Focusing on the impacts of road construction through the Waso Borana rangelands in Isiolo County, this analysis explores how large infrastructure projects such as the Lamu Port and Southern Sudan–Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor and the Modogashe–Isiolo road deepen local socioeconomic inequalities. These developments trigger new dispossession coupled with structural marginalization with the delayed implementation of the Community Land Act (CLA)1 and the reclassification of community land, formerly considered “trust land” and used by the state, which enables the state to displace and further restrict access to development benefits. Additionally, these developments trigger the erosion of livelihoods, livestock production, and moral and ecological values that are sacred to the Waso Borana. On a broader scale, northern Kenya has emerged as a key site and an economic frontier for Vision 2030’s large-scale infrastructure agenda. While initiatives like LAPSSET in East Africa are designed to drive national economic growth and reverse the long-term marginalization of the region, they fit into a global pattern of large scale planning projects that are, in fact, undermining pastoralist livelihoods by eroding land rights, restricting customary mobility, and imposing rigid territorial boundaries, thereby intensifying historical patterns of marginalization and exclusion. This paper explores the clashing concepts of land and territoriality between the Waso Borana pastoralists of Isiolo, and state authorities engaged in regional infrastructure development.
