Livestock Raiding Research Articles

Governance characteristics and feelings of safety are associated with attitudinal success in community‐based natural resource management & conservation organizations in northern Kenya

Abstract For Community‐based Conservation (CBC) projects to be effective in the long‐term, they need to receive the support of the communities involved. Assessing whether CBC governance systems are working effectively is challenging, and it is important to evaluate both the characteristics of these governance systems, and the perceptions of community members. It is also important to understand how factors other than the governance features of individual CBC organizations may affect feelings of satisfaction. Using existing data collected by a local NGO in northern Kenya from 2014 to 2017, we investigated whether characteristics indicative of good governance have increased over time in 28 community‐owned natural resource management & conservation organizations (“conservancies”). We also assessed whether the presence of good governance characteristics, and other factors (whether community members feel safe, conservancy population size, and age of conservancy) predict the degree to which community members reported feeling satisfied with their conservancy. We adapted an existing monitoring dataset that captured governance, management, and administration practices. We created a modified index that focussed on concepts that have been identified in wider literature as being important aspects of the governance of socio‐ecological systems. Our analyses produced the following main findings: Characteristics of good governance significantly increased in conservancies over the study period. Self‐reported satisfaction with a conservancy was most strongly predicted by self‐reported feelings of safety and our measure of good governance. Livestock raiding and land/boundary conflicts appears to be the security issues most closely associated with community members reporting that they feel unsafe. Our adapted measure of governance and analyses provide a more robust assessment of the idea that governance characteristics of conservancies improved in meaningful ways during the study period. However, these analyses also point to the ways in which the monitoring of governance of CBC projects could be improved by incorporating or strengthening assessments of concepts that are known to be of importance in governing the use of natural resources. Our analyses of community members' satisfaction with their conservancies point to the need for CBC projects to consider interactions with other groups in the wider landscape, and to engage with issues of governance at different levels of organization. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Conflict Dynamics between Two Neighbours: Looking Beyond Federalism

Ethiopia is a multicultural and multilingual country. The Oromo and Somali communities are found in the same linguistic community, that is, the Cushitic language. Historically, Somalis and Oromo have a long tradition of co-existence and strong socio-cultural interactions, as well as antagonistic relationships and intermittent conflicts. Traditionally, the major sources of conflict between the two communities were competition over scarce resources, territorial expansion, livestock raids and counter raids, kidnapping for marriage purposes and the revenge tradition. However, this time the conflict took a different nature, form and bigger scale causing devastation never seen in the history of communal conflict in the country. The study has utilised primary and secondary data collection and employed narration and content analysis to realise the objective of the paper. The findings of this study reveal that the causes of the Oromo–Somali conflict are complex and dynamic. This urges the need to carry out a deeper investigation beyond the federal arrangement. Thus, fundamental and triggering factors including the involvement of internal and external forces, the collapse of social norms and prevalence of moral anarchism, socio-economic issues, competing interests among public and military officials, poor leadership and governance system, competing interests over resources, aspects of local cultural institutions in regulating inter-ethnic relationships are identified in fuelling ethnic conflict in the studied area. Since the conflict in the region is much more complex than the dominant narrative of resource scarcity and ethnic politicisation, open democratic dialogue, genuine consultation and negotiation at a different level with various interest groups, stakeholders and community representatives, militant groups operating in the area is of paramount importance to ease the increasing ethnic tension and political crisis in order to build sustainable peace in the region.

Insecure borderlands, marginalization, and local perceptions of the state in Turkana, Kenya, circa 1920–2014

ABSTRACT Africa’s international borders have been sites of inter-ethnic and inter-state relations and media for material and cultural exchange. Drawing on archival materials and interviews, the article illustrates how decades of cross-border insecurity and violence from livestock raiding and tension over pasture and water resources have entrenched a consciousness within a marginalized Turkana community that critiques the role of the modern state as protector and provider. Their views are reinforced by a colonial legacy of marginalization of Turkana based on a hostile geographical environment, a vulnerable pastoral economy, and Turkana’s peripheral location relative to the center of political decision-making – Nairobi. Starved of development and provision of necessities since colonial times, Turkana have appropriated episodic insecurity from cross-border violence to underline the need for government to protect and provide basic infrastructure. In the process, the article reflects on the weaknesses or incapacities of the modern African state to deal with legacies of colonial administrative and development challenges in areas considered peripheral to the mainstream state.

The Role of Indigenous Conflict Resolution Mechanisms in the Pastoral Community: An Implication for Social Solidarity in Somali Region, Shineli Woreda

The main objective of this study was to examine the role of Indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms in the pastoral community for social solidarity in Shineli Woreda, which is found in Somali regional State. A qualitative research design was employed under which, Focus group discussion, semi-structured interview and observations were conducted and the data was analyzed qualitatively. A total of 60 informants were selected by using purposive sampling technique. The finding of this study revealed that, conflict in the pastoral community was largely caused by competition over scarce resources (water and pasture land related problems), livestock raids, and revenge traditions. Besides, informants indicated that historical and political factors, drought, land alienation for investment, and idleness amongst the youth were the other causes of conflict in the pastoral community. Moreover, almost all informants of the study were used and preferred indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms which are deep rooted in the pastoral community. Community elders, religious father, clan leaders are key players of indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms. Finally, study participants stated that the decision made by elders and social sanctions in the community plays a crucial role in managing conflict through ingenious mechanisms.

Zooarchaeology of Mission Nuestra Señora del Pilar y Santiago de Cocóspera

Zooarchaeological research at Spanish colonial missions in the U.S.-Mexico border region indicates that cattle ranching formed the basis for economic colonialism in the region. Animal remains from Mission Nuestra Senora del Pilar y Santiago de Cocospera add to this expanding body of research and demonstrate heterogeneity in mission economic strategies, particularly influenced by local ecology, and sociopolitical history. Located at a higher elevation, subjected to many years of livestock raiding, and rarely hosting a resident priest, the O’odham community at Mission Cocospera continued to rely a great deal on the exploitation of wild game, even as they adopted cattle ranching.

The role of elite rivalry and ethnic politics in livestock raids in northern Kenya

ABSTRACTThis paper argues that livestock raids and pastoralists’ competition over water and pastures in north-western Kenya are manifestations of local ethnic political contests and rivalries. The culture of raiding among the Samburu, Turkana, Pokot, Borana, Gabra and Rendille communities has changed over the last 40 years. Whereas elders were once the gatekeepers of communal institutions, today new actors are at the forefront of new forms of violent raids. Among Samburu and Turkana communities, politicians and shrewd businessmen have emerged to exploit ethnic rivalry that exists between these groups and use it to mobilise raids. These political and business elites play influencing roles in raiding by paying and arming warriors to carry out raids. Competition for political influence is closely intertwined with competition over scarce water resources and grazing pastures among Turkana and Samburu. Given that pastoralists survive on decreasing pasture and water resources, our study shows that political elites arm their communities during the dry season to gain the upper hand in contests over access to limited resources. Livestock raids no longer occur in the traditional context of restocking, but rather as an expression and manifestation of local ethnic politics and political contests between ethnic kingpins. The study uses primary field data from a case study collected through in-depth interviews, oral history and group discussions with various actors.

Ecological and Social Wisdom in Camel Praise Poetry Sung by Afar Nomads of Ethiopia

Abstract Understanding environmental philosophies and wisdom of tribal communities provides insights into sustainable ways of living and conservation. Many tribal communities rely on oral traditions for storage and communication of ecological, cultural, and religious wisdom. An evaluation of the Gāli Sāre, or the camel praise poetry, practiced in the form of sung poetry by the Afar nomads of the Horn of Africa, revealed that as well as being praise of the camel, the Gāli Sāre poems are oral eco-poetry and reflect biophilia. Issues such as biodiversity, environmental crises, livelihoods, clan politics, and landscapes are addressed in the poems, while conveying themes of abundance, drought, changing landscape, and livestock raids. In these oral poems, the animate and inanimate environment, including rangeland plants, mountains, rivers, lakes, animals, the weather, and spirits, are used in metaphoric, symbolic, and realistic expressions. Embedded in these poems are the ecological and social philosophy and wi...

The evolutionary benefits of warfare

Anthropology![Figure][1] Livestock, such as cattle, cause strife among the Nyangatom people of East Africa PHOTO: RANDY OLSON/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE Many human societies engage in warfare, but given the mortal risks involved, many evolutionary anthropologists have wondered why. Is there an evolutionary benefit to warfare? Glowacki and Wrangham tackled this question by studying the Nyangatom, a nomadic society in East Africa. Nyangatom men carry out livestock raids to pay for the right to marry. Men who were active cattle raiders had more wives and children than men who were not. But they had to wait for this benefit. Young raiders give stolen livestock as gifts to paternal relatives. They only benefitted later in life by inheriting the larger herds they helped to build. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 10.1073/pnas.1412287112 (2014). [1]: pending:yes

The Multi-factoral Nature of Inter-Ethnic Conflicts in North- Rift Frontier Border Lands, Kenya: Implications on Pastoralists welfare and Livelihoods

The Multi-factoral Nature of Inter-Ethnic Conflicts in North- Rift Frontier Border Lands, Kenya: Implications on Pastoralists welfare and Livelihoods Joram N. Kareithi Abstract Pastoral societies in Kenya's North Rift frontier regions have engaged in livestock raiding and related conflict as a cultural tradition and as a form of ecological adaptation to an otherwise difficult environment. However, the form the conflict has taken in recent years in terms of the magnitude, the level of destruction and plunder and the norms governing it goes beyond the traditional cultural norms and motivation. Regional instability and the spread of illegal small arms has led to changes in the scale and organization of inter- ethnic conflicts, while a shift in the traditional political authority at the local level has limited the ability of the class of elders to control the aggressive tendencies of the young warriors. At the national level the politics of ethnicity and politicized discontent in the multi-party era has led to the re-invention and use of conflicts not just for resource competition but also as a strategy to settle economic and political scores. This paper focuses on the multiplicity of factors in the inter-ethnic conflicts in the North rift frontier region and the impact of the conflict on livelihoods. The paper is largely limited to the conflict in Turkana, West Pokot, Marakwet district’s in Kenya and their neighbouring societies in Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia. The paper specifically, discusses the ethnicisation of politics, poverty, governance and the warrior culture as key ingredients to the conflicts. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jaa.v3n1a3

Warfare and reproductive success in a tribal population.

Intergroup conflict is a persistent feature of many human societies yet little is known about why individuals participate when doing so imposes a mortality risk. To evaluate whether participation in warfare is associated with reproductive benefits, we present data on participation in small-scale livestock raids among the Nyangatom, a group of nomadic pastoralists in East Africa. Nyangatom marriages require the exchange of a significant amount of bridewealth in the form of livestock. Raids are usually intended to capture livestock, which raises the question of whether and how these livestock are converted into reproductive opportunities. Over the short term, raiders do not have a greater number of wives or children than nonraiders. However, elders who were identified as prolific raiders in their youth have more wives and children than other elders. Raiders were not more likely to come from families with fewer older maternal sisters or a greater number of older maternal brothers. Our results suggest that in this cultural context raiding provides opportunities for increased reproductive success over the lifetime.

‘Ungoverned Space’ and the Oil Find in Turkana, Kenya

In developing countries, mineral wealth has usually failed to benefit most people at both national and local levels. Conflicts between locals and investors and/or governments over perceived lack of local opportunities and negative impacts such as environmental degradation are common. In 2012 a substantial reserve of oil was struck in Turkana, north-west Kenya, bringing hopes of boosting the national and local economy, and leading to grand-scale plans for infrastructure development across the region. However, conflicts over land rights, job opportunities and tenders have already begun to emerge, leading to the brief withdrawal of Tullow Oil staff from the site in 2013. Turkana has a number of existing security challenges, such as rampant cross-border and inter-ethnic livestock raids, a high prevalence of illegal small arms and low state penetration of security with an over-reliance on armed civilian volunteer forces (the Kenya Police Reserve). This work argues that in this ‘ungoverned’ context the risk for protracted social conflict focused around the oil, and furthermore for regional instability is high, such as has been seen elsewhere in the continent’s recent history.

Close-up on renewable resources and armed conflict: The spatial logic of pastoralist violence in northern Kenya

Methods of spatially disaggregated conflict analysis are becoming increasingly popular and open avenues for systematic micro-level research. Especially within the field of environmental security research they bear the promise of a better assessment of environment–conflict linkages at the sub-national level. Yet, this branch of research lacks a thorough theoretical involvement with the spatial logic of armed contests over renewable resources and this hampers the use of highly disaggregated data. To address this shortcoming, the present contribution proposes an actor-centred approach, which allows determining the precise locations of violent events in armed contests over renewable resources. It is developed by analysing the spatial logic of pastoralist violence in northern Kenya, a frequently cited example of scarcity-related struggle over renewable resources. The analysis demonstrates that pastoralist violence in northern Kenya has frequently occurred close to well sites and in locations of higher rainfall, which offer favourable conditions for livestock raiding. These results lend support to narratives of pastoralist violence, which emphasise the strategic use of violence with regard to the ecological opportunities and constraints of African rangelands. They also highlight more generally that conflict locations reveal more about the strategic choices made by armed groups in a given conflict situation than about the ultimate causes of their struggle. This calls for a more conscious use of disaggregated data in environmental security research.

Rain and Raids Revisited: Disaggregating Ethnic Group Livestock Raiding in the Ethiopian-Kenyan Border Region

Focusing on livestock raiding, a major form of violence in arid and semiarid regions, we evaluate the relationship between rainfall and intensity of violence, disaggregating ethnic groups that have somewhat different subsistence patterns. We do so to try to resolve previously published results and conclusions that appear contradictory – some research finding livestock violence higher in wet times suggestive of more violence in times of plenty; others finding violence higher in dry times suggestive of greater scarcity. Using rainfall from NASA and violence data from ACLED for the years 1998–2009, we looked at the patterns of livestock-related violence for six different ethnic groups that have a home in the area in and around Marsabit district of Kenya. Different ethnic groups appear to have somewhat different patterns and we suggest how some of their cultural differences may explain these patterns. However, for most groups, intense violence is more common in drier times.

The First We Can Remember: Colorado Pioneer Women Tell Their Stories by Lee Schweninger (review)

Reviewed by: The First We Can Remember: Colorado Pioneer Women Tell Their Stories by Lee Schweninger Judy Nolte Temple The First We Can Remember: Colorado Pioneer Women Tell Their Stories. Edited and with an introduction by Lee Schweninger. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011. 408 pages, $35.00. This book presents sixty-seven women’s narratives elicited by Colorado Work Progress Administration (WPA) oral history interviewers in 1933–34. Lee Schweninger has organized the book by geographical region, which provides a sense of coherence to settlers’ experiences, be they among mining camps or semi-arid grasslands, early or late in Colorado’s Anglo settlement. Schweninger’s introduction and bibliography succinctly summarize over three decades of major scholars’ arguments for including women’s experiences in western history. In the context of a lively historiography that has evolved from a focus on famous/infamous women, through debates about pioneer (i.e., white) women’s westering, to a complex multicultural study of interrelationships, The First We Can Remember may seem a throwback. The WPA interviews that make up the book are, with few exceptions, the stories of white women in nineteenth-century Colorado. This limitation was due to WPA selection, not Schweninger, who addresses their bias head-on: “Thus an important and regrettable lacuna results from the paucity of narrators who do not trace their roots to northern Europe. The absence of such narratives is especially unfortunate in that Hispanic settlement is important to what became Colorado” (xxxviii). While records of the interviewers’ questions no longer exist, the similarity in narrators’ topics given to the same interviewer suggest the listener guided the story rather than the speaker. For example, narrators from the Durango region often included stories of whites’ misdeeds that provoked Indians, while most of the narrators from other regions were not sympathetic at all toward Indians, especially the Utes. In his introductory essay, Schwenginer provides this telling example of the resulting imperialist nostalgia: “Today, as many as fifteen streams are called Ute Creek; there are three Ute Mountains, and in Boulder County there is a Ute Peak. There are five Ute Passes, four Ute Canyons, four Ute Lakes, two Ute Gulches, and a Ute Ridge. Despite the ubiquity of such place-names, the Utes themselves were confined to reservations during the nineteenth century” (xxvii). [End Page 412] Given the ethnic/racial limitations and the unattainable information about interviewers’ biases, what do the narrations tell us? They almost matter-of-factly describe the random accidents that killed or maimed loved ones: a house falling, an unseasonable storm, the ill-chosen crossing of a river. They also give details of women’s achievements in supporting their families, whether it be from selling eighty dozen eggs or fishing for trout to sell to restaurants. The women’s voices, their choice of words, are sometimes quite revelatory. Kate Smith Myers criticized the fearfulness of fellow settlers who needlessly fled from Indians to a stockade. “White settlers who did not bother the Indians or the Mexicans were not molested” (199). Cynthia Fisher remembered, “One time Mr. Fisher took a pail of potatoes to Walsenburg, and there sold the potatoes for two calico dresses for me. To have two dresses at one time, and these both of calico, placed me on a high level among the people of the frontier” (92). It is also revelatory, however, that this reviewer and the book’s editor selected many of the same quotations to characterize women’s heroism, character, and intercultural understanding. The pithy, memorable phrase was a welcome rare peak among many of the rather flat narratives. Another challenge Schweninger faced was the unevenness of the WPA narratives. The short length of many of the stories—some only three pages long—sometimes made the reading experience seem like speed-dating, a too-brief encounter. Despite the drawbacks these WPA narratives present, this collection of women’s first-person accounts highlights two aspects of the American West. First, there is the visceral hostility voiced by the settlers toward generalized Indians, despite the occasional dissenter who recalled a pleasant interaction. Second, there is the background, the undergirding of male violence—livestock raids and massacres by whites and Indians—that left women...

Guns, land, and votes: Cattle rustling and the politics of boundary (re)making in Northern Kenya

Livestock raiding among northern Kenya’s pastoralists has changed profoundly in the last decades. Fought with modern weaponry and often extreme violence, raiding is increasingly enmeshed in politicized claims over administrative boundaries, struggles for exclusive access to land, and attempts to establish or safeguard an ethnically homogeneous electoral base. These conflicts are part of Kenya’s troubled politics of decentralization and as such they must be viewed in the context of wider political developments in the country. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in East Pokot and surrounding areas in Kenya’s Central Rift Valley Province, this article demonstrates how livestock raiding emerges as a specific form of violent regulation, a well-adapted, dangerous, and powerful political weapon. THE DEADLY ATTACK ON 42 KENYAN POLICE OFFICERS in Suguta Valley, Samburu District in mid-November 2012 sadly reminds us of the ongoing violence in East Africa’s pastoralist areas. What is probably the most deadly attack on police forces in Kenya’s history is but ‘a drop in the ocean’ compared to the daily suffering of the population in these areas, as a commentator in the Nairobi-based Daily Nation points out. Indisputably, the persistent violence in the pastoral areas in north-eastern Africa has detrimental social and economic effects. *Clemens Greiner (clemens.greiner@uni-koeln.de) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology, University of Cologne, Germany. This article has benefited tremendously from the detailed and informed comments of Michael Bollig. I am also indebted to Terry McCabe, Rita Abrahamsen, Nic Cheeseman, and two anonymous reviewers, whose comments were most helpful. 1. BBC News Africa, ‘Kenyan army sent to Samburu to aid ambushed police’ 14 November 2012, (21 November 2012). 2. Rooben Turgo, ‘Police deaths a drop in the ocean compared to villagers killed daily’, Daily Nation [Nairobi], 13 November 2012, (21 November 2012). 3. Dylan Hendrickson, Jeremy Armon, and Robin Mearns, ‘The changing nature of conflict and famine vulnerability: the case of livestock raiding in Turkana District, Kenya’, African Affairs, 112/447, 216–237 doi: 10.1093/afraf/adt003 © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society. All rights reserved Advance Access Publication 3 February 2013

Regional Dimensions of Somali Piracy and Militant Islamism: Anthropological and Econometric Evidence

This paper argues for a sub-regional approach to Somali piracy and militant Islamism, departing from prevailing state-centric mindsets and practices. The first section presents an anthropology that explains why piracy and Islamism emerged where they did when they did. It elaborates the geographically distinct cultures of law and livelihood that enabled each phenomenon to emerge only in particular sub-regions. Drawing on diverse factors including xeer (clan-based law), sharia (Islamic law), and practices of nomadic pastoralism (e.g., livestock raiding), the paper proposes a regional lens for the analysis of Somali crime and governance. The next section takes up this regional lens and specifies a statistical model for the incidence of piracy by sub-state region from 1993 to 2011, identifying the effect of Islamist rule on piracy. In all, the paper contends (a) that Somali political and criminal phenomena be disaggregated by region; and (b) that pirates and Islamists, contrary to mainstream discourse, are antagonists.

Multiple tournaments and sustained defection: Why do negotiations fail to secure resource access between pastoral and agropastoral groups in Ethiopia?

This article uses analytic narratives to explore the reasons why negotiations over rights to grazing resources repeatedly fail between neighboring pastoral and agropastoral communities. While many writers link resource scarcity, the resulting competition and state institutional failure as common drivers for conflict among multiple resource users in the semi-arid pastoral areas, the causes for violent conflict and the failure of local level negotiations between groups need to be explained in the framework of geopolitical context and the rent earned from perpetrating violence. This study reveals how economic incentives from livestock raids and the unrestricted access to conflict technology reinforce each other and jointly undermine the success of negotiations in producing favorable outcomes. The undesirable outcomes from negotiation failure can be expressed in terms of rent dissipation, rangeland resource degradation, increased instability and the potential for increased vulnerability and deterioration of agropastoral welfare.

Livestock Raiding and Rainfall Variability in Northwestern Kenya

In 2009, Witsenburg and Adano summarized their research on rainfall variability and livestock raiding in Marsabit District, Kenya. They found that livestock-related violence was higher in wetter months and wetter years, contrary to the common assumption that scarcity of water and pasture is the primary driver of livestock violence. Our research, focusing on the neighboring Turkana District of northwestern Kenya, attempted to replicate the Witsenburg and Adano findings for the years 1998–2009. We find significant relationships between rainfall variability and intensity of livestock violence, but in the opposite direction – drier months and drought years in Turkana District have higher intensities of violence.

Behavioural adjustments of a large carnivore to access secondary prey in a human‐dominated landscape

Summary1. Conflict between people and large carnivores is an urgent conservation issue world‐wide. Understanding the underlying ecological drivers of livestock depredation by large carnivores is greatly needed.2. We studied the spatial, foraging and behavioural ecology of African lions Panthera leo in the Botswana Makgadikgadi ecosystem. This ecosystem comprises a protected area, characterized by high seasonal fluctuation in wild prey abundance, and adjacent lands, which are used for livestock grazing and characterized by stable livestock abundance, but also a risk of anthropogenic mortality.3. Makgadikgadi lions preferentially preyed upon migratory wild herbivores when they were present; however, data from GPS (Global Positioning System) radiocollared lions revealed that the majority of the study lions did not follow the migratory herds but remained resident at one or other border of the park and switched to livestock (abundant and readily available), and to a lesser extent resident wild herbivores (relatively scarce), in periods of migratory wild herbivore scarcity.4. Resident lions’ use of space differed between periods of wild prey abundance and scarcity. These changes were likely to increase the frequency of encounter with their primary prey in periods of primary prey abundance and with livestock in periods of primary prey scarcity.5. The risk of conflict with humans was a major driver of lion ecology in the human‐dominated landscape surrounding the protected area. Resident lions generally avoided the close vicinity of cattle‐posts. When they used such areas, they avoided temporal overlap with periods that humans were most active and travelled at high speed reducing the time spent in these areas.6. Synthesis and applications. This study suggests that lions balance the benefits of accessing livestock with the costs associated with livestock raiding. Hence, reduction in livestock availability through effective livestock husbandry in periods of wild prey scarcity should lead to reduced conflict.

Raiding pastoral livelihoods: motives and effects of violent conflict in north-western Kenya

Conflicts related to livestock raiding are not new phenomena in many pastoral societies in the Horn of Africa. Traditionally, various pastoral communities use raiding as a cultural practice for restocking of herds, especially after periods of drought or outbreaks of diseases. However, in recent years, livestock raiding has become more frequent, violent and destructive. This paper elucidates, first, the motives behind the current livestock raiding, and second, it analyses how conflict affects livelihoods of pastoral communities. Between 2008 and 2011, focus group discussions and interviews were carried out with 376 members of the Turkana and Pokot communities and key informants. The study findings suggest that hunger and drought impacting on availability and access of resources are critical raiding motives among the Turkana, while increasing wealth and payment of dowry are the most important motives for the Pokot community. Violent conflict poses a significant threat to pastoral livelihoods which are already under pressure from recurrent drought, diseases and political marginalisation. The direct impact of violent raiding is felt in terms of loss of human life and property, reduction in livestock numbers, limited access to water and pasture resources and forced migration. Indirectly, violent conflicts create a strong and omnipresent perception of insecurity which results in ineffective resource utilisation, reduced mobility, food insecurity and closure of markets and schools. These factors combined undermine adaptation strategies and pastoralism altogether. Hence, a framework of conflict mitigation is needed which addresses the specific raiding motives of each group.