The Conclusion recaps the conceptual themes of the book, emphasising the need for scholars to renew their focus upon the intertwined nature of kinship, class, and capital not only in the empirical study of capitalism on the African continent, but in anthropology where the study of kinship has veered away from questions of inheritance and property since the 1980s, a subject to which it is only now returning. It recaptures the book’s emphasis on the erosion of moral economies under conditions of land’s commodification, and the way this shapes the pauperisation of junior kin.

The Introduction sets the scene for the book’s chapters and analysis. On the northern periphery of Nairobi, in southern Kiambu County, the city’s expansion into a landscape of poor smallholders is bringing new opportunities, dilemmas, and conflicts. Profoundly shaped by Kenya’s colonial history, Kiambu’s ‘workers with patches of land’ struggle to sustain their households while the skyrocketing price of land ratchets up gendered and generational tensions over their meagre plots, with consequences for class futures. Land sale by senior men turns would-be inheritors, their young adult sons, into landless and land-poor paupers, heightening their exposure to economic precarity. The Introduction sets out how these dynamics are lived at the site of kinship, and how moral principles of patrilineal obligation and land retention fail in the face of market opportunity. Within this context, the Introduction sets out the book’s exploration of how Kiambu’s young men struggle to sustain hopes for middle-class lifestyles as the economic ground shifts beneath their feet.

Chapter 1 introduces the region of Kiambu in detail, establishing the stakes of moral debate over wealth amongst men in the region. While an older generation preaches the labour ideology (the notion that hard work will bring success) that allowed them to prosper in the aftermath of independence, it has been undermined by dwindling land holdings and opportunities for ‘off-farm income’, creating a crisis of hopelessness as young men wonder if they will ever reach the ‘level’ of their elders. Framing the study of masculine destitution to follow, the chapter discusses the legacies of the ‘Kenya Debate’, a regional debate in political economy about the relative prosperity of Kenya’s peasantry after independence. It argues for a processual, non-static approach to economic change in central Kenya, allowing us to see how class divides have been opened across generations due to population pressure on land. Its subdivision within families exerts stronger pressure on young family members who find themselves in the situation of being virtual paupers – land poor and ‘hustling’ for cash.

Chapter 3 shows how older men, established patriarchs, wrestle with the temptation to sell their land and live lives of ‘fun’, abandoning their obligations to pass on wealth to future generations. Speaking to a rich regional literature on fatherhood and provider masculinity, it unveils a local politics of masculine responsibility, focusing on the question of land sale and fatherly obligation. Adult men from the Ituura neighbourhood who work for wages in the informal economy to support their families are shown to condemn other ‘bad’ men who sell their family land to live ‘comfortable’ lives of short-term consumption. The discourses of self-styled moral men valorise their self-disciplined control of a desire to consume wealth against the grain of immorality they perceive in the neighbourhood and beyond, especially by retaining their ancestral land. Complicating these heroic narratives of economic striving, the chapter explores the life circumstances that force land sale, as well as a growing cynicism amongst working-aged men towards the obligations of patrilineal kinship.

Chapter 6 shows how the history of land reform in central Kenya, dating back to the late colonial period, has shaped a situation of scarcity in which access to land, and contestation over it, has become highly gendered. Engaging with regional literature on land, kinship, and economic change, it discusses the micro-politics of ‘intimate exclusion’ that plays out in inheritance disputes, with young men trying to exclude their sisters from inheriting precious land. Meanwhile, older men try to argue for their daughters’ ability to inherit, citing wider legal change and the rising rates of divorce. The chapter discusses the intimate politics of envy and competition, exploring ‘zero-sum’ family disputes over wealth, demonstrating the moral arguments for ‘inclusion’ that are made by senior men, and attempts to control and mitigate greed-fuelled conflicts in the future through fair distribution.

Abstract: This chapter argues that the state of nature brings into focus colonial imaginaries of land and identity. It also contends that these colonial imaginaries have come to shape the modern West more broadly.

Chapter 5 considers the legal definition of ownership and possession and how they were acquired and protected. Possession was important in that someone who had physical control of something, for example, a farm, could use the land and enjoy its fruits even though the property was formally owned by another. Having possession of an object brought significant benefits since it was an important step to proving and acquiring ownership by usucapio (that is, having it in your possession for at least two years in the case of immovables, one year for movables). The acquisition and distribution of land was part of the history of the republic, and the management of land, the designation of boundaries, the establishment of jurisdiction, and the resolution of disputes through the legal process remained important. We then consider the role of law in arranging farm tenancy and negotiating leases, and the position of urban landlords and tenants.

Chapter 3 considers the nature of provincial government, the role and legal responsibilities of governors, both legati Augusti and proconsuls, the management of Rome’s assets through the census and by direct intervention, for example, in managing the benefits and dangers of rivers. We look at the constitutions of municipia, and the nature of their laws and regulations, and Rome’s supervision of the infrastructure of local towns, and the consequences for local people. In the administration of justice there was a melding of local legal practice and Roman law. Did the Romans have an idea of what constituted fair and efficient government and how far did they achieve it? The evidence shows good intentions on the part of emperors and governors, but also many abuses, especially from the presence of soldiers, and problems in obtaining legal redress.

The chapter offers provisional compass points for navigating new modes of writing by 21st-century Australian poets in light of a world of overdevelopment, environmental crises and extinctions. The compass points include: modes of anxiety and grief involved with poetic form, and material forms emerging in combination with agencies, matter and forces. Inflection points include the shared becoming of humans and non-humans. The chapter includes a discussion of ecopoetic literary journals, as well as anthologies that have gathered and showcased ecopoetry, radical writing of land, and environmental protest poetry. It includes analyses of poetry by writers such as Judith Beveridge, Louise Crisp, Coral Hull, John Kinsella, Peter Minter and Mark Tredinnick.

Modern research has produced computer climate models that are based largely on weather-prediction models. Climate models, however, include simulations of the ocean and land surface and other components of the climate system, as well as the atmosphere. Climate models are also allowed to run for a longer simulated time, several months or even years, instead of the few days needed to produce a weather forecast. This variation in time scales is one of the fundamental differences between climate and weather. Climate modeling is computer simulation of a high order. We can change a number in the computer program and make the Earth spin faster or backwards, we can turn off the Sun, we can make the seasons disappear, or we can change atmospheric carbon dioxide. Of course, we are doing all this with a make-believe or virtual Earth. Climate modeling by computer simulation is an exciting area of research. It can provide valuable insights into how the climate system works. However, the results are approximate solutions of the climate problem, not exact depictions.

Chapter 7 frames Kenyan attempts of archival retrieval as a matter of decolonization at the international, bilateral, and national levels. Importantly, it also draws attention to how the concealment of the “migrated archives” affected political activity not only within Kenya but also in England, as a country undergoing its own re-nationalization process at the end of empire. The process of recovering records from the UK provided the Kenyan Government a framework in which to invoke a sovereign and unified Kenyan polity as the rightful home for the “migrated archives,” while dissent over Kenyatta’s centralized authority grew within the country. Meanwhile, British engagement with the “migrated archives” throughout the 1970s and 1980s resulted in the consolidation of postcolonial archival secrecy with other European partners as evident in the voting blocs formed in the 1983 Vienna Convention on the Succession of States in Respect of State Property, Archives and Debts.

The so-called Holiness Code of Leviticus highlights the importance of ethical living if Israel is to be holy as God is holy. This chapter discusses the historical-critical arguments around the composition of the Holiness Code but focuses mainly on bridge Leviticus creates between the holiness of Israel’s tent and God’s tent. Ethical purity is as important as ritual purity in Leviticus and requires holiness in every aspect of Israel’s life.

This chapter explores the priestly theology of space within the tabernacle and how this expands to the holy land where Israel will dwell. The tabernacle and God’s abiding presence are the center of all holiness for the priestly authors. Only ordained priests may approach his holiness. The consecration of the altar is a high point in the theology of Leviticus and has an impact on its theology of the land and the Jubilee.

This chapter explores the economy of the later Roman Empire, with special emphasis on resource management, economic structures and regional variations. It highlights how land, labour and capital functioned within a largely agrarian system, with agriculture serving as the primary economic driver and tax base. The chapter examines diverse sources, including archaeological surveys, historical texts, coinage and environmental data. It analyses the effects of political instability, regional differentiation and resource distribution on economic trends. Case studies from North Gaul, Iberia, Italy and the Eastern Mediterranean reveal that economic activity was influenced by both local conditions and imperial policies. The study also incorporates ecological data, such as pollen analysis and lead pollution levels, to assess economic fluctuations. A central argument is that the later Roman economy was not a uniform system but a collection of interconnected regional economies. While political fragmentation led to economic contractions in some areas, others adapted through local specialisation and changing trade networks. This study thus challenges the view of economic collapse, instead emphasising resilience and adaptation, and calling for an interdisciplinary approach to better understand the complexities of late Roman economic life and its long-term transformations.

This chapter examines the crystallization of sociopolitical processes in Rwanda and Kivu during the 1950s, which would undergird political processes into the 1990s and later. Against the backdrop of post-Second World War developments, it is the second chapter of the book to focus on the scheme for “transplanting” Rwandan labor, with the foundation of the Mission d’Immigration des Banyarwanda (MIB) in 1948. Rather than focusing on migrants motivations, it shifts attention to the repercussions of this scheme for the local Hunde community in what was then the Belgian Congo.

After the Second World War, the colonial administration grew increasingly uneasy about the implications of the mass immigration to Kivu. Three key factors drove their concern: intensified land pressure due to colonial policies, elite conflicts exacerbated by these policies, and concerns about the legal status of Rwandan immigrants. These three key factors still define much of the contemporary conflicts in North Kivu and are intimately tied to vernacular “autochthony” discourses.

While the chapter challenges the notions of exclusively antagonistic interactions between “migrants” and “host communities”, it emphasizes that colonial interventions often came with devastating consequences, as Hunde saw themselves being turned into minorities on their own land. Belgian interventions contributed to the politicization of identity and belonging in the struggle for land access and authority. However, the precursors of current-day conflicts were not only the result of this immigration but also of a colonial system of land management that was never fundamentally challenged in the postcolonial period.