In Search of Order: Institutional Change, Violent Regulation and Environmental Knowledge under Conditions of Rapid Social Ecological Change
Final Report Abstract
Pastoral nomadic societies in Eastern Africa are rapidly changing: sedentarization, the demise of communal pasture management, diversification entailing increasing investment into sedentary agriculture, labor migration and growing internal stratification are the more obvious consequences of such changes. Besides high rates of demographic growth, widespread violence, state failure and the increasing commoditization of pastoral production are named as major causes. The historical contextualization of main drivers highlights that processes perceived as rapid nowadays have deep historical roots. These often reach back to late colonial projects of resource management. This subproject analyzes how pastoralists redefine their relations to the environment through altered modes of engagement with the landscape entailing changes in land-use, control over land and water and changing intellectual approaches to ‘the environment’. Frequently these processes are accompanied by violent negotiations over the (re)distribution of resources and access to land. The lead hypothesis is that these changes necessitate a profound reorganization of the entire regime of regulation: a formerly uniform regime of regulation is breaking up and it is not clear whether different regimes of regulation will co-exist in the future, whether one new regime of regulation (e.g., agropastoralism) will arise or if contestations over different approaches to the environment will shape the future. The project assessed a process of reorganization, which started ten to twenty years ago and is still evolving. We observed how new institutions arise and others are dismissed, expanding the focus back until the 1950s. Communities and actors are actively searching for new forms of resilience in an increasingly complex setting.The work has targeted particularly the following aspects of change): a) the transition to sedentary agriculture in the Churo Highlands and beyond, the intensification of honey production and the institutional changes associated therewith; b) newly emerging resource conflicts and the re-definition of borderlands, including the politicization of cattle raiding and other forms of violent regulation; c) local perception of and adaptation to environmental changes, particularly changes in landscape, bush encroachment and fodder quality; d) the imprint of social, cultural and social changes on the spatial figuration: from pastoral paths to sedentary places.
Publications
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(2011) Notes on Land-based Conflicts in Kenya’s Arid Areas. Africa Spectrum, 46(3), 77-81
Greiner, C., Bollig, M., McCabe, J. T.
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(2012) Unexpected Consequences: Wildlife Conservation and Territorial Conflict in Northern Kenya. Human Ecology, 40(3), 415-425
Greiner, C.
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(2013) From Cattle to Corn: Attributes of Emerging Farming Systems of Former Pastoral Nomads in East Pokot, Kenya. Society & Natural Resources, 26(12), 1478-1490
Greiner, C., Alvarez, M., Becker, M.
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(2013) Guns, Land and Votes: Cattle Rustling and the Politics of Boundary- (Re)Making in Northern Kenya. African Affairs, 112(447), 216-237
Greiner, C.
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(2013) Introduction: Specialisation and Diversification among African Pastoral Societies. In M. Bollig, M. Schnegg, & H.-P. Wotzka (Eds.), Pastoralism in Africa. Past, Present and Future (pp. 1-28). New York: Berghan
Bollig, M., Schnegg, M.
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(2013) Pastoralism in Africa. Past, Present, and Futures. Oxford; New York: Berghan Books
Bollig, M., Schnegg, M., Wotzka, H.-P.
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(2013) The Political Ecology of Specialisation and Diversification: Long-term Dynamics of Pastoralism in East Pokot District, Kenya. In M. Bollig, M. Schnegg, & H.-P. Wotzka (Eds.), Pastoralism in Africa. Past, Present, and Futures (pp. 289-315). Oxford; New York: Berghan Books
Bollig, M., Österle, M.
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(2014) Inscribing Identity and Agency on the Landscape: Of Pathways, Places, and the Transition of the Public Sphere in East Pokot, Kenya. African Studies Review, 57(03), 55-78
Bollig, M., Greiner, C., Österle, M.
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(2014) Resilience: Analytical Tool, Bridging Concept or Development Goal? Anthropological Perspectives on the Use of a Border Object. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 139(2), 253-279
Bollig, M.
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(2016) Adaptive cycles in the savannah: pastoral specialization and diversification in northern Kenya. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 10(1), 21-44
Bollig, M.
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(2016) Agricultural change at the margins: adaptation and intensification in a Kenyan dryland. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 10(1), 130-149
Greiner, C., Mwaka, I.
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(2016) Changes in landscape vegetation, forage plant composition and herding structure in the pastoralist livelihoods of East Pokot, Kenya. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 10(1), 88-110
Vehrs, H.-P.
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(2016) Conflicts, security and marginalisation: institutional change of the pastoral commons in a'glocal'world. Revue scientifique et technique (International Office of Epizootics), 35(2), 405
Haller, T., Van Dijk, H., Bollig, M., Greiner, C., Schareika, N., & Gabbert, C.
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(2016) Land-use change, territorial restructuring and the economies of anticipation in a Kenyan dryland. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 10(3), 530-547
Greiner, C.
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(2016) Land-use changes and the invasion dynamics of shrubs in Baringo. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 10(1), 111-129
Becker, M., Alvarez, M., Heller, G., Leparmarai, P., Maina, D., Malombe, I., . . . Vehrs, H.
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(2016) Resilience and collapse: histories, ecologies, conflicts and identities in the Baringo-Bogoria basin, Kenya. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 10(1), 1-20
Anderson, D. M., & Bollig, M.
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(2016) The “new pastoral commons” of Eastern and Southern Africa. International Journal of the Commons, 10(2)
Bollig, M., Lesorogol, C. K.
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(2017) Fauna, Fire, and Farming: Landscape Formation over the Past 200 years in Pastoral East Pokot, Kenya. Human Ecology
Vehrs, H.-P., Heller, G.
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(2017) Pastoralism and land tenure change in Kenya: The failure of customary institutions. Development and Change, 48(1), 78-97
Greiner, C.
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(2017) Walking with Pastoralists. Retrospective Reflections on the Everyday and Exceptional Challenges of the Field. In: Storer, L. and A. Shoemaker (Ed.): The Challenges Undisclosed. Reflections on Invisible Experiences of Doctoral Fieldwork. Field Diary (2)
Vehrs, H.-P.
