Chapter 5 asks why contentious land narratives emerge between two ethnically distinct communities in one area, but not another nearby area. To examine this question, the chapter draws on an in-depth case comparison between two sets of farming communities in Nakuru County, in Kenya’s Rift Valley region. It argues that where two neighboring ethnic communities gain access to land through distinct processes, group members from both sides are likely to challenge the legitimacy of the other groups’ land claims. Yet where both communities acquire land through a similar process, group members are less likely to challenge the claims of the other, and contentious narratives are far less salient. The chapter demonstrates that contentious land narratives between ethnic groups are not the inevitable outcomes of ethnic rivalry but are instead endogenous to the local institutional context governing the provision of land rights.

Chapter 4 asks why contentious land narratives form between some communities, but not others. The chapter presents a large qualitative dataset collected through case comparisons of settlement schemes and land-buying companies in the Rift Valley and Coast regions. The chapter provides brief summaries of each of these eight case studies to demonstrate how inequality in land rights – or lack thereof – manifests in different contexts. Leveraging comparisons between neighboring communities, the chapter argues that the degree of land rights inequality plays an important role in the formation of contentious land narratives.