The making of digital rangelands: Navigating the implications of rangeland datafication and smartification in Kenya

A shift is occurring in how the global environmental community understands and talks about rangelands. Long seen as economically unproductive and environmentally degraded environments, rangelands are now being recast as sources of untapped ecological benefit and climate optimism. This is due to growing awareness of the significant contributions rangelands make to biological diversity, carbon sequestration, and nature-based economies worldwide. In this article, we argue that digital technologies and the data they produce are contributing significantly to shifting narratives about rangelands. The rapid advancement of digital technologies have rendered rangelands legible in new ways, transforming rangelands into data that can be acted on to both understand and, purportedly, help transform environmental crises. We identify six areas where digital tools are increasingly applied in rangelands: (1) livestock monitoring and management; (2) livestock market access and information; (3) property and asset monitoring and management; (4) ecological monitoring and management; (5) payments for ecosystem services; and (6) disaster preparedness and management. We then reveal the wider effects of this trend, demonstrating how datafication and smartification contribute to making rangelands more governable, commodifiable, and useful for the global environmental community. Despite the potential benefits and opportunities this shift poses for rangeland users, not all groups are empowered equally by the making of digital rangelands. We caution that as digital technologies rework understandings of what and who rangelands are for, how they should be managed and what purpose they should serve, there is a risk that existing rangeland users and ways of using, managing, and governing rangelands will be marginalised and replaced. Our analysis and argument are developed through a qualitative case study of rangelands in Kenya and informed by the websites and social media pages of 65 organisations in Kenya's rangelands who use digital technologies.