Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-l4dxg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-10T23:39:53.983Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Boundary-Making and Pastoral Conflict along the Kenyan–Ethiopian Borderlands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2016

John Galaty
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Boundaries are technologies of power and knowledge that shape spatial and social realities and our understandings of them. This article examines the effects of boundary-making between Kenya and Ethiopia, and investigates the effects of borders on states of peace and conflict among Turkana, Samburu, Borana, Gabra, and Dassanetch of northern Kenya. If borders divide people, people benefit nonetheless from the environmental, social, and political entropy that borders generate by using the energy of spatial differences to advance their own individual and collective life projects.

Résumé:

Les délimitations sont des technologies de pouvoir et de connaissances qui façonnent les réalités spatiales et sociales et la compréhension que nous en avons. Cet article examine les effets de la création de délimitations entre le Kenya et l’Ethiopie, et étudie les effets des frontières sur les états de paix et de conflit entre les Turkana, les Samburu, les Borana, les Gabra et les Dassanetch du nord du Kenya. Si les frontières divisent les gens, les gens bénéficient néanmoins de l’entropie environnementale, sociale, et politique que les frontières génèrent en utilisant l’énergie des différences spatiales pour faire avancer leurs propres projets de vie individuels et collectifs.

Keywords

BoundariespastoralismconflictwarfareEast Africanorthern Kenyarangelands
Type
ARTICLES
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , April 2016 , pp. 97 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adano, Wario R., and Witsenburg, Karen. 2005. “Once Nomads Settle: Assessing the Process, Motives, and Welfare Changes of Settlements on Mount Marsabit.” In As Pastoralists Settle: Social, Health, and Economic Consequences of Pastoral Sedentarization in Marsabit District, Kenya, edited by Fratkin, Elliot and Roth, Eric, 105–36. New York: Kluwer Academic.Google Scholar
Adugna, Fekadu. 2010. “Making Use of Kin beyond the International Border: Inter-ethnic Relations along the Ethio–Kenya Border.” In Borders and Borderlands as Resources in the Horn of Africa, edited by Feyissa, Dereje and Hoehne, Markus, 45–60. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” In Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, 27–47. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Barber, James. 1968. Imperial Frontier. Nairobi: East African Publishing House.Google Scholar
Barth, Frederik. 2000. “Boundaries and Connections.” In Signifying Identities: Anthropological Perspectives on Boundaries and Contested Values, edited by Cohen, Abner, 17–36. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bayart, Jean-François, Ellis, James, and Hibou, Béatrice. 1999. The Criminalization of the State in Africa. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Boye, Saafo Roba, and Kaarhus, Randi. 2011. “Competing Claims and Contested Boundaries: Legitimating Land Rights in Isiolo District, Northern Kenya.” Africa Spectrum 46 (2): 99–124.Google Scholar
Butler, Christopher, and Gates, Scott. 2012. “African Range Wars: Climate, Conflict, and Property Rights.” Journal of Peace Research 49 (1): 23–34.Google Scholar
Carrier, Neil, and Kochore, Hassan H.. 2014. “Navigating Ethnicity and Electoral Politics in Northern Kenya: The Case of the 2013 Election.” Journal of Eastern African Studies 8 (1): 135–52.Google Scholar
Cotula, Lorenzo. 2014. The Great African Land Grab? Agricultural Investments and the Global Food System. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Cultural Survival. 2009. “Background Information on Human Rights Violations of the Samburu People of Kenya.”Cultural Survival News & Events, November 19. Geneva: United Nations Human Rights Council.Google Scholar
Daily Nation. 1997. [Unknown Title.] August 14.Google Scholar
Daily Nation. 2014a. “Raiders Kill Herder, Steal Animals.” May 17. www.nation.co.ke.Google Scholar
Daily Nation. 2014b. “KDF Deployed to Quell Wajir–Mandera Clashes.” May 29. www.nation.co.ke.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Felix. 1986. Nomadology: The War Machine. New York: Semiotext(e).Google Scholar
Demsetz, Harold. 1967. “Toward a Theory of Property Rights.” The American Economic Review 57 (2): 347–59.Google Scholar
Dereje, Feyissa, and Hoehne, Markus, eds. 2010. Borders and Borderlands as Resources in the Horn of Africa. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Dereje, Feyissa. 2011. Playing Different Games: The Paradox of Anywaa and Nuer Identification Strategies in the Gambella Region, Ethiopia. New York: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Eaton, David. 2008. “The Business of Peace: Raiding and Peace Work along the Kenya–Uganda Border (Part I).” African Affairs 107 (426): 89–110.Google Scholar
Escobar, Arturo. 2001. “Culture Sits in Places: Reflections on Globalism and Subaltern Strategies of Localization.” Political Geography 20: 139–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fratkin, Elliot. 1991. Surviving Drought and Development: Ariaal Pastoralists of Northern Kenya. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Fratkin, Elliot. 2012. Laibon: An Anthropologist’s Journey with Samburu Diviners in Kenya. Lanham, Md.: AltaMira Press.Google Scholar
Fratkin, Elliot, and Roth, Eric, eds. 2005. As Pastoralists Settle: Social, Health, and Economic Consequences of Pastoral Sedentarization in Marsabit District, Kenya. New York: Kluwer Academic.Google Scholar
Friedman, Jonathan. 1997. “Simplifying Complexity: Assimilating the Global in a Small Paradise.” In Siting Culture: The Sitting Anthropological Object, edited by Olwig, Karen and Hastrup, Kirsten, 268–91. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fukui, Katsuyoshi, and Markakis, John, eds. 1994. Ethnicity and Conflict in the Horn of Africa. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Gabbert, Echi Christina, and Thubauville, Sophia, eds. 2010. To Live with Others: Essays on Cultural Neighborhood in Southern Ethiopia. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.Google Scholar
Gabbert, Echi Christina. 2012. Deciding Peace: Knowledge about War and Peace among the Arbore of Southern Ethiopia. D. phil. thesis, Sozialwissenschaften und historische Kulturwissenschaften der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg.Google Scholar
Galaty, John G. 1999. “Les frontières pastorales en Afrique de l’Est.” In Horizons nomades en afrique sahélienne: Sociétés, développement et démocratie, edited by Bourgeot, André, 241–61. Paris: Éditions Karthala.Google Scholar
Galaty, John G. 2002. “Pastoral Conflicts across Northern Kenya.” L’Afrique Orientale (2002): 236–56.Google Scholar
Galaty, John G. 2005a. “States of Violence: Ethnicity, Politics and Pastoral Conflict in East Africa.” Geography Research Forum 25: 105–27.Google Scholar
Galaty, John G. 2005b. “Time, Terror, and Pastoral Inertia: Sedentarization and Conflict in Northern Kenya.” In As Pastoralists Settle: Social, Health, and Economic Consequences of Pastoral Sedentarization in Marsabit District, Kenya, edited by Fratkin, Elliot and Roth, Eric, 53–68. New York: Kluwer Academic.Google Scholar
Galaty, John G. 2013. “The Indigenization of Pastoral Modernity: Territoriality, Mobility, and Poverty in Dryland Africa.” In African Pastoralism: Past, Present, Future—The Emergence, History and Contemporary Political Ecology of African Pastoralism, edited by Bollig, Michael and Wotzka, Hans-Peter, 473–510. Oxford: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Gray, Sandra. 2009. “The Experience of Violence and Pastoralist Identity in Southern Karamoja.” In Changing Identifications and Alliances in North-East Africa, Vol. 2: Sudan, Uganda and the Ethiopia–Sudan Borderlands, edited by Schlee, Günther and Watson, E., 73–100. New York: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Gupta, Akhil, and Ferguson, James. 1997. “Beyond Culture: Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference.” In Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology, edited by Gupta, Akhil and Ferguson, James, 33–51. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Hoehne, Markus, and Luling, Virginia, eds. 2010. Milk and Peace, Drought and War: Somali Culture, Society and Politics. London: C. Hurst & Co.Google Scholar
Homer-Dixon, Thomas. 1999. Environment, Scarcity and Violence. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Homewood, Katherine, Kristjanson, Patti, and Trench, Pippa Chenevix, eds. 2009. Staying Maasai? Livelihoods, Conservation and Development in East African Rangelands. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Jánszky, Babett, and Jungstand, Grit. 2013. “Pastoralism, Conflict and the State in Contemporary Eastern Chad: The Case of Zaghawa–Tama Relationships.” In Pastoralism in Africa: Past, Present and Future, edited by Bollig, Michael, Schnegg, Michael, and Wotzka, Hans-Peter, 365–88. New York: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Kenya Vision 2030. 2014. “Lamu Port and New Transport Corridor Development to Southern Sudan and Ethiopia (LAPSSET).” www.vision2030.go.ke.Google Scholar
Koptoff, Igor, ed. 1987. The African Frontier: The Reproduction of Traditional African Societies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno. 2013. An Inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Modern. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Malkki, Lisa. 1997. “National Geographic: The Rooting of Peoples and the Territorialization of National Identity among Scholars and Refugees.” In Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology, edited by Gupta, Akhil and Ferguson, James, 52–74. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Mamdani, Mahmood. 1996. Citizenship and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Mbembe, Achilles. 1999. “At the Edge of the World: Boundaries, Territoriality, and Sovereignty in Africa.” CODESRIA Bulletin 3–4: 4–16.Google Scholar
Merry, Sally Engle, and Coutin, Susan Bibler. 2014. “Technologies of Truth in the Anthropology of Conflict.” American Ethnologist 41 (1): 1–16.Google Scholar
Mwangi, Oscar G. 2006. “Conflict in the ‘Badlands’: The Turbi Massacre in Marsabit District.” Review of African Political Economy 33 (107): 81–91.Google Scholar
Nugent, Paul. 2002. Smugglers, Secessionists and Loyal Citizens on the Ghana–Toto Frontier: The Life of the Borderlands since 1914. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Olivier de Sardan, Jean-Pierre. 2005. Anthropology and Development: Understanding Contemporary Social Change. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Platteau, Jean-Philippe. 1996. “The Evolutionary Theory of Land Rights as Applied to Sub-Saharan Africa: A Critical Assessment.” Development and Change 27: 29–86.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Peter. 1989. Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Salvadori, Cynthia. 2000. The Forgotten People Revisited: Human Rights Abuses in Marsabit and Moyale Districts. Nairobi: Kenya Human Rights Commission.Google Scholar
Schlee, Günther. 1989. Identities on the Move: Clanship and Pastoralism in Northern Kenya. Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Schlee, Günther. 1991. “Traditional Pastoralists: Land Use Strategies.” In Range Management Handbook of Kenya, Vol. 2, edited by Schwartz, H. J., Shaabani, S., and Walthr, D., 130–64. Nairobi: Ministry of Livestock Development.Google Scholar
Schlee, Günther. 2008. How Enemies Are Made: Towards a Theory of Ethnic and Religious Conflict. Oxford: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Schlee, Günther, and Shongolo, Abdullahi A.. 2012. Pastoralism and Politics in Northern Kenya and Southern Ethiopia. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Scott, James C. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sobania, Neal. 1979. Background History of the Mt. Kulal Region of Kenya. IPAL Technical Report Number A-2. Nairobi: United Nations Environment Program, MAB Integrated Project in Arid Lands.Google Scholar
Spear, Tom, and Waller, Richard, eds. 1993. Being Maasai: Ethnicity and Identity in East Africa. London: James Curry.Google Scholar
Spencer, Paul. 1973. Nomads in Alliance: Symbiosis and Growth among the Rendille and Samburu of Kenya. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Strecker, Ivo, and Lydall, Jean, eds. 2004. The Perils of Face: Essays on Cultural Contact, Respect and Self-Esteem in Southern Ethiopia. Berlin: Lit Verlag.Google Scholar
Theisen, Ole Magnus. 2012. “Climate Clashes? Weather Variability, Land Pressure, and Organized Violence in Kenya, 1989–2004.” Journal of Peace Research 49 (1): 81–96.Google Scholar
Wilson, Thomas, and Donnan, Hastings. 1998. “Introduction.” In Border Identities: Nation and State at International Frontiers, edited by Wilson, T. and Donnan, H., 1–30. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Witsenburg, Karen. 2012. “Ethnic Tensions in Harsh Environments: The Gabra Pastoralists and Their Neighbors in Northern Kenya.” In Spaces of Insecurity: Human Agency in Violent Conflicts in Kenya, edited by Witsenburg, Karen and Zaal, Fred, 120–40. African Studies Collection, Vol. 45. Leiden: African Studies Centre.Google Scholar
Witsenburg, Karen, and Roba, Adano. 2007. “The Use and Management of Water Sources in Kenya’s Drylands: Is There a Link between Scarcity and Violent Conflicts?” In Conflicts over Land and Water in Africa, edited by Derman, Bill, Odgaard, Rie, and Sjaastad, Espen, 215–38. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Witsenburg, Karen, and Roba, Adano. 2009. “Of Rain and Raids: Violent Livestock Raiding in Northern Kenya.” Civil Wars 11 (4): 514–38.Google Scholar
Witsenburg, Karen, and Zaal, Fred, eds. 2012. Spaces of Insecurity: Human Agency in Violent Conflicts in Kenya. African Studies Collection, Vol. 45. Leiden: African Studies Centre.Google Scholar
Zenawi, Meles. 2011. Speech by Meles Zenawi during the 13th Annual Pastoralists’ Day Celebrations, Jinka, South Omo, 25/1/2011. http://www.mursi.org.Google Scholar