Extract : This paper is part of a PhD project focusing on land tenure reform, developed in a context of renewed international interest in the “commons” and related attempts to overcome conceptualization of development as equating to the promotion of private property (see inter alia Colin et. al., 2009). This translated into a wave of “new” land reforms (Bernstein, 2004: p.192) acknowledging customary land tenure in African countries.

Against this background, this paper analyze land reform processes in Kenya by discussing how the new legal tenure category of community land emerged and was discussed in national and local fora of debate, leading to its institutionalization in the policy arena and its adoption in the 2010 Constitution, and eventually its translation into land laws.

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