Divining the Future: Making Sense of Ecological Uncertainty in Turkana, Northern Kenya

Samuel F. Derbyshire, Joseph Ekidor Nami, Gregory Akall and Lucas Lowasa
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Samuel F. Derbyshire: School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 2JD, UK
Joseph Ekidor Nami: Independent Researchers, Nairobi P.O. Box 30710, Kenya
Gregory Akall: Drylands Learning and Capacity Building Initiative (DLCI), Nairobi 00100, Kenya
Lucas Lowasa: Independent Researchers, Nairobi P.O. Box 30710, Kenya

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 9, 1-23

Abstract: This article draws on long-term ethnographic fieldwork to examine some recent livelihood transformations that have taken place in the Turkana region of northern Kenya. In doing so, it discusses some of the ways in which uncertainty and variability have been managed in Turkana to date and considers what this means in relation to a future that promises continued radical economic and ecological change. Discussing a selection of examples, we argue that understandings of contemporary transformative processes are enhanced through attention to the ways in which various forms of knowledge have been constituted and implemented over the long term. We suggest that ongoing transformations within livelihood practices, inter-livelihood relationships and corresponding patterns of mobility might best be understood as manifestations of a long-standing capacity for successfully managing the very uncertainty that characterises daily life.

Keywords: Turkana; pastoralism; uncertainty; unpredictability; epistemology; livelihoods; resilience; social change; ecological change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
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