Cooperation in the midst of violence: land deals and cattle raids in Narok and Laikipia, Kenya

Africa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 89 (03) ◽  
pp. 562-585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Ladekjær Gravesen ◽  
Eric Mutisya Kioko

AbstractWhat drives the formation of ties and networks in ethnically hybrid spaces despite the occurrence of conflict? We approach this question by examining the actors involved, the institutions affected, and the economic and environmental contexts surrounding such tendencies. This study explores socially thick arrangements between Maasai and Kikuyu in Narok and their role in the non-violent use of formerly contested lands. In Laikipia, we examine how young Samburu and Kikuyu cooperate in a dangerous yet economically beneficial network involving cattle-rustling ventures. We revisit the history of land settlement in Kenya's Rift Valley, particularly in the study areas of Narok and Laikipia, and show how access and settlement rights to land are negotiated peacefully, encouraging ethnic assimilation and cooperative social and economic relations. Based on this context and the exploration of our case studies, we argue that the formation of alliances in multi-ethnic settings tends to override other identities when mutual benefits drive such associations.

Author(s):  
James McElvenny

This chapter sets the scene for the case studies that follow in the rest of the book by characterising the ‘age of modernism’ and identifying problems relating to language and meaning that arose in this context. Emphasis is laid on the social and political issues that dominated the era, in particular the rapid developments in technology, which inspired both hope and fear, and the international political tensions that led to the two World Wars. The chapter also sketches the approach to historiography taken in the book, interdisciplinary history of ideas.


Author(s):  
Evgenii V. Palamarenko ◽  

The lack of Russian-language research on the features of the economic development of Israel as an OECD member state underlines the urgent need to identify new trends in the Israeli economy. Not taking into account the existing variety of humanitarian studies, and especially the concentration of studies on the political history of Israel and its modern component, we can recognize a clear lack of work that would cover Israeli economy. Current trends in Israeli trade relations, which have begun to make the mselves clear, require both consideration of effective trade and economic interaction between Israel and Palestine, and identification of the peculiarities of hidden regional trade and economic ties. Israel and Palestine are in close cooperation on the exchange of labor and goods, despite the lack of a political settlement. For Palestine, Israel is a major trading partner, and Palestine plays a key security role for Israel. The second important aspect in covering new trends in the Israeli economy may be the need to study the nascent format of cooperation between Israel and the Middle East. The article explores the specifics of economic relations between Israel and the countries of the Middle East, reveals the growing role of economic relations between Israel and the countries of the region.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-126
Author(s):  
Birgit Schneider

The article discusses how current mediated conditions change nature perception from a media study perspective. The article is based on different case studies such as the current sensation of atmospheric change through sensible media attached to trees which get published via Twitter, the meteorologist Amazonian Tall Tower Observatory and the use of gutta percha derived from tropical trees for the production of cables in the history of telegraphy. For analysing the examples, the perspective of »media as environments« is flipped to »environments as media«, because this focus doesn’t approach media from a networked and technological perspective primarily but makes productive the elemental character of basic »media« like air, earth and water


Author(s):  
Susanna Braund ◽  
Zara Martirosova Torlone

The introduction describes the broad landscape of translation of Virgil from both the theoretical and the practical perspectives. It then explains the genesis of the volume and indicates how the individual chapters, each one of which is summarized, fit into the complex tapestry of Virgilian translation activity through the centuries and across the world. The volume editors indicate points of connection between the chapters in order to render the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Braund and Torlone emphasize that a project such as this could look like a (rather large) collection of case studies; they therefore consider it important to extrapolate larger phenomena from the specifics presented here


Author(s):  
Louçã Francisco ◽  
Ash Michael

Chapter 7 describes the origins of the Chicago School and its successful projection into the hearts and minds of the global ruling class. Working chronologically, there is a description of how this program took root in Chicago and how some of its central figures, Friedman and Harberger, undertook a hemispheric campaign to capture both academic and government institutions. A history of the deregulation movement in the US and case studies of Mexico, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil highlight the breadth and depth of the campaign. The chapter closes in Europe where the neoliberal insurgency faced more-developed social states. Its success varied in Britain, France, and Germany.


Author(s):  
Michael Brendan Baker

This chapter offers a narrative account of music in Canadian cinema that highlights the contributions of its pioneers. Case studies spanning the critically acclaimed, the curious, and the marginalized allow for an effort to flesh out the place of music, particularly popular music, in this national cinema. While the esthetics and dollars-and-cents of music in film may be similar in Canada as elsewhere, the expectations of filmmakers and audiences are perhaps uniquely Canadian as a result of industrial and institutional forces. Animation, the avant-garde, and documentary are particularly vibrant spaces for the innovative use of music and differentiate the history of music in Canadian cinema from other more commercially oriented contexts.


Author(s):  
Kathryn H. Jacobsen

This chapter discusses the history of and responses to global epidemics of serious diseases. Case studies of cholera, influenza, and HIV/AIDS illustrate typical reactions to pandemic events. The initial stages of a pandemic are often characterized by collective anxiety and a desire for isolation. As the pandemic progresses, there are calls for collective global responses to protect human security and contain outbreaks while maintaining international trade and travel. As pandemics enter a recovery phase, there is often a shift toward the use of advocacy to promote international cooperation, secure continued funding for global health activities, and advance other strategic goals. The rhetoric of pandemics is now being used to describe obesity and other emerging noncommunicable diseases because the language of pandemics connotes risk and demands global action. Pandemics are the result of global interactions and globalization processes, and studies of pandemics are, by definition, global studies.


2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-152
Author(s):  
Carolyn J. Sharp

Biblical narratives about ostensibly “local” barter (Abraham’s purchase of the cave at Machpelah), protection of battle spoils (Achan’s theft and subsequent execution), and commodification of labor and bodies (Ruth gleaning for hours and offering herself to Boaz) reveal much about ideologies of economic control operative in ancient Israel. The materialist analysis of Roland Boer provides a richly detailed study of Israelite agrarian and tributary practices, offering a salutary corrective to naïve views of Israelite economic relations. Highlighting labor as the most ruthlessly exploited resource in the ancient Near East, Boer examines the class-specific benefits and sustained violence of economic formations from kinship-household relations to militarized extraction. Boer’s erudite study will compel readers to look afresh at the subjugation of the poor and plundering of the powerless as constitutive features of diverse economic practices throughout the history of ancient Israel.


The Lake Rudolf Rift Valley Expedition was designed to carry out many different lines of investigation in the Lake Rudolf Basin. One of the chief of these was a study of the geological history of that part of the East African Rift Valley. The expedition was assisted financially by The Royal Society, The Geological Society of London, The Royal Geographical Society, The Percy Sladen Trustees and the Geographical and Geological Sections of the British Association. A general description of the activities of the Expedition was given in a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society (Fuchs 1935). Owing to the tragic loss of two members of the expedition, Dr W. S. Dyson and Mr W. R. H. Martin, two fruitless months were spent searching for them. Consequently a great amount of the work planned for the east side of the lake had to be abandoned. Nevertheless, the considerable distance travelled within the 50,000 sq. miles of the Rudolf Basin has enabled me to make out the chief events of its geological history. I am very much indebted to all those who assisted us in the field and at home, in particular to the Kenya Government, the Officers of the King’s African Rifles, and Mr H. L. Sikes of the Public Works Department; I would also like to thank Mr A. M. Champion, Provincial Commissioner of Turkana, who wholeheartedly assisted us in every way possible both in the field and at home, for he has placed at my disposal his own excellent topographical maps and his extensive observations on the geology of the area. I am also deeply indebted to Professor O. T. Jones, Mr Henry Woods and Mr W. Campbell Smith for their criticisms. Mr Campbell Smith has also given me provisional identifications of the rocks.


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