The promotion of pastoralist heritage and alternative ‘visions’ for the future of Northern Kenya

Cormack, Zoe

doi:10.1080/17531055.2016.1266195

Cited by 24 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 30 publications

(4 reference statements)

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“…Bokkos Fulani show strong adherence to cultural norms to preserve their way of life in the face of their minority status and ample opportunities for non-conformity (Berry et al 1989, Atkinson et al 1998, Cormack 2016. Governance is civil rather than cultural with considerable state engagement.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of self-help groups on pastoral women’s empowerment and agency: A study in Nigeria

et al. 2017

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While women in pastoralist communities are key stakeholders in the production of milk and dairy products for income generation, they are largely ignored in other areas of development such as health. The need to involve women self-help groups, in pastoralist areas in both animal health and human health development programmes, is essential, particularly given the high incidence of zoonotic diseases in these communities (Maudlin I, Eisler MC and Welburn SC, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364 (1530): [2777][2778][2779][2780][2781][2782][2783][2784][2785][2786][2787] 2009). Understanding the process and impact of social networks on livelihoods is essential for any development programme that aims to prevent and control zoonotic diseases. This study examines the roles and responsibilities of women self-help groups in Kachia Grazing Reserve and Bokkos, Jos Plateau, Nigeria. The findings show that groups promoting social, physical and psychological health strongly motivated women's involvement in self-help groups. Self-help activities showed commitment to effect a change in their livelihoods, despite constraining environmental, cultural and social factors. Engagement of women's self-help groups in livestock development programmes offers a powerful instrument for driving forward the One Health practice in pastoralist communities, promoting human, animal and environmental health and well-being.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of self-help groups on pastoral women’s empowerment and agency: A study in Nigeria

et al. 2017

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“…Claims to identity and belonging often reflect historical social divisions, sometimes framing wealth and poverty in moral terms (Anderson & Broch-Due 1999). Pastoralist identity serves as a site of political struggle, through which gender roles are negotiated (Guyo 2017;Hodgson 2001), governance strategies are exercised and contested (Morton 2010: 19-20), and collective claims for justice are advanced (Cormack 2016;Hodgson 2011;Little 1998;Upton 2014).…”

Section: Stabilising Categories and Polysemous Identitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identity as a Lens on Livelihoods: Insights From Turkana, Kenya

Rodgers¹

2020

Nomadic Peoples

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Livelihood surveys often categorise pastoralist households by economic activity and material assets, using measures such as herd ownership, extent of mobility and the degree of reliance on livestock vs other sources of subsistence and income. However, in contexts of high variability and uncertainty, such objective classifications may inadvertently perpetrate two distortions. First, they stabilise highly fluid economic landscapes, over-looking the ways in which people draw opportunistically from an array of livelihood strategies or move between them over time. Second, they may flatten the social field, overlooking the ways that class and kinship structure and constrain people's livelihood options. This paper argues for greater attention to subjective assessments of livelihood, such as the labels by which people self-identify or distinguish themselves from others. Drawing on over twenty months of anthropological fieldwork, I describe the notion of raiya, a polysemous identity construct that has become a salient part of everyday discourse in Turkana County, Kenya. While raiya connotes an array of conventional dichotomies – including rural/urban, traditional/modern and nomadic/sedentary – attention to the uses of this term in 'speech acts' reveals how it is used to manage relationships and access opportunities across these apparent divisions. This example demonstrates how research on identity practices can inform the study of livelihoods, not only because self-identification indicates a commitment to certain cultural values (Moritz 2012), but also because identity labels highlight the messy processes of boundary-shifting and boundary-crossing that characterise social and economic life under conditions of high variability.

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“…Elsewhere in Kenya and eastern Africa more generally, large-scale projects in the drylands are simultaneously welcomed as an investment to address historical marginalisation and protested as a threat to the livelihoods, land rights and cultural heritage of pastoralists (Cormack 2016 ; Enns 2019 ). Negotiations between external organisations and local communities are complicated by political contestations within communities, as elites mobilise different groups to stake contested claims for compensation and benefits (Lind et al 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community engagement in pastoralist areas: Lessons from the public dialogue process for a new refugee settlement in Turkana, Kenya

Rodgers

2021

Pastoralism

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Large-scale development interventions have long failed to accommodate the needs and preferences of pastoralists or the systems of resource governance and land tenure upon which they rely. However, advocates of rights-based approaches to development emphasise the importance of community participation in planning and agenda-setting, and in Kenya, public participation is a formal constitutional requirement for government decision-making processes. In 2015, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees concluded negotiations with local stakeholders about the use of 15 km2 of communal rangelands to build a new refugee settlement in Turkana County, Kenya. Negotiations entailed a community dialogue process involving local people living in the vicinity of the proposed settlement. This paper retrospectively examines the inclusivity of the dialogue process, with particular attention to the involvement of pastoralists and the representation of their interests. Interviews and focus groups conducted with a range of key informants and community stakeholders highlighted two key problems. First, negotiations relied upon a simplistic approach to communal land tenure that overlooked the complexity of overlapping and often contested access rights. Second, there was an over-reliance on urban professionals and politicians as intermediaries between rural communities and development actors. Even where elite intermediaries act in good faith, they may introduce an ‘oppidan bias’ into development policies, thereby marginalising the viewpoints of non-urban, non-sedentary demographics, such as pastoralists. I conclude with recommendations for the UNHCR to develop a more explicit strategy for direct engagement with host community stakeholders in Turkana and with increased attention to the interests of livestock producers and the nuances of pastoralist land use.

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The promotion of pastoralist heritage and alternative ‘visions’ for the future of Northern Kenya

Cited by 24 publications

References 30 publications

The impact of self-help groups on pastoral women’s empowerment and agency: A study in Nigeria

The impact of self-help groups on pastoral women’s empowerment and agency: A study in Nigeria

Identity as a Lens on Livelihoods: Insights From Turkana, Kenya

Community engagement in pastoralist areas: Lessons from the public dialogue process for a new refugee settlement in Turkana, Kenya

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