‘Castle in the sky’: The anomaly of the millennium villages project fixing food and markets in Sauri, western Kenya

Abstract

We also thank Joost Jongerden for commenting an earlier draft and Wendy Woodward for copy-editing and proof reading. Nel de Vink made the maps included in this article. Comments by the editor and the two anonymous reviewers were extremely helpful in restructuring the original manuscript. Highlights • Millennium Village Projects are conceptualised as assemblage • Sauri Millennium Village failed to achieve its objectives, fractured the community and faded into oblivion. • The farmers trust their own assembling of 'local' resources and organisational frameworks. • SMV assembled success through questionable and limited reporting to only success stories and concealing data.

Science for Success—A Conflict of Interest? Researcher Position and Reflexivity in Socio-Ecological Research for CBNRM in Namibia

“…Our research has contextual and historical limitations as a regional, Namibian study with a focus on CBNRM. Its wider applicability, however, lies in the importance of critically analyzing articulations of failure and success in other parts of the world, such as East Africa (Kimanthi and Hebinck 2018;Svarstad and Benjaminsen 2017), as well as beyond the African continent (Nandigama 2019;To and Dressler 2019) and in different disciplines. As mentioned in the introduction, disciplinary reflexive responses are part of disciplines such as geography (Sidaway 2000) and political ecology (Neimark et al 2019;Ramutsindela et al 2016), both highly relevant for conservation and development.…”

“…The third author has carried out independent academic anthropology and ecology research in north-west Namibia since 1992, witnessing and researching key moments and tensions in the establishment of CBNRM in this context. Success, Failure and Namibian CBNRM Mosse (2004) shows that both success and failure can become policy-oriented framings that mask project effects "on the ground," and the structuring effects of "success" or "failure" have been observed in research on nature conservation (B€ uscher 2013;Catalano et al 2019;Sullivan 2002;To and Dressler 2019) and development (B€ uscher 2014;Clemens, Kenny, and Moss 2007;Kimanthi and Hebinck 2018;Nandigama 2019;Svarstad and Benjaminsen 2017). Blaikie (2006Blaikie ( , 1946, in his critical assessment of CBNRM, finds that "[t]here are success stories too, although they are stories told by the initiating agencies themselves" (see also B€ uscher 2013;Sullivan 2002).…”

Performing food and nutritional security in Europe: claims, promises and limitations

“…An assemblage perspective has gained substantial ground in social sciences investigating development processes as non-linear, fluid and emergent and not necessarily patterned by hegemonic forces. Insights from assemblage theory are applied to a variety of themes and sub-fields such as forestry management (Li 2007), land issues (Li 2014), urban spaces (McFarlane 2009; Anderson and McFarlane 2011; McFarlane and Anderson 2011), food problems (Rosin et al 2013), planned interventions (Umans and Arce 2014; Kimanthi and Hebinck 2018), regional development (Woods 2015; Pasmans and Hebinck 2017) and environmental governance (Forney et al 2018). It is useful to briefly discuss the processes that define and simultaneously produce various new types of assemblage.…”

Peasant maize cultivation as an assemblage: an analysis of socio-cultural dynamics of maize cultivation in western Kenya

“…My research forms part of a series of longitudinal studies (Hebinck, 2001;Hebinck & Mango, 2001;Hebinck & Mango, 2008;Hebinck et al, 2015;Kessel, 1998;Kimanthi & Hebinck, 2018;Mango, 1996;Mango, 1999Mango, , 2002Mango & Hebinck, 2004 initiated in 1996 in Sauri and Nyamninia sub-locations of Yala sub-county. These studies analysed the dynamics generated by a range of socio-technical interventions over a long period of time such as the Green Revolution, Agro-forestry and Zerograzing.…”

“…Of 'modernizing' maize cultivation: peasant farmers' interactions with the recent maize technology interventions Figure 6 Groups of farmers receiving hybrid maize and fertilizers from OAF in Nyamninia Sub-location, February 2017 Part of this chapter has been reworked and published as: Kimanthi, H., & Hebinck, P. (2018).…”