Alternative Rites of Passage (ARP) are touted by NGOs and international donors as an alternative to female initiation into womanhood, but without female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/FGC). They are becoming increasingly popular in Kenya, and with donors funding global campaigns against FGM. In these ceremonies and the instruction that precedes them, girls' human ...

Current struggles for power, land and resources in Kenyan Maasailand can only be understood in a one hundred-year context, by returning to the forced moves and land losses of the 1900s and closely examining subsequent complaints about their alleged illegality and long-term impacts. Drawing upon archival research and oral testimony, this article explains why the Maa...