Herding by Mobile Phone: Technology, Social Networks and the “Transformation” of Pastoral Herding in East Africa

Butt, Bilal

doi:10.1007/s10745-014-9710-4

Cited by 52 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…However, this portrayal underestimates the capability for critical thought and reinterpretation of cultural values (Ferguson 1990;Hodgson 2001). Various scholars have illustrated how the Maasai actively engage with social change, both from within the community and in dialogue with outsiders seeking to change Maasai society (Butt 2015;Fraser et al 2012;Smith 2015;Winterbottom, Koomen, and Burford 2009). Winterbottom and colleagues (2009) also indicate that several Maasai women's organisations have been successful in implementing alternative rites of passage that abandon female genital cutting.…”

Section: Female Genital Cutting Among the Maasaimentioning

confidence: 99%

Changing practices and shifting meanings of female genital cutting among the Maasai of Arusha and Manyara regions of Tanzania

Bavel

Coene

Leye

2017

Culture, Health & Sexuality

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Using mixed methods that combined participant observation and semi-structured in-depth interviews, this study looked at changing practices and shifting meanings of female genital cutting among the Maasai people in Tanzania. The findings suggest that an increasing social pressure to abandon female genital cutting has inspired the hiding of the practice, causing the actual cutting to become detached from its traditional ceremonial connotations. This detaching of cutting from ceremony has created a shift in meanings: the ceremony still carries the meaning of passage into adulthood, while the cutting seems to function as a way of inscribing Maasai identity into the body. The detaching of genital cutting from ceremony offers those willing to continue the practice the opportunity to do so without being prosecuted, and those unwilling to undergo or perform the practice the opportunity to evade it by faking the cutting without being socially sanctioned for it. Findings also suggest changing attitudes towards the practice among the younger generation as the result of education. Maasai culture and the practice of female genital cutting are not static but actively challenged and reinterpreted from within the community, with formally schooled and women taking up leading roles in reshaping gender norms.

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Section: Female Genital Cutting Among the Maasaimentioning

confidence: 99%

Changing practices and shifting meanings of female genital cutting among the Maasai of Arusha and Manyara regions of Tanzania

Bavel

Coene

Leye

2017

Culture, Health & Sexuality

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“…The literature on mobile phone usage in Africa is similarly divided as the literature on PES and CBNRM: on the one hand, development practitioners with a techno-fix mindset claim that technological innovation enables "rapid solutions to socio-environmental problems" (Butt, 2015, p. 1). On the other hand, scholarship informed by political ecology carefully investigates the societal impact of such developments (Butt, 2015). Several studies investigate the impact of mobile technology on livelihoods in rural sub-Saharan Africa in the context of farming (Baird and Hartter, 2017;Arvila et al, 2018), pastoralism (Butt, 2015;Asaka and Smucker, 2016;Debsu et al, 2016), and human-wildlife conflict (Graham et al, 2012;Lewis et al, 2016).…”

Section: Blockchain Technology and Environmental Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the other hand, scholarship informed by political ecology carefully investigates the societal impact of such developments (Butt, 2015). Several studies investigate the impact of mobile technology on livelihoods in rural sub-Saharan Africa in the context of farming (Baird and Hartter, 2017;Arvila et al, 2018), pastoralism (Butt, 2015;Asaka and Smucker, 2016;Debsu et al, 2016), and human-wildlife conflict (Graham et al, 2012;Lewis et al, 2016). All authors acknowledge that the impact of new technologies in rural African contexts is mediated by preexisting social realities and neither clearly good nor bad.…”

Section: Blockchain Technology and Environmental Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…All authors acknowledge that the impact of new technologies in rural African contexts is mediated by preexisting social realities and neither clearly good nor bad. Further, the majority of authors attributes mobile technology a supportive rather than a transformative role in the societal development in these geographies (Butt, 2015;Baird and Hartter, 2017). Transferring these finding to the potential impact of comparatively less accessible blockchain technology suggests that transformative quick fixes to externally identified problems of natural resource management cannot be reasonably expected.…”

Section: Blockchain Technology and Environmental Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

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Blockchain for Environmental Governance: Can Smart Contracts Reinforce Payments for Ecosystem Services in Namibia?

Oberhauser

2019

Front. Blockchain

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The Global South harbors some of the planet's most precious natural resources and is hence key in addressing the pressing environmental challenges of the Anthropocene. Here, payments for ecosystem services (PES) have recently gained importance as a means of environmental governance, increasingly complementing conventional command-and-control approaches. For instance, climate change is now mitigated through carbon offset payments and biodiversity loss is addressed through wildlife conservation performance payments. However, such payment schemes in the Global South face numerous challenges as identified by a large body of literature. This paper investigates if blockchain technology can help address some of the challenges by reinforcing PES programs with tamper-proof blockchain smart contracts. To this end, the paper presents a proof-of-concept of a blockchain-based wildlife conservation performance payments scheme in Namibia: the habitat integrity of an elephant corridor is assessed by remote sensing algorithms, which in turn trigger fictitious blockchain smart contract payments to surrounding communities. The application allows to practically discuss the potential of blockchain technology regarding three key aspects of PES: (i) effectiveness (conditionality) of environmental monitoring (ii) efficiency and transaction costs, as well as (iii) equity and benefit distribution. The case presented here is an example for linking the digital Blockchain sphere to practical challenges of natural resource management in the physical world. As such, it illustrates some potentials of the technology, but also shows how Blockchain technology is unlikely to provide transformative solutions in geographies with complex environmental governance.

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“…For the Kajiado District, the main land use patterns are the pastures, the agricultural land, the urban areas and the wildlife reserves. During the last 30 years land use has changed from a sparsely settled pattern, with predominance of grazing and forested lands, to a heavily settled pattern, where agricultural cultivations and urban system expand, in detriment to former land use status, and overlooking the basic land use and land management principles of the traditional Maasai societies, leading to a serious social division (Butt, 2015;Galvin et al, 2008;Knowles, 1993;Mwangi, 2005). Despite international efforts to re-establishing socio-ecological equilibrium, turbulences persist (Abbink et al, 2014), mainly due to the steady transformation of the commonly used land, into individual parcels of land and fenced areas (Butt, 2015;Mwangi, 2005;Nyariki et al, 2009).…”

Section: Land Usementioning

confidence: 99%

The Maasai of Southern Kenya Domain Model of Land Use

Karamesouti

Schultz

Chipofya

et al. 2018

ISPRS Ann. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci.

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<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> We present a domain model that formalises the human-land relations in the Maasai nomadic pastoralist society in Kenya, referred to as MSKDM, and its integration with the prominent Land Administration Domain Model (LADM). Our long-term aim is to facilitate a land administration system that can accurately capture and express salient Maasai concepts of land use, ownership, communal tenure, and to assist in transparency during land transactions. We use an extensive corpus of existing research literature, and input from our own on-site workshops, as source material for our domain model. We use real sketch maps drawn by Maasai community members that we collected during our field studies for validation, and to demonstrate how our model can be operationalised.</p>

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Herding by Mobile Phone: Technology, Social Networks and the “Transformation” of Pastoral Herding in East Africa

Cited by 52 publications

References 47 publications

Changing practices and shifting meanings of female genital cutting among the Maasai of Arusha and Manyara regions of Tanzania

Changing practices and shifting meanings of female genital cutting among the Maasai of Arusha and Manyara regions of Tanzania

Blockchain for Environmental Governance: Can Smart Contracts Reinforce Payments for Ecosystem Services in Namibia?

The Maasai of Southern Kenya Domain Model of Land Use

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