CONCEPTUALISING ECONOMIC CHANGE IN PASTORAL SOCIETIES UNDER PRESSURE With four Kenyan case studies: the Pokot, the Maasai, the Somali and the situation in Marsabit Ton Dietz, Abdirizak Arale Nunow, Adano Wario Roba and Fred Zaal* Paper for the Drylands Conference in Narok, organised by Moi University School of Environmental Studies and AGIDS University of Amsterdam, August 18-20, 2003 Abstract: To understand economic changes in pastoral societies, in response to population growth, resource degradation, and changing economic and political contexts, it is important to apply a number of key concepts: TLU/capita, caloric terms of trade, and overall and commercial offtake rates being the most important ones. This is illustrated with the outcome of four case studies in Kenya, done during the 1990s in collaboration between the Amsterdam Research Institute for Global Issues and Development Studies (AGIDS) of the University of Amsterdam and MUSES. Key words: pastoralism, crisis, TLU/capita, CToT, offtake rates, commercialisation • Acknowledgement: This is a slightly changed article from a chapter in ‘African Pastoralism, Conflict, Institutions, and Government’, edited by M.A.Mohamed Salih, Ton Dietz and Abdel Ghaffar Mohamed Ahmed, and published by Pluto Press (London etc.) for OSSREA in 2001. It was based on a contribution to a conference organised by OSSREA in Addis Ababa, in October 1999. The title of the contribution there was ‘Pastoral Commercialisation: a Risky Business? Three Kenyan Case Studies: the Pokot, the Maasai and the Somali. The authors have all been connected to AGIDS and MUSES. Ton Dietz is professor of political environmental geography at the University of Amsterdam and director of CERES, the Netherlands Research School for Resource Studies for Development; Abdirizak Arale Nunow is a member of staff of Moi University’s School of Environmental Studies; he did his PhD at the University of Amsterdam (2000), in collaboration with the African Studies Centre, Leyden; Adano Wario Roba is a PhD student of AGIDS, in collaboration with York University; Fred Zaal is a lecturer at the Dept. of Geography and Planning at the University of Amsterdam, and researcher with AGIDS. He did his PhD in 1998, a.o.based on work in Kajiado, among the Kenyan Maasai. The research among the Pokot was partly funded by the Dutch Ministry of Development Cooperation (as a research for the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands Programme in West Pokot) and partly by the University of Amsterdam (recent data collection by Rachel Andiema is gratefully acknowledged); the research among the Maasai and the Somali was partly funded by the Netherlands Israel Development Research Programme and in collaboration with the ASAL Programme in Kajiado and with the School of Environmental Studies, Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya. The research project in Marsabit was funded by WOTRO. The section on concepts and some elements of the Pokot and Maasai cases were presented before at a conference in Uppsala, in late 1995 (see Zaal & Dietz 1999, pp. 166-172). The literature review is a summary from Zaal 1998. 1 CONCEPTS 1.1 Commoditisation, commercialisation, offtake rates and sustainable land use With fluctuating emphasis, throughout the 20 th Century, scholarly and policy attention for pastoralism in Africa was often guided by feelings of horror about perceived ‘overgrazing’, self-destruction of the pastoral habitat, and unsustainable land use in pastoral areas. Concepts like ‘desertification, and the ‘tragedy of the commons’ were fed by statistics about ever brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Leiden University Scholary Publications