Brokerage in the borderlands: the political economy of livestock intermediaries in northern Kenya

Ong'ao P. Ng'asike, Tobias Hagmann and Oliver V. Wasonga

Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2021, vol. 15, issue 1, 168-188

Abstract: This article argues that brokers are key actors in the cross-border livestock trade between Kenya and Somalia, where formal regulations are weak or absent. We elucidate the economic and social rationales for livestock brokerage as well as a series of brokering practices taking place at the intersection of profit making, kinship and trust. Besides producing social capital based on trust, brokers facilitate the formalization of livestock trading by linking livestock production sites in southern Somalia to consumer markets in Kenya. Brokers thereby take on various roles and functions that contribute to integrating markets across fragmented territories. Based on extended fieldwork conducted in and around Garissa livestock market as well as in Nairobi, the paper outlines the political economy of livestock intermediaries in the important Somali-Kenyan cross-border livestock trade.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17531055.2020.1845041 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rjeaxx:v:15:y:2021:i:1:p:168-188

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rjea20

DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2020.1845041

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Eastern African Studies is currently edited by Jim Robert Brennan

More articles in Journal of Eastern African Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().