as piki piki). Often, three people share a single motorcycle, navigating muddy and rugged roads that have not been renewed in decades. During rainy days, these roads become treacherous, necessitating slower speeds and an increase in the cost of the ride.

Including waiting times, the journey from Lamu Island to Maweni takes an hour or two, with a total cost ranging between 600 and 800KSH. This overland route is slower but cheaper than going by boat. However, for residents working in Manda Maweni who earn just 1000KSH on a good day, leaving Maweni often means saving up their daily pay for weeks or even months.

Most tourists know Manda Island because this is where the airport is located. Just a few kilometers away, however, the village of Maweni remains a highly marginalized space where quarry workers remain bound to backbreaking labour and have limited mobility options due to high transportation costs.

Nevertheless, material circulates at a frantic pace. Material from the quarrying sites is transported to the shore via donkeys and carts. From there, workers carry the materials on their shoulders onto the boat, which then ferry them to the seafront of Lamu Town.

And just as coral stones are carried out of the village, water containers are carried in. The island has no source of drinking water. Cyclists are often seen transporting yellow water containers brought from Lamu Island. Drinking water makes up a significant portion of household expenses in Maweni.

Mining and Blackness

Minerals are commonly perceived as inert matter available for exploitation and activation. The logic of extraction and the language used to describe geological processes pervade the experiences of those involved in mining. Geographer Kathryn Yussof has argued that the extraction and commodification of mineral material goes hand in hand with colonial logics of dehumanization. This process is intricately tied to the racialisation of bodies, as the categorisation of blackness is a prerequisite for extracting resources from colonised territories.

Blackness is closely linked to the formation of a subjectivity intentionally distorted by the logic that the violence inherent in resource extraction must be absorbed by black bodies. Blackness, furthermore, is an embodied experience, manifesting itself in journeys and interactions, characterised by the constant movement of bodies, memories, and cultures. These populations possess the capacity to evolve and adapt, "to become different things at different times," reflecting an urban population in perpetual motion or considered available for movement," as urbanist Abdoumaliq Simone writes.

"The concept of Blackness assumes a relational character in Maweni, pertaining to individuals perceived as "immigrants" (colloquially "up-country people") rather than indigenous residents in the local politics of Lamu."

Ecologies of belonging #2302

Fixators of oppression in space

2023

Cristina De Lucas

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This paper aims to shed light on the connections between property, belonging, and power dynamics in Lamu, Kenya. It relates the historical and conceptual foundations of property to the role of emotions and social negotiation in the construction of belonging. By exploring this interplay between land and belonging, the paper aims to gain a deeper understanding of social hierarchies and identity in Lamu.

Property can be conceptualised as a potent instrument of power, driven by the act of possession akin to domination, thereby ensuring the perpetuation of oppression. Moreover, belonging can be understood as a profound sense of comfort and the emotional responses derived from a harmonious alignment with one's surroundings in terms of behavioural constraints, which are influenced by the directives imposed by a dominant authority. This parallel can be drawn to apprehensions regarding discrimination and exclusion.

Lamu is a vibrant and heterogeneous place characterised by diverse ethnicities, religions, and cultures. With a blend of Islam and Christianity, the region features a fusion of traditions and beliefs. However, despite its rich cultural heritage, Lamu often finds itself stigmatised by Kenya as "the poor, undeveloped one." This discrimination stems from prevailing narratives that undermine the economic and social progress of the area. Additionally, Lamu bears the lasting consequences of British colonisation, having inherited a foreign system of governance that continues to influence its present-day development.

“Traditionally, the indigenous peoples of Lamu lived in tightly-knit communities where a council of elders played a central role in decision-making processes.”

These respected figures were responsible for ensuring the community's well-being, managing land usage, maintaining security, and overseeing trade activities. They also presided over civil disputes among neighbours and conducted annual religious rituals, many closely tied to economic practices such as farming, livestock rearing, and fishing.

However, the current administrative structure of the government, particularly the presence of the provincial administration, conflicts with these traditional modes of rule.

“Chiefs, sub-chiefs, and headmen appointed by the government now handle most disputes, effectively sidelining the authority of the Council of Elders. This erosion of power has led to a loss of the indigenous peoples' sense of prior informed consent, as the government-appointed local leaders often fail to consult with the communities they are meant to represent.”

Consequently, some communities in Lamu have strained relationships with these appointed leaders, resulting in a lack of effective representation and limited opportunities for community participation in decision-making processes. It is within these contexts that housing construction, property dynamics, and the formation of social belonging become salient factors that both influence and are influenced by Lamu's broader power structures.

A disenchanted home

As we delve into the exploration of property as an instrument of power, navigating the realm of belonging becomes essential—a concept intricately intertwined with the transmission of narratives surrounding cultural identity. Belonging encompasses the multifaceted tapestry of connections, attachments, and associations individuals forge with spaces, objects, and communities. Within this framework, we can discern how emotional motivations traverse the landscape of property relations.

Scholar Nira Yuval-Davis defines belonging as "an emotional (or even ontological) attachment about feeling 'at home', understood as a safe space." She attests that belonging is always a dynamic process, not a reified fixity, arguing that the latter is only a naturalised construction of a particular hegemonic form of power relations.

However, the feeling of belonging also exists in relation to fixed factors such as family and social roles. These are not only emotional attachments but also structures of power.

“Romanticising the role of belonging as solely an emotional attachment to childhood memories diminishes the power dynamics at play.”

While it is true that emotional attachments to memories become more pronounced when one is distanced, this heightened visibility results from confronting the feeling of not belonging. These sentiments merely reflect the social comfort of knowing that one's values align with the prevailing social norms of the surroundings.

Communal, state, and private property

In Lamu, the dynamics of land ownership are shaped by a complex interplay of cultural, historical, and political factors. The local population, who predominantly practice Islam, strongly advocates for preserving traditional system of ownership, governed by councils of elders.

The elders hold the power to allocate land use but not ownership. However, the authority of the elders extends beyond land, as they also make decisions pertaining to security trade and oversee annual religious rituals.

However, the administrative structure imposed by the government, particularly through the presence of the provincial administration, means a centralization of power. This shift has resulted in a sense of detachment amongst the people and lack of transparency and accountability in government.

“The Kenyan government's categorisation of land as Government Land has been exploited by the political and financial elite to gain access to ancestral lands, branding the indigenous communities as ‘squatters’ on their territories.”

A significant portion of Lamu's land, however, is recognised as "community land," intended for communal use and livelihoods. To protect these communal lands, regulations stipulate that they should be held by communities identified based on ethnicity, culture, or similar community interests. Within the community, families and individuals are allocated rights to use the land in perpetuity, with the ultimate ownership vested in the community.

The dynamics of land ownership in Lamu reflect the tension between traditional governance systems, the imposition of colonial structures, the influence of political and financial elites, and the ongoing struggle to protect communal land and livelihoods from land grabbing.

Maritime mobilities

How does the construction of the new port disrupt maritime mobility patterns and marine-based livelihoods? What interventions will be needed to safeguard these for the future, and which new livelihoods might emerge?

The new regime of mobility which the LAPSSET project aims to establish disrupts existing maritime livelihoods and mobility across the Lamu region. Sustained civil society action has resulted in a one-time, highly contested compensation scheme for fisherfolk. But many in the community are aware that this compensation does little to guarantee locals’ inclusion in economic development, nor mitigate the risks and threats to existing way of life.

Meanwhile, anxiety about the future of Lamu is prompted by rumours about a new bridge and ferry connections and fears about the closure of the dug-out channel that facilitates crucial east-west travel in the archipelago.

Through ethnography and mapping, our work explores the relationships between the ways people move across the archipelago and their ability to sustain themselves. It shows how mangrove, fishing, and tourist livelihoods depend on maritime movement, shaped by the intricacies of tides, seasons, and state security. Following diverse narratives from different groups of people, the research addresses the tension between hopes for a prosperous future and fears of losing livelihoods.

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Maritime mobilities #2304

A Port of Splintered Promise

Mokowe/Lamu/Pate, 2023

Munib Rehman

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“These people”

We arrive in the early hours of dawn and dock at the main jetty of Mokowe, Lamu County’s first mainland town west of the archipelago. From Lamu town, the commute takes a mere 15 minutes, and one does not have to wait long for the boat to garner the dozen or so passengers it needs to make the journey worth the captain’s while. Traffic commences early on this most frequented of thoroughfares, as the movement of cargo, schoolchildren, and government functionaries underlies the island’s dependence on mainland supplies and infrastructure.

Morning cargo on the shore of Mokowe Jetty

One is greeted by heaps of cargo littered about the place, waiting to be loaded onto cargo boats embarking back towards various stations within the Island network. A procession of porters animates the scene, transferring merchandise between lorries and cargo ships. On-land conveyance awaits further on from the slope of the shore, with vans and buses idling alongside private-hire estate cars and motorbikes.

Porters at Mokowe

A porter frantically waves at us from afar, taking exception to our filming of the spectacle. The man walks up to interrogate our objectification of their drudgery and is unusually verbose for his occupation, asking if we thought they were “imbeciles”. Courtesy obliged us to concede to his protests all too willingly, but the man seemed to relish this break from his labour and continued conversing in practiced English.

We talked of his occupational hazards, and he went through a litany of accidents they had grown accustomed to, including overloading, capsizing, and even fires. Soon this turned towards what the future held, which gave us a segue to mention the prospect of a rumoured bridge between Lamu town and the mainland. This was seen as part of the infrastructural upgradation that LAPSSET brought to the region, and would seemingly streamline the daily commute of many.

However, this proposition was met with a patient sigh, followed by a rather resigned explanation of why this prospect, real as it was, could not materialise. A plan for the bridge was indeed proposed, but the local boatsmen vehemently protested against such inconsiderate benevolence, seeing as a land connection would spell an end to their means of livelihood. Excluding himself as a Kikuyu mainlander, he decried the siege mentality of the islanders:

“They feel like the main government is working with the Chinese, and the Swahili people are kind of just pushed aside. I remember the Chinese proposed to construct the bridge very well – they even came with a map… but these Swahili from Lamu refused it. The main reason is that the bridge would deny them jobs.”

“These people… they don’t like change, they don’t like development, they want the same of what they have – that is why they are against such projects.”

This political rift, mapped onto ethnic difference, has been central to Lamu’s relationship with the national government.

Coastal communities tend to look back on the Omani maritime empire as a period of prosperity for Lamu, in contrast to the marginalization of the region since Kenyan independence. Kikuyu communities arguably bore the brunt of colonial oppression during British rule, and their anti-colonial resistance is foundational to Kenyan independence and post-independence nation-building. However, Kikuyu political elites, with president Jomo Kenyatta at the top, are also widely described as the biggest landgrabbers of Kenya, responsible for the country’s neo-colonial injustices after independence.

Mirroring the feelings of marginalisation the porter felt in Bajuni-led Lamu, this complex history inhabits contemporary politics and social dynamics. Coastal communities are wary of state impositions from Kikuyu and other “upcountry Kenyan functionaries, of local real-estate speculation by their investment-savvy middle class, and of the mainland’s vague but consequential conflation of Al-Shabaab with the local community.

The porter occupied us for a rather generous half hour, before we realised he was holding out for some renumeration for his time. This made us realise how little of his exposition depended on our prompts, and why it had all seemed rather rehearsed. Well-meaning wazungu were to be sold a story, or so it seemed.

Infrastructure as a frame of analysis

While the LAPSSET infrastructure project served as both topic and context in our research, we were also inspired to mobilize infrastructure as an analytical lens. By virtue of the vastness of its purview, and the indeterminacy of the boundaries of its causal and effectual spheres of influence, infrastructure evades disciplinary caging. It does however lend itself quite naturally as a site of inquiry to a diversity of social science disciplines such as anthropology, history, human geography, urban studies, and science and technology studies. Each of these offer approaches that addresss particular aspects of such a boundless chain of phenomena.

In short, the challenge confronted by a researcher is first and foremost of delimitation; a matter of honing in on a case through a selection of methods, and then framing it within spatial, social, and temporal constraints.

Ethnographic imprecision

In order to grapple with the effects of the LAPSSET project spread across such a spatially dispersed area - and to accommodate the nebulous phase this inquiry finds itself in - this undertaking calls for a lenient imprecision in its ethnographic approach. The aim here is to document social attitudes, responses and expectations around the construction of the port.

As Hannah Knox and Penny Harvey summarised the challenge of such a premise, “when studying infrastructure the anthropologist must confront the problem of locating an ethnographic site without limiting the scale of description.”

Following suit, this study aims to take account of the variety and instability of human relations in the shift brought about by this infrastructural intervention within the community, and attempts to offer a snapshot of the social and cultural dynamics of change brought about by the port.

Imaginaries of development

To envisage infrastructure within a public imaginary is to dwell on an aesthetic plane of conception. Framing infrastructure as such relegates its technical function to a separate, secondary concern; the priority instead being the imaginative potential of its image. This implies not only the visuality of the spectacle itself, but also the sense in which it is internalised by its addressees.

Brian Larkin offers a masterful exposition of this potential, pushing back against the trope of ‘infra’ as denoting something hidden and behind the scenes. To be fair, the notion of an out-of-sight network of processes, one that enables the end-user a certain convenience through an unassuming interface, does provide an inexhaustible avenue of research. But Larkin argues that there is no end to the relational webs that one may consider in trying to come to grips with infrastructure, and emphatically states that “discussing infrastructure is a categorical act… a moment of tearing into those heterogeneous networks to define which aspect of which network is to be discussed.”

Drawing license from the clarity of Larkin's declaration, this inquiry’s categorical concern is the connotative baggage of new Lamu port within the local community. Though having enjoyed centuries of prominence as a thriving port city in past regimes, there is a palpable sense of modernity’s belated arrival that the new port announces in the current, Kenyan iteration of Lamu. A “game-changer” as it is so tritely brandished in official pronouncements, the port is held up as Lamu’s fast track ticket to development.

“As a regional gateway to the riches of East Africa, Lamu has the chance to shed its image of a developmental hinterland for a new prominence on the international stage. The proposed LAPSSET project will immensely contribute to the opening up of the County externally to other Port Cities and Nations of the world.”

Such proclamations by government officials imply a tacit admission of feeling left behind so far, and speak of a motivating disjunction sorely felt between Lamu’s as-is, and its desired to-be. The trope of the port as a game-changer therefore is not without conviction, and is emblematic of the “postcolonial state’s imaginative investment in technology,” dissonant as it might be with the heritage-tinged, donkey-cart romance of Lamu’s Old Town.

Maritime mobilities #2303

Tides of Change

The role of maritime mobility in sustaining livelihoods within the Lamu Archipelago

Lamu archipelago, 2023

Tanja Meier

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"The place they chose to build LAPSSET port is dangerous. Because if the Mkanda channel is closed, Lamu will be finished."

This is how Mohammad Mbwana - Shungwaya Welfare Association chairman and a local historian - expressed his fear for Lamu's future in our interview. According to Mbwana, disruptions to maritime mobility will be the end of Lamu. The infrastructural development in Lamu is anticipated with both a sense of promise and violence. The government promises growth, modernity, and prosperity for the region against a background of dispossession, displacement, and exclusion.

Lamu County is the northernmost county on the Kenyan coast. It borders Somalia and has direct access to the Indian Ocean. The locals do not perceive this ocean as a border but rather as an extension of the land and life around the islands. Many indigenous communities inhabit the Lamu archipelago. Their cultural identity depends on the natural resources surrounding the archipelago.

Water is of paramount importance, serving as a base for both the fishing industry and mangrove management, two primary means of livelihood within the island network. The sea is often overseen as an environment where people navigate and manoeuvre. However, maritime societies constantly interact between land and sea, and these connections shape their knowledge and practices. Simultaneously, littoral communities, such as the inhabitants of Lamu, are connected to their hinterlands socially, politically, and economically.

LAPSSET may create new markets for Kenya and the region through which state income can be generated. However, these ambitions turn into infrastructural violence around Lamu port, with severe ramifications for various social groups in the wider region.

Honing in on transport

Literature on LAPSSET has focused on the social upheaval accompanying infrastructure, touching upon events of land grabbing, fishing bans, monetary compensations, and other processes that animate analysis on a more local scale.
However, within the broad purview of analysing such a massive international project, the disruption of regional maritime mobility has thus far evaded scholarly analysis.

Given a considerable part of the archipelago experience is commuting by boat, we saw this as an opening to inquire further on a topic that suited the limitations of our fieldwork. We thus honed in on maritime mobility and began by questioning the numerous claims on Lamu’s waterways.

How is Lamu’s maritime mobility disrupted by the ongoing port development?

What effects does this have on livelihoods and the movement within the Lamu Archipelago?

What alternatives, promises, and opportunities emerge to safeguard the future of Lamu’s current livelihoods?

Building up to Mkanda

Mkanda is a channel that connects Lamu East with Lamu West. It drastically shortens the commute between islands and provides a calm, secure alternative to the outer seas. The canal cuts through the mangroves between the mainland and Manda Island.

In the 19th century, the maritime economy of the archipelago was dominated by British colonial rule. After independence, the Kenyan state took control of regulating trade.

“In 1978, mangrove harvesting and export to the Middle East was banned, forcing boat captains to resort to other occupations, such as being tour guides. In this and other ways, government involvment fueled the economic decline of the region.”

Before this curtailment of trade, large dhowscrossed the outer sea and sailed around the Lamu Archipelago and

across the Indian Ocean.

The maritime economy was then gradually replaced by steamboats operating between British India and East Africa. Today, mostly small boats circulate the island - and captains keep from the outer seas too hazardous to navigate.

Satellite image of Mkanda channel and Wiyoni town on the bottom left corner

According to fisherfolk, the government-funded dredging of Mkanda in 2000 countered local economic decline and allowed small motor boats to navigate safely within the archipelago. Some people argue that the channel was dug to improve the archipelago’s security, while others interpret it as a preliminary to the planning of the Port. Furthermore, dredging led to an accumulation of sand on Amu, expanding the island with additional land for the upcoming town of Wiyoni. The exact motives behind the government-funded dredging are unclear; thus, it is hard to distinguish fulfilled objectives from fortuitous side effects. Nonetheless, the channel’s importance to various demographics is undeniable.

The construction of Mkanda also reorganised Pate Island. As historical influences of trade across the Indian Ocean shaped Lamu’s urban architecture, coastal villages were initially oriented towards the outer sea. However, since the monopolisation of the trans-oceanic trade, small towns are no longer beneficiaries of this trade. This also forces towns to re-orient themselves according to the contemporary economic situation of the archipelago.

Previously - when the island was still oriented towards the outer sea - places like Shanga and Kizingitini were the main docking places on Pate Island. Now, though, Mtangawanda is the island's main dock, easily accessible as it is through the channel from Amu and the mainland.

Routes going through Mkanda connecting Amu with Pate Island (Mtangawanda & Shanga)

Today, Mkanda is a highly frequented water passage for cargo, tourists, and public transport. Using the channel to commute between Lamu East and Lamu West saves travel time and reduces fuel costs against the sea route. Moreover, Mkanda is crucial for Lamu's fishermen to operate all year round and avoid dangerous voyages into the outer sea.

"For the route of Shela (outer sea) - it is seasonal. When the sea is rough, they use the Mkanda fishing route," explains BMU Amu Chairman.

The Mkanda channel is especially important during the rainy season when the sea picks up, and the route through the outer sea becomes dangerous and impassable for small boats. "So, most of the time, when the sea picks up, we try to advise them not to cross there [the outer sea]. The channel is more on this side [inside the archipelago]. So, we try fishing within here," explains the chairman.

Lamu Port from Mkanda

Although Mkanda is at the centre of the archipelago, many other waterways are highly important. Map 5 displays some of the leading maritime routes that are used regularly. The map shows that maritime routes in the Lamu Archipelago are not only used by fisherfolk but are crucial to other activities such as mangrove cutting, cargo shipping, public transportation, and NGO projects.

Main waterways on Lamu Archipelago

The Goliath of global trade

Manda Bay was chosen for the construction of the new port because of its natural geography. The deep sea level here allows several large ships to dock and manoeuvre in the port area simultaneously, which is supposed to facilitate large-scale trade.

Most aspects of the new projects are financed through public-private partnership (PPP), making negotiations complicated. Within this framework, Kenya’s government can contribute by providing land and other investments and profit from the share in (tax)-revenues. Such neo-colonial invitations are not new to the continent. Foreign investors and companies are the primary beneficiaries of the project. Officials are quick to emphasise, however, that this also offers new opportunities for the middle class:

“You know, Hindi – people have taken land for speculation. Because Hindi is where the project is, and people anticipate it. People know that Hindi will be another place like Dubai in the next 10-20 years.”

The adverse effects of the project are manifold. Environmental concerns and loss of existing livelihoods resulted in various protests and community outcries in Lamu. Coalitions such as Save Lamu understand the community’s worry about the destruction of mangroves and corals and, therefore, the threat to the environment and the livelihoods of Lamu. People are not entirely opposed to LAPSSET but disagree with its violent and exclusionary implementation, with claims of unequal distribution and benefits not being solved.

The port also raises new questions about logistics, ownership and access in Lamu. Increased security measures and the intensified flow of commodities shape transportation patterns. This overlooks local concerns and redirects the focus to a more global economy. It also reconfigures possession and blurs the boundaries of the origin of goods. Moreover, the question of locating accountability becomes more obscure.

Expected change in maritime routes

The County Integrated Development Plan 2023-2027 emphasises large-scale growth in terms of mobility on land and marine. Highways connecting Lamu to the broader region and the port connecting Lamu - and, more broadly, East Africa - to the Indian Ocean disrupts existing mobility patterns. How these patterns may change in the future is a matter of contestation today.

The plan identifies the provision of land for industrial development, but it does not specify future land usage. However, it does anticipate the development a spatial plan in the coming years.

Seasons, tides, towns, and natural resources influence current mobility patterns in the Lamu archipelago. The map below shows the most frequent waterways on the archipelago and the fishing areas and mangroves around the port area.

Mobility patterns and marine livelihood zones around the port area

The map below shows the extent of Lamu Port and future development areas. These areas will shift the balance of development to the mainland and affect maritime mobility patterns.

“The establishment of the port may make the existing route via the Mkanda channel unviable. As a result of the LAPSSET implementation, these routes are therefore at the centre of anxiety about the future of the region.”

LAPSSET growth areas, existing waterways and marine livelihood areas

The plan stress the establishment of highways, as well as new towns and commerce centres on the mainland. The focus lies on a solid road network connecting Lamu Port to other parts of Kenya, South Sudan, and Ethiopia.

County Spatial Plan (by The County Government of Lamu, 2023)

Once the port is fully operational, access to existing waterways might change, and small-scale boating may face more significant restrictions, as the new port prioritises large cargo ships.

The fear of losing personal investments in small-scale livelihoods is shared among many residents. However, the shift from small-scale livelihoods that provide individual incomes to a large-scale port industry is undoubtedly expected to bring changes in the maritime mobility and the livelihoods on the Lamu archipelago.

Despite the expectations and fears, what remains unanswered is whether the promise of modernisation leaves room for small-scale maritime livelihoods in the future.

Cargo boats docking at Lamu Port

Lamufutures

Themes

Ecologies of belonging

Maritime Mobilities

Urban Stories of Displacement

Heritage under Transformation

Security Urbanism

Ecologies of Belonging

How does home-building shape people’s life stories and their sense of belonging in Lamu? What do common building materials such as coral stone and mangrove wood tell us about the future of Lamu?

Projects

The Violence in Maweni’s Coral Stones

"Coral stone masonry encapsulates political and social tensions, embodying both the violent racial histories of dispossession and the celebratory narratives of belonging to an ecosystem."

"The concept of Blackness assumes a relational character in Maweni, pertaining to individuals perceived as "immigrants" (colloquially "up-country people") rather than indigenous residents in the local politics of Lamu."

Fixators of oppression in space

“Traditionally, the indigenous peoples of Lamu lived in tightly-knit communities where a council of elders played a central role in decision-making processes.”

“Romanticising the role of belonging as solely an emotional attachment to childhood memories diminishes the power dynamics at play.”

“The Kenyan government's categorisation of land as Government Land has been exploited by the political and financial elite to gain access to ancestral lands, branding the indigenous communities as ‘squatters’ on their territories.”

Maritime mobilities

How does the construction of the new port disrupt maritime mobility patterns and marine-based livelihoods? What interventions will be needed to safeguard these for the future, and which new livelihoods might emerge?

Projects

A Port of Splintered Promise

This political rift, mapped onto ethnic difference, has been central to Lamu’s relationship with the national government.

Tides of Change

"The place they chose to build LAPSSET port is dangerous. Because if the Mkanda channel is closed, Lamu will be finished."

How is Lamu’s maritime mobility disrupted by the ongoing port development? What effects does this have on livelihoods and the movement within the Lamu Archipelago? What alternatives, promises, and opportunities emerge to safeguard the future of Lamu’s current livelihoods?

“In 1978, mangrove harvesting and export to the Middle East was banned, forcing boat captains to resort to other occupations, such as being tour guides. In this and other ways, government involvment fueled the economic decline of the region.”

﻿“You know, Hindi – people have taken land for speculation. Because Hindi is where the project is, and people anticipate it. People know that Hindi will be another place like Dubai in the next 10-20 years.”

“The establishment of the port may make the existing route via the Mkanda channel unviable. As a result of the LAPSSET implementation, these routes are therefore at the centre of anxiety about the future of the region.”

How are memories of displacement and hopes of return shared in Lamu? How do they impact political claims to address historical and ongoing injustices?

Projects

Nyumbani ni Nyumbani (Home is Home)

Where is home?

"We cannot leave this place here... But we would be happy to go back there."

The archipelagic way of life, marked by continual movement and fluidity, shapes their perceptions of space, time, and belonging.

IDPs continue to yearn for an imagined home, which is manifested in a sense of detachment from the local community, dedicated efforts to preserve cultural traditions, the perception of being guests in Lamu, and engagement in political activism to return to their homeland.

"They were given settlement there because they couldn't afford to rent or buy houses in town, so they got them in monthly or annual leases..."

“Until about 50 years ago, sitting on one of Lamu’s baraza while sipping Arabic coffee formed the epitome of urban flair. Now it is depicted either as an outdated practice by local youth or as an example of Swahili ‘laziness’ by mainland Kenyans.”

Heritage under Transformation

How do women transform long-standing traditions of dwelling and home-building in Lamu? How does heritage matter in the context of a rapidly changing urban landscape?

Projects

Dwelling in Transition

Dwelling entails not just the physical structure of a house but also the profound social, cultural, and emotional connections individuals establish with their living spaces.

The collaborative synergy between women, serving as users and decision-makers, and house builders, with their expertise, culminates in the creation of living spaces that both reflect and accommodate the unique cultural and social dynamics of Lamu.

Historically, Stone Town housed the wealthier segments of society, while mud and thatch construction accommodated the less affluent.

The notion that stone signifies Arab culture and thatch represents African culture is erroneous, as Lamu's inhabitants have diverse ethnic backgrounds, and construction materials do not correspond to specific racial categories.

What changes in spatial organisation, if any, have occurred with this growth?

How is Lamu’s maritime mobility disrupted by the ongoing port development?

What effects does this have on livelihoods and the movement within the Lamu Archipelago?

What alternatives, promises, and opportunities emerge to safeguard the future of Lamu’s current livelihoods?

“You know, Hindi – people have taken land for speculation. Because Hindi is where the project is, and people anticipate it. People know that Hindi will be another place like Dubai in the next 10-20 years.”

Nyumbani ni Nyumbani
(Home is Home)