Suchergebnisse

In this book, Carolyn K. Lesorogol examines community-based wildlife conservation in Kenya and its complex effects on local communities. Lesorogol argues that this approach to conservation creates new land use institutions, brings both benefits and costs to conservancy members, and at times heightens social conflict.

ABSTRACTPrivatization of communal land among a community of pastoralists in northern Kenya creates a gap in social institutions relating to land inheritance. This analysis shows that the emergence of a new rule for inheritance is a complex social process and that new rules do not arise automatically. Using theories of institutions and collective action, this study examines the process through which rules of inheritance are emerging in Siambu since land privatization. Drawing on in‐depth interviews, observations and household surveys, this study reveals why collective action around inheritance norms has been difficult to achieve. In the absence of such action, no single norm of inheritance has emerged. Rather, several different practices currently co‐exist. A considerable amount of evidence suggests that livestock inheritance rules that favour eldest sons will become the norm for land as well, but there are also reasons to doubt this outcome. What this case demonstrates is that institutional gaps are not necessarily or automatically filled; institutions do not simply arise when needed. When collective action fails, multiple practices and norms may co‐exist leading to a certain degree of institutional instability.

Formal education for girls among the pastoralist Samburu of northern Kenya imparts new knowledge and skills, but also inculcates ideas and attitudes that clash with conventional understandings of female capabilities, sexuality, and gender roles. As a result, formal education has contributed to increased differentiation between educated and uneducated girls and women, with some negative implications for individuals as well as for female solidarity more generally. This article explores the meaning and implications of symbolic boundaries created and maintained by educated girls and women manifested both in words and ideas and embodied in dress and adornment.

ABSTRACTEast African pastoralists have well‐developed systems of communal land management that have been challenged by recent demands from some pastoralists for land privatization. This article analyses the impact on household well‐being of privatizing land among a community of Samburu pastoralists in northern Kenya. Using longitudinal data from household surveys conducted in 2000 and 2005, trends in wealth, income, stratification and livelihood strategies are analysed comparing the privatized community and a community where land remains communally managed. Results indicate few significant differences in wealth and income between the privatized and communal areas, although cultivation has become an important additional strategy in the privatized community. Significant levels of wealth stratification are present in both communities but are mitigated to some extent by mobility across wealth quintiles over time. Wealthy and poor groups exhibit different livelihood strategies with wealthier groups relying more on livestock trade and home consumption while poorer groups depend on wage labour and trade for their income. Policy implications of this analysis include the need for development strategies specific to different wealth groups, greater investment in education and infrastructure, and more attention to employment creation in pastoral areas.

As Pastoralists Settle: Social, Health, and Economic Consequences of Pastoral Sedentarization in Marsabit District, Kenya. Elliot Fratkin and Eric Abella Roth, eds. New York: Kluwer Academic, 2005. 280 pp.

Cattle Bring Us to Our Enemies: Turkana Ecology, Politics, and Raiding in. Disequilibrium System. J. Terrence McCabe. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. 299 pp.

This article analyzes how a community of Samburu pastoralists in Kenya transformed their land tenure system from communal to private ownership. It demonstrates the dynamic nature of institutional change processes by examining exogenous and endogenous factors that created conditions conducive to change. Inequalities and conflicting interests among different social groups provided impetus for change as well as ammunition to attack or defend common property. Privatization emerged from conflict among social groups, predicated on the relative power positions of the parties—positions that shifted over time in response to strategic actions of individuals and groups. In turn, the adoption of private property altered social relationships, creating new norms regarding land ownership, individual rights, and authority. [Keywords: institutions, Africa, pastoralism, property rights, social norms]

Over the last several decades there has been a transformation of the Samburu pastoral commons to new forms of land tenure and use. Government led land adjudication in the 1970s and 1980s established new forms of land ownership including group ranches and, in some places, complete privatization of land into individual parcels. An important question is what forms of land use and social relations emerge in the wake of land adjudication, and with what consequences? Can a "new commons" arise following transformation of the traditional commons? We address these questions by examining the aftermath of privatization in a Samburu community. Through ethnographic observations and interviews, we gain insight into peoples' understanding of land use and current norms and practices and propose two diverse visions of the future – the "pastoralist imperative" of continued extensive livestock production and "future farmers" seeking a more settled, crop and wage labour-based livelihood. Using computer simulation models of the environment and households we conduct scenario analyses tracing the effects of land use practices and choices resulting from these different perspectives on variables such as livestock wealth, household income and food requirements, and ecological resources including grasses and shrubs. Our analysis suggests that privatization has yielded a "new commons" combining elements of individual ownership with shared management. These institutional innovations enable a continuation of extensive livestock production with new livelihood strategies that include a degree of land enclosure such as cultivation and land leasing. The analysis indicates that seemingly contradictory norms and practices can co-exist on the same land allowing considerable flexibility in production of livestock and crops. However, the models also demonstrate the limits that may be reached, particularly if common access is heavily curtailed.