Abstract

Kenya’s land question concerns the distributional inequalities that were occasioned by colonial land policies, and which impact the country’s political stability. There are two main schools of thought that explore how the land question and attendant political issues may be resolved. These are the dominant and the subaltern. The dominant school of thought has largely informed Kenya’s land law system, but it has failed to effectively address issues around political stability. This has meant that subaltern ideology, which was historically ignored in the formulation of the country’s land policy, is now increasingly informing land policy. Gender is primarily included in the dominant school of thought, but is excluded from subaltern ideology. The exclusion of gender from subaltern ideology results in the mis-framing and lack of holistic understanding of how women experience inequality with regard to land. This article explains why the subaltern ideology excludes gender and demonstrates the importance of including gender lenses in this ideology.