Graduation Year

2022

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Degree Granting Department

Geography, Environment and Planning

Major Professor

Ambe J. Njoh, Ph.D.

Co-Major Professor

Fenda A. Akiwumi, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Philip van Beynen, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Tara Deubel, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Richard Mbatu, Ph.D.

Keywords

energy geographies, ethnography, feminist political ecology, place attachment, Sustainable energy

Abstract

This dissertation is an ethnographic case study that analyzes the gendered socio-cultural and socio-economic implications for a community that was displaced in order to develop a geothermal energy system in Kenya. The implications are rendered particularly interesting because the displaced community is also one of the communities served by the geothermal power grid. The analysis employs a composite framework of Feminist Political Ecology and the Political Ecology of Climate Change Mitigation. This work explores gendered perceptions and control of energy, livelihood activities, place attachment, and the cultural/spiritual significance of geothermal energy.

Geothermal energy is a potentially promising source of low-carbon energy that remains largely untapped and under-researched in Kenya and many parts of the world. Kenya sits atop a potential geothermal resource base of approximately 7,000 Mwe; the Government of Kenyan (GoK) has embarked on an ambitious plan to develop 4000 MWe of electric power from geothermal sources by 2030. In 2014, GoK oversaw the involuntary relocation of over 1000 people, primarily from the indigenous Maasai ethnic group, in order to accommodate the construction of two new geothermal power stations in the Olkaria Geothermal Area of Southwestern Kenya.

Data for the study were collected using cutting edge techniques that included iterative, ethnographic fieldwork. The study locale is a resettlement village while the data collection process spanned a period of 7 months. The process involved 46 in-depth household interviews, interviews with 5 key informants, men and women’s focus group discussions, and direct and participant observations. The data were processed using directed content analysis and a deductive but reflexive approach to coding that merged the theoretical grounding of the study and the unique experiences of the resettled community.

The results of the content analysis revealed processes of resource capture, exclusionary decision-making, encroachment on ecosystem services, and the exacerbation of inequality in the contexts of gendered knowledge systems, power structures, and resource tenure. Uneven patterns of development along lines of gender, age, and ethnicity in the resettled community can be situated in broader, global processes of accumulation by dispossession and decarbonization. Therein lies the significance of this case study. The gendered sociocultural, socioeconomic, and socioecological processes investigated in this work have demonstrable significance within larger theoretical constructs of political ecology, gender and energy, and energy geographies.

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