Pastoralist-State Relationships among the Hadendowa Beja of Eastern Sudan

Abstract

The African Pastoral Crisis It is a long established fact in studies on African pastoralism that an understanding of pastoral adaptations cannot be limited to a man-land relationship seen in isolation, i.e. to focussing only on the direct relationships between the natural environment and human adaptation. We know that contemporary African pastoralism is also affected by factors beyond such immediate ecological relationships. African pastoralist communities are deeply affected by the general social, economic, political and ecological crisis in the continent. They are subject to forces which have an increasing influence on their ecosystems and which raise the vulnerability of local production systems. Understanding this crisis needs a perspective that takes into consideration broad socio-economic causes, as these are interlinked with factors such as demographic growth, agricultural stagnation, the incorporation of pastoral economies into the market economy, general insecurity arising from civil wars and conflicts, faulty national and international policies, as well as factors linked to climate and ecology. These processes have led to rapid sedentarisation and urbanisation, the breakdown of traditional structures, transformation of gender relations, degradation of natural resources and growing vulnerability of groups to ecological and economic stress (e.g. Bovin and Manger 1990, Ahmed and Abdel Ati 1996). Instead of a general acceptance of such complexities, the history of planning and contact between public authorities and African pastoralists has been one of misunderstandings as well as more or less conscious policies of marginalisation, based on simplistic assumptions. The most common of these are the widespread generalisations that accuse pastoralists of wandering about destroying nature and hence creating desertification, of practicing stock management based on irrational economic principles, of being technically stagnant and backward, and of adhering to conservative social structures and cultural notions. In other words, of being against development and rational change. States have also tried to control pastoralists, condemning their lifestyles, forcing them into rigid administrative structures and imposing national identities upon them. Such notions have led to harmful interventions by governments and donors alike. Development programmes characterised by technical weaknesses, lack of understanding of social systems and inadequate politico-administrative frameworks have been common. Lack of cooperation on the part of pastoralists has been explained by resistance to change and inherent conservatism. Pastoralists themselves have indeed, often responded to such developments with distrust, resistance and violence. Pastoral societies have undergone great transformations in the course of their contact with such state structures. Animal health, water policies, sedentarisation schemes, and land reforms are all areas of public policy that have brought about profound changes in pastoral adaptations. Not all of these have been detrimental to African pastoralism, nor have pastoralists shied away from involving themselves in such issues. But the history of African pastoral development can not be reduced to one of intended and unintended effects of public policies. We would thus be as ill-advised to conceive of African pastoralists as isolated societies, as to look at them exclusively as victims of public policies--as communities representing a `past' and withdrawing from the public arena. Rather, we should take a dynamic perspective, visualising pastoralists as pursuing their interests, participating whenever they see benefits, and withdrawing when they feel threatened. No doubt, the general tendency indicates that pastoralists are losers in contemporary processes of development. However, this is not a game in which all pastoralists are similarly affected. Nor were all pastoralists equal in the past. …