The Changing Nature of Conflict and Famine Vulnerability: The Case of Livestock Raiding in Turkana District, Kenya

Abstract

The context of famine in Turkana has changed in recent years as the role played by livestock raiding in contributing to famine has increased. External responses to famine in Turkana have largely been drought driven, for example, food assistance and livestock restocking programmers, which have failed to meet the real needs of herders. The role of armed conflict in the form of raiding has been overlooked as a common feature of societies facing famine and food insecurity. The traditional livelihood-enhancing functions of livestock raiding are contrasted with the more predatory forms common today. The direct impact of raiding on livelihood security can be devastating, while the threat of raids and measures taken to cope with this uncertainty undermine herders' livelihood strategies. Self-imposed restrictions on mobility negatively affect the vegetation of both grazed and ungrazed pastures and restrict the available survival strategies. Predatory raiding leads to a collapse in the moral economy. Some implications of this for relief and development policy are considered, including approaches to conflict resolution.

Measuring household vulnerability to climate-induced stresses in pastoral rangelands of Kenya: Implications for resilience programming

“…In general, by weakening the productivity and functioning of livelihood resources, climatic stresses aggravate the vulnerability of households dependent on these resources. However, Turkana pastoralists are known to be highly mobile with no fixed residence (McCabe et al 1988), but their regular patterns of movement often get disrupted by conflicts and disease outbreaks (Hendrickson et al 1998;Schilling et al 2012).…”

Raiding pastoral livelihoods: motives and effects of violent conflict in north-western Kenya

“…Besides the aforementioned development of commercialisation (Krätli and Swift 2003;Buchanan-Smith and Lind 2005), other studies have documented a variety of different motives to explain the phenomenon of livestock raiding among pastoralists in Kenya. The spectrum ranges from poverty (Omolo 2010), payment of dowry and accumulation of general wealth (Bollig 1993;Hendrickson et al 1998) (Meier et al 2007). Most of these studies agree that competition and scarcity of resources in the form of water, pasture, land resources and livestock assets play a key role in the conflicts between pastoral groups.…”

The sustainability and resilience of global water and food systems: Political analysis of the interplay between security, resource scarcity, political systems and global trade

“…Besides environmental change, raiding practices are also seen as an important structural driver that limits the capacity of herders to cope with famine. In their analysis of famine cycles in the Turkana district in Kenya, Hendrickson et al (1998) show how raiding has slowly evolved from a cultural practice that had a redistributive role (reallocating pastoral resources between rich and poor herders) to a predatory activity with criminal motives involving actors from outside the pastoral system (i.e. armed military, bandit groups and 'economic entrepreneurs').…”