Reconsidering the Resilience of Pastoralism from the Perspective of Reliability: The Case of Conflicts between the Samburu and the Pokot of Kenya, 2004-2009

This article explores an overlooked aspect of the 'resilience of pastoralism' in crises through an ethnographic case study of a series of conflicts between the Samburu and the Pokot in Kenya that erupted in 2004. Emery Roe's concepts of reliability professionals and real-time management of pastoralists are utilised as theoretical frameworks for this study. It was observed that the 'logic of high input variance matched by high process variance to ensure low and stable output variance' occurred through the formation of clustered settlements and an inter-ethnic mobile phone network. This case illustrates how pastoralists endured the conflict as reliability professionals.

Resilience through Adaptation: Innovations in Maasai Livelihood Strategies

This article examines strategies adopted by Maasai and other pastoralists in Kenya to adapt to climate change, population growth, land loss, decreasing livestock holdings and land degradation, aimed at achieving greater socio-economic resilience. Using case studies mostly from Narok County and reviewing the increasingly rich literature on pastoralism and conservation in East Africa, we show that pastoralists employ three main strategies to adapt their livelihood systems: intensification (changes in land use systems to increase productivity per hectare); extensification (through territorial expansion into unoccupied areas or territories of neighbouring communities in our cases); and diversification (the combination of pastoralism with other livelihood strategies, mainly farming, conservation, tourism, business and wage jobs, often through migration to small towns or urban centres). Maasai communities have been quick to adopt these strategies, individually or in combination, in order to overcome ecological and socio-economic stress and to pursue opportunities as they arise. Since these strategies are generally compatible with extensive pastoralism, this land use will continue to play a key role in sustaining the livelihoods of people living in semi-arid and arid rangelands. However, when intensification and diversification through the adoption of ranching and farming occur, the rangeland becomes fragmented, with severe impacts on wildlife. In such cases, incentives for sustaining conservation and wildlife tourism will need to increase to compensate land holders for foregoing these more intensive land uses, thus moving towards reconciliation of ecological sustainability and strengthened livelihoods. These findings are illuminated by Gunderson and Holling's (2002) panarchy model and its nested adaptive cycles, where resilience is achieved by providing for change through loosening and reorganising connections between elements in the system.

Resilience and the Mobility of Identity: Belonging and Change among Turkana Herders in Northern Kenya

Ideas of resilience are not new; they have travelled across several disciplines, stretching their original meanings to a considerable degree, turning into a 'key political category of our time' (Neocleous 2013). For the case of pastoralist groups, discussions about resilience predominantly concern the state of pastoralism as a unitary and fixed entity and its prospects for survival in a world in turmoil (climate change, diseases and epidemics, conflicts, socio-economic transformations). In this context, references to resilience generally allude to local vulnerability, purporting the need for external support. These accounts tend to ignore local voices and perceptions and neglect the role of identity, culture and change in self-presentation and everyday life. Based on fourteen months of fieldwork in the northern Kenyan drylands, this article flips dominant perspectives on pastoralism and resilience, following the herders' self-definition, their construction of a shared identity and their, at times contradictory, positioning as part of a broader society. It argues that part of their resilience rests in the feeling of belonging and solidarity around a collective identity, built in opposition to urbanities along symbolic boundaries. The article however shows how such identity remains nonetheless flexible and responsive to change, disrupting dichotomies and weaving different social worlds, such as rural and urban, together. Such flexibility is also an important element of resilience for the capacity to change, stay attentive, and mobile.

Citizenship, Resistance and Animals: Karamoja Region Pastoralists' Resilience against State Violence in Uganda

Universal equality is achieved through citizenship. Despite this normative definition, the reality of citizenship differs across space and time. Against the backdrop of the decentring of state power in the wake of globalisation, when Western scrutiny focused on the peripheries of Uganda, Kenya and South Sudan, and when integrated disarmament and sedentarisation policies were promoted, pastoralists in the Karamoja region of Uganda, rather than appealing to normative notions of citizenship, initiated their own practice of citizenship in resistance to and articulation with the state order. Aware that direct confrontation with power immobilises a one-sided violence perpetration/victimisation relationship, pastoralists developed a repertoire of citizenship-related practices, including animals as co-citizens, to obtain recognition for continued nomadic pastoralism.

Does Livelihood and Asset Diversification Contribute to Pastoralist Resilience?: the Case of Il Chamus, Baringo County, Kenya, 1980-2018

In studies of pastoralism, the concept of resilience has normally been applied to the analyses of post-shock recoveries ('bounce backs') within an ecological framework and and limited time and spatial perspectives. When temporal and spatial parameters are relaxed to span multiple decades and geographies with widespread social changes and numerous shocks and recovery periods, understanding what resilience for pastoralists should look like is exceedingly complex and challenging. This article examines livelihood and asset diversification among Il Chamus of Baringo County, Kenya over a 35+ year period (1980-2018) in the context of significant changes. It suggests that 'successful resilience' among pastoralists involves much more than the continuity of a pastoralist livelihood in a particular place. By addressing diversification trends among households both in towns and rural spaces, the study shows that both better-off and poor households pursue non-pastoral strategies and assets, and that livestock remains an important real and symbolic form of capital even for those who work in towns. Finally, the article concludes that studies of pastoralist resilience should consider long-term continuities and changes associated with market expansion and the strengthening of rural-town linkages, in order to understand how pastoral livelihoods evolve not just in response to short-term shocks but also to challenges and opportunities that wider socio-economic changes present.

Dynamics of Cultural Value of Non-Pastoral Activities among the Daasanach in East Africa

Many studies have focused on livelihood diversification among pastoral people in East Africa. The central theme of research on livelihood diversification is to clarify the economic background, contribution and consequences of non-pastoral activities for each household. However, pastoralists diversify their livelihoods not only out of economic necessity, but also by considering the cultural value and social relations, and the diversification process itself might change the value and relations. In this paper, by analysing various economic and socio-cultural contexts, including the opening of commercial farms, I examine how Daasanach youth legitimise their choice to enter into fishing activities that have negative connotations in their cultural value, and how other people view their choice.