Feasts, Famines and Friends: Nineteenth Century Exchange and Ethnicity in the Eastern Lake Turkana Region 1

Sobania, Neal

doi:10.4324/9780429045615-6

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…This is the case for common property-resources institutions (Brottem et al 2014), with inherent norms of inclusion and exclusion strongly dependent upon the type of social groupings (Little and Brokensha 1987) and the customary institutions, leaders and norms that provide the symbolic and enforcing dimensions of governance (Bassi and Tache 2011). The same holds true for indigenous coping mechanisms (Turton 1985, Oba 2001) and inter-group practices of exchange, mutual adaptation and negotiated access to shared resources, often described in the specialised literature in terms of bond partnership (Sobania 1991), or primary, secondary and tertiary rights of access to wells and natural resources (Brottem 2014;Oxby 2011;Davies and Hatfield 2007: 181).…”

Section: Methodology and Approachmentioning

confidence: 96%

Pastoralists are Peoples: Key issues in Advocacy and the Emergence of Pastoralists' Rights

Bassi

2017

Nomadic Peoples

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This article deals with the rights-based approach to development that in the last decade has informed discourse on pastoralism. It focuses on the organisations that have engaged in pastoral advocacy at the global level, considering the dynamic conceptions of development, human rights and policy that provide their cultural and operative background. It outlines the convergence of indigenous rights with the core challenges of pastoralism, and the emergence of the new concept of 'pastoralists' rights', eventually considered as a separate domain. It argues that the mobility paradigm of pastoral development may not by itself provide an adequate answer to the problems of pastoral communities, unless explicit consideration is made of the collective and procedural rights recognised under the international human rights framework.

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Section: Methodology and Approachmentioning

confidence: 96%

Pastoralists are Peoples: Key issues in Advocacy and the Emergence of Pastoralists' Rights

Bassi

2017

Nomadic Peoples

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“…Several share similar ancestry and cultural practices, and identities in both the more distant past and over the last two centuries have been typically fluid and porous, including in the urban setting of Marsabit town (e.g. Fratkin, 1986;Grasso, 2020;McCabe, 2004;Oba, 2011;Schlee, 1985Schlee, , 1989Sobania, 1991). In recent decades, however, there has been a "hardening of lines" and a growth in identity politics, with both qualitative and quantitative worsening of inter-community violence and a reduction in mobility (Watson, 2010).…”

Section: Marsabit Countymentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes to water management and declining pastoral resilience in Marsabit County, northern Kenya: The example of Gabra wells

M'Mbogori

Kinyua

Ibrae³

et al. 2022

WIREs Water

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In this article, we provide a review of research on the existing and abandoned wells in Marsabit County, Northern Kenya, and associated Indigenous Knowledge concerning water governance, institutions of leadership, and how these have contributed to sustaining a resilient pastoral economy in these harsh landscapes. The article discusses the socio‐ecological systems that have been maintained by pastoralists for generations, linking their sustainability to leadership structures and institutional memory, with a particular focus on the Gabra. It further highlights internal and external interventions by governmental and nongovernmental organizations that are expected to improve the livelihoods of the Gabra and other pastoralists inhabiting the area, but have sometimes had a negative effect on the traditional strategies of water governance and socio‐ecological systems, undermining the long‐term viability of the pastoral economy in Marsabit. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water Governance Human Water > Value of Water Human Water > Rights to Water

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“…The pastoral animal is a vehicle in a dual sense: not only does it transport its owner's effects, it carries around his social relations as well. (Ingold 1986, p.168) Among East African pastoralists, risk-pooling social exchange networks are commonly known as "stock associations" or "bond friendships" 2 (Gulliver 1970;Sobania 1991). Although the term "stock associate/friend" draws its essence from livestock, agricultural harvest and immaterial transfers are equally important in these relationships.…”

Section: Stock Friendshipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Friendship, kinship and social risk management strategies among pastoralists in Karamoja, Uganda

Iyer¹

2021

Pastoralism

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This paper describes risk-pooling friendships and other social networks among pastoralists in Karamoja, Uganda. Social networks are of critical importance for risk management in an environment marked by volatility and uncertainty. Risk management or risk pooling mainly takes the form of “stock friendships”: an informal insurance system in which men established mutually beneficial partnerships with unrelated or related individuals through livestock transfers in the form of gifts or loans. Friends accepted the obligation to assist each other during need, ranging from the time of marriage to times of distress. Anthropologists and economists claim that social networks are critical for recouping short-term losses such as food shortage, as well as for ensuring long-term sustainability through the building of social capital and rebuilding of herds. To this end, I present ethnographic data on friendship, kinship, and other networks among male and female pastoralists in Karamoja. Using qualitative and quantitative data on these relationships and norms of livestock transfers and other mutual aid, I show the enduring importance of social networks in the life of Karamoja’s pastoralists today. I also demonstrate how exchange networks were utilized by participants during a drought. On this basis, I argue that appreciating historical and traditional mechanisms of resilience among pastoralists is vital for designing community-based risk management projects. I discuss how traditional safety net systems have been used successfully by NGOs to assist pastoralists in the wake of disaster, and how the same can be done by harnessing risk-pooling friendships in Karamoja.

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Feasts, Famines and Friends: Nineteenth Century Exchange and Ethnicity in the Eastern Lake Turkana Region 1

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Pastoralists are Peoples: Key issues in Advocacy and the Emergence of Pastoralists' Rights

Pastoralists are Peoples: Key issues in Advocacy and the Emergence of Pastoralists' Rights

Changes to water management and declining pastoral resilience in Marsabit County, northern Kenya: The example of Gabra wells

Friendship, kinship and social risk management strategies among pastoralists in Karamoja, Uganda

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