Divining the Future: Making Sense of Ecological Uncertainty in Turkana, Northern Kenya

Samuel F Derbyshire,Lucas Lowasa,Gregory Akall,Joseph Ekidor Nami

doi:10.3390/land10090885

Abstract

This article draws on long-term ethnographic fieldwork to examine some recent livelihood transformations that have taken place in the Turkana region of northern Kenya. In doing so, it discusses some of the ways in which uncertainty and variability have been managed in Turkana to date and considers what this means in relation to a future that promises continued radical economic and ecological change. Discussing a selection of examples, we argue that understandings of contemporary transformative processes are enhanced through attention to the ways in which various forms of knowledge have been constituted and implemented over the long term. We suggest that ongoing transformations within livelihood practices, inter-livelihood relationships and corresponding patterns of mobility might best be understood as manifestations of a long-standing capacity for successfully managing the very uncertainty that characterises daily life.

Highlights

This article explores some of the ways in which pastoralist communities in the Turkana region of northern Kenya have negotiated environmental unpredictability over recent decades
Highlighting some of the instances in which Turkana pastoralism has continued to be reconditioned and reimagined in line with a changing horizon of possibilities, we suggest that ongoing transformations within livelihood practices, inter-livelihood relationships and corresponding patterns of mobility might best be understood as manifestations of a long-standing capacity for successfully managing the very uncertainty that characterises daily life
How we might conceive of the future of a livelihood system that is as open-ended and unsettled as that which is characteristic of life in the Turkana region

Summary

Introduction

This article explores some of the ways in which pastoralist communities in the Turkana region of northern Kenya have negotiated environmental unpredictability over recent decades. The Turkana region, which is roughly 68,000 km , comprises low-lying arid and semi-arid plains, broken sporadically by greener hill ranges (see Figure 1). Precipitation is both low and extremely variable, but after substantial periods of rainfall, various annual grasses emerge that are crucial for those maintaining cattle. Indisputably critical to the workings of the regional livestock-oriented economy, these historically subsidiary livelihoods have, over the past few decades, come to be envisaged by many as worthy pursuits in their own rights [8]. 1.1.Topographic is located in the area to the west of Lake Turkana. Located in the area to the west of Lake Turkana

Pastoralism and Uncertainty in Northern

Pastoralism and Uncertainty in Northern Kenya

Relief Food and Sedentism

Ecological Change and the Herding-Cultivating Relationship

Findings

Conclusions