The Akamba Land Tenure System And Its Impacts On Women’s Land Ownership In Masinga Division, 1895-2010.

This thesis looks at the Akamba land tenure system and its impact on women’s ownership of land in masinga division. The research acknowledges the critical importance of land reform in Kenya as a country that inherited colonially structured and unequal land ownership patterns. However, there are limits to state-led, masculinised and politicized land reform when women , as gendered subjects in government policies and as a social category are not considered in theory and practice of land reform programme. The research employs patriarchy and gender as a tool of analysis theories to investigate the objectives, driving forces and the politics of land reforms, to establish the extent to which the reforms initiated between 1895-2010 created economic spaces for women and to suggest policy recommendations not only for land reform reconstruction but also agrarian development in Kenya. Whereas land reform was necessary in the context of highly unequal land ownership and poverty, this research provides information on how land reform programme diminished opportunities for women to be empowered and shrunk the democratic spaces for genuine participation of women in the development process by denying them rights to land and widening gender inequalities.