Remembering Turkana: material histories and contemporary livelihoods in north-western Kenya

Uncertainty, pastoral knowledge and early warning: a review of drought management in the drylands, with insights from northern Kenya

“…In the ensuing decades, the TRP, and indeed the wider world of humanitarian assistance in which it was situated, came to be critiqued at length (i.e., Hogg, 1982;Adams, 1986;Adams and Anderson, 1988;Derbyshire, 2020). For the most part, such criticisms have emphasised the negative characterisation of drylands pastoralism that shaped interventions throughout much of the 20th century and the general conceptual association of "development" with a shift away from pastoralist practices.…”

“…Within the Wodaabe community in West Africa, for example, specialised local knowledge allows herders to analyse livestock health through the quality of milk, or to align migration cycles with the spatially variable vegetative cycle of grass (see Krätli and Schareika, 2010). To communities in Turkana in northern Kenya, on the other hand, pastoralist livelihoods are nowadays less oriented towards annual grasses and cyclical migration (indeed grass grazing species such as cattle are kept far less often due to broad ecological changes) and depend more on knowledge of key drought-time trees and bushes, whose fruit may be processed to feed vulnerable stock, and indeed people, during harsh conditions (Derbyshire, 2020). Of course, such specific instances are part of much larger and more complex knowledge repertoires, enfolded within social orientations toward variability and uncertainty that are no doubt similar in multiple ways, but the particular forms of assistance or information each one might require from an early warning system are nevertheless distinct.…”

“…as a result of climate change (Braimoh et al, 2018;IPCC, 2019). 1 These disasters compound each other [as described by Levine et al (2023)], but are also experienced by means of a range of other longstanding fundamental challenges resulting from historical marginalisation, negative perceptions or narratives and restrictive policies (Markakis, 2004;Oxfam, 2008;Derbyshire, 2020). Across multiple pastoral regions, such challenges have been oriented around livestock marketing, land rights, access to basic state services, infrastructure, education and health (see, for example, Pavanello, 2009;Roba, 2018).…”

Tangled crises in Turkana: investigating the spread of Prosopis in Kenya’s northern drylands

“…The fieldwork discussed in this article took place over the course of roughly eight years, amidst a much broader research project exploring socio-economic and political change in southern Turkana (see Derbyshire 2020;Derbyshire et al 2021). As part of this project, we have investigated historical livelihood dynamics and agrarian change on a continual basis with cultivating communities in key locations along both the Kerio and the Turkwel River (although in this article we focus primarily on the settlement of Nakurio; see Figure 1).…”