Pastoral Movements and Movements in Pastoralism: Shifting Traditions and Institutions of Modern Management Strategies in Laikipia Kenya

Abstract

This collection of papers explores the emergence of, implications for, and justice issues surrounding a new tradition of pastoralism in central Kenya: conservation-driven privatization and commercialization of traditional knowledge and environmental labor. It draws on fieldwork completed for my master’s thesis during May to August 2010 among pastoralists in Laikipia, Kenya, at the Mpala Ranch and Research Centre and the nearby Maasai communities of Ilmotiok and Tiemamut. Through semi-structured interviews and household surveys, I found that conservation and development agendas in this region are contributing to a new wave of livelihood shifts for local pastoralists in which individuals are transitioning from being animal owners to animal ‘caretakers’ employed by powerful conservation groups. At large, my thesis focuses on the social outcomes of these livelihood shifts, including shifts in the sharing of traditional knowledge, decision-making strategies, and associated environmental justice complexities of a new kind of labor-based rather than landscape-based mobility. Using interdisciplinary means and different focal points, these papers explore that theme closely, including issues surrounding resource dependency, insider/outsider knowledge and resource control, shifts in economic norms on individual and landscape scales, and associated questions of cultural transition and justice. The overarching research question in these discussions is what are the tradeoffs of various outcomes of contemporary coupled pastoral management and conservation strategies in an integrated natural-human system? More specifically, what carries over from traditional herding patterns and processes, and what is gained and/or lost when there are attempts by conservation efforts to transform this system? For example, to what extent have conservation strategies such as the Mpala model done away with the socio-spatial mobility and use of ecological heterogeneity by implementing fixed boundaries on the landscape, or have they instead increased flexibility by altering the natural landscape (i.e. through infrastructural development)? The introduction in this series serves as a broad introduction to this landscape, its ecology and its society, its history and its present challenges, as well as a more focused introduction to framing my study sites for further discussion. Beyond this introduction, the three following papers attempt to capture the holistic “identity” of this complex multi-part, multi-person, multilandscape, multi-national endeavor. My intent is to capture the experiential identity of all of these efforts as one that is not static, drawing from oral histories, present experiences, and theory in relevant literature to understand the institutional and cross-continental complexities of conservation and development attempts in this landscape. Part one then focuses on shifting norms of perceptions of land use and land use change in these landscapes. I rely on information represented in my surveys of pastoralists at Mpala and in the surrounding community group ranches. I explore tolerance of wildlife by pastoralists at Mpala and their associated challenges versus tolerance of wildlife by pastoralists in the group ranches and their challenges; such tolerance levels lend information to a transition of knowledge, information output, and communication networks in both landscapes that I compare and contrast across two communities in the same landscape. 5 Part two discusses the privatization and commercialization of traditional knowledge and environmental labor, and I hypothesize on the ecological consequences and social outcomes of this privatization. I draw from the literature in other African pastoral contexts where similar questions are being asked, i.e. of the Maasina in Mali, the FulBe in Côte d’Ivoire, and the Fulani in other West African nations. Within the realm of political ecology and institutional analyses, I write about the shift from animal ownership to animal caretaking and the implications for institutions that are changing norms of mobility in these ecosystems. This paper relies heavily on my ethnographic fieldnotes and informal interviews from key informants, as well as a literature review of the privatization of knowledge and pastoralism. Finally, part three explores the theme of technology and transition in this landscape closely, namely with regard to the changes brought to the experience of pastoralism with the influx of technology. The comparatively large budget and profit margin of Mpala and similar ranches in the region allow for the use of technology in a way that is not seen in other parcels of Laikipia. Here, pastoralists use cell phones to aid in daily and seasonal decision-making but have difficulty finding infrastructure for charging those phones; some use vehicles for transportation or moving injured livestock; radios give warning of dangerous wildlife nearby; and expensive, easily transportable metal fences are used to rotate cattle pastures more frequently than in nearby Maasai group ranches to try to control environmental degradation. Major themes considered include the relationship of technological resources to sustainability, knowledge and resource control, shifts in financial agendas, and transitions in traditional knowledge networks. Collectively, these papers attempt to offer at once snapshots of a landscape complex in its history, present use, and future potential; as well as a holistic overview of a natural-human system in transition, one that is increasingly being recognized for its importance as a leader to conservation in East Africa. In the following analyses I suggest that despite this recognition in the conservation world, there are in fact many more questions to be answered, more social concerns needing to be addressed, and more knowledge to be gleaned before this system is used as a model for conservation, pastoralism, or development in this landscape or elsewhere in Africa.