From livestock keepers to carbon catchers? Carbon projects and agrarian transformation in East Africa’s pastoral rangelands

Carbon markets are rapidly expanding, driven by global demand for carbon credits. Existing agrarian studies research has examined how strategies for responding to climate change, including carbon offsetting projects, may usher in a new phase of agrarian transition. However, this research has primarily focused on forest and agriculture offsetting projects. In this article, we examine the relationship between carbon projects and agrarian change in pastoral rangelands. Informed by Bernstein’s ‘three problematics’ of agrarian studies and using the voluntary carbon market that is rapidly expanding across East Africa’s rangelands as a case study, we develop three concepts to guide future research: ‘production by sequestration’; ‘accumulation by sequestration’; and ‘(anti-)sequestration politics’. Together, these concepts capture the political-economic and socio-ecological processes associated with carbon projects in rangelands and how these intersect with agrarian change in pastoral societies. While grounded in empirical research from East Africa, the insights provided have wider relevance given the growth of carbon markets in pastoral rangelands globally. This article also advances a broader, growing body of research on the ecological agrarian question, showing how ecologies – and, in this case, socio-ecological processes unique to pastoral rangelands – shape how agrarian trajectories unfold amidst climate change.