Contemporary Perspectives on East African Pastoralism

The Pastoral Continuum: The Marginalization of Tradition in East Africa. Paul Spencer. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000. Pp. 302.

The Poor are Not Us: Poverty & Pastoralism. David M. Anderson & Vigdis Broch-Due (eds.). Oxford: James Currey, 1999. Pp. 276.

The recent severe drought in northern Kenya dramatically illustrates the need to broaden our understanding about African pastoralism. According to the United Nations World Food Program, nearly thirty-five percent of children under five are suffering from malnutrition in the region. The food aid agency describes Wajir District as virtually without cattle, and other sources have put the loss of cattle in the north as high as seventy percent. As donor agencies consider what they can do to alleviate the hunger and suffering of the millions affected by the catastrophe, they would do well to consult the two volumes discussed here. Spencer's impressive monograph is the product of more than forty years work by one of the doyens of British anthropology and The Poor are Not Us represents the discerning contributions of leading scholars in Europe and the United States ably integrated by its two editors. Both books speak to the related issues of poverty and development.

The geographical area under examination is essentially the same in the two works. Spencer's study of the "pastoral continuum" focuses mainly on the cattle-centered pastoral groups of East Africa. These peoples are bounded in the north by desert and Islamic communities and to the south and west by tsetse-fly belts. Ecological barriers block the further spread of cattle herding and adherence to Islam alters the nature of power relationships within those societies that adhere to it. The exception to this geographical overlap is Bernhard Helander's study of camel-herding Hubeer Somali in the Trans-Juba region of southern Somalia in the Anderson and Broch-Due anthology.

An important part of Spencer's analysis is its historical perspective. Spencer, whose anthropological works have consistently demonstrated his unique appreciation of historical processes, again argues that in order to understand pastoralism, one must recognize how it has changed over time. Part Two of his book examines the history of the Chamus from the nineteenth century to the present. The Chamus's transition to a pastoral lifestyle under the aegis of the pax Britannica and the resulting changes they made in their age organization underscore their adaptability to the challenge of colonialism. Following independence, however, Spencer maintains that the Chamus age-system has become unsustainable even to the point where warriorhood has lost most of its meaning. Elsewhere, Spencer shows how historically, elders have reinterpreted tradition in order to respond to challenges to their way of life. He emphasizes their resiliency and ability to accommodate change, and uses the example of the Ariaal who switched between cattle and camel-herding over time according to changing circumstances. Using the example of the ethnic and cultural differences between the Turkana and Samburu, Spencer contends that there existed an "indigenous concept of 'tribe'" (p. 18) already in the precolonial period. Yet, he also notes how this concept was subject to abandonment in times of ecological adversity and how colonialism altered it. Likewise with respect to age-sets, Spencer states, "Generally, the evidence points towards a creeping change, and the resilience of the age systems may have been precisely their ability to adapt rather than persist unchanged. The age systems in the remote areas may have survived, not despite colonial and post-colonial interventions, but rather because they adapted at each stage" (p. 128).

As in The Pastoral Continuum, there is a strong sense of history in the Anderson and Broch-Due volume. Richard Waller's chapter is a perceptive and innovative one considering the difficulty of detailing previous instances of pastoral poverty due to scant references in archival records and oral histories. Basing his analysis mainly on the Maasai, Waller stresses the fundamental link between wealth and power, while also emphasizing the significance of age and gender in the allocation of resources in herding societies. Waller further presents a nuanced treatment of the impact of colonialism on the pastoral economy giving the reader a better understanding of the subtleties behind the marginalization of herders in Maasailand and northern Kenya. Broch-Due's contribution on the Turkana adds weight to Waller's thesis concerning the difficulty of gaining a complete understanding of pastoral poverty. She argues that the Turkana omit "losers," or those who have become poor and exited the local economy, from oral traditions. Nevertheless, Broch-Due is able to comment on all the aspects of the Turkana's past as well as their present circumstances with skill. In this case, again, distinctions of age and gender are of prime importance to the "moral economy" of the Turkana.

Spencer's earlier works have mainly focused on generational rather than gender and family issues. Likewise, The Pastoral Continuum emphasizes the significance of age systems to pastoral societies particularly the insightful chapter entitled, "The dynamics of age systems in East Africa." This does not mean, however, that as Spencer stresses the gerontocractic and patriarchal nature of pastoralism, that he ignores the fundamental importance of women and the family. Indeed, Spencer links these together, explaining how age systems are "an institutionalized way of controlling strains within the family" (p. 19). He points out that herding is not simply an individual, male domain-women are essential to trade and food production and the family are vital to growth. He argues that all are part of a wider, "moral community." In addition, Spencer notes how relations within pastoral societies are dynamic. Thus, the ability of younger men to acquire money through employment and trade to be used as a medium of bride-wealth has had the concomitant effect of increasing their power at the expense of that of the elders. Polygyny, to which Spencer devotes a chapter of his book, is an indication of the distribution of wealth and power within pastoralist societies.

The issue of gender is integral to The Poor are Not Us. Thus, while highlighting the relationship between dignity and poverty, Aud Talle's chapter discusses issues of sexuality between Maasai men and female prostitutes in a northern Tanzanian border town. Dorothy Hodgson's contribution on Tanzanian Maasai is a provocative reexamination of what she describes as "narrow, ahistorical, gendered image[s] of pastoralists" (p. 222). According to Hodgson, Maasai women suffered a double deprivation under colonialism: not only did the Maasai become marginalized as an ethnic group, but Maasai men deprived females of traditionally shared rights to cattle as well. With these facts in mind, she is critical of the ill-conceived development projects initiated in the past, since they generally have been based on false assumptions that treat women as irrelevant to pastoral production. One certainly cannot take issue with Hodgson's plea for aid agencies to consider women's perspectives when considering developmental interventions. On the other hand, her advocacy of introducing cultivation, if this implies the widespread applicability of agriculture, bears closer inspection when one considers the historical failure of such projects elsewhere in pastoral domains. Indeed, within the same anthology the case study of the Rendille by Fratkin, Nathan, and Roth concludes "that alienating pastoralists from their livestock leads to impoverishment, not only of the body, but the spirit as well" (p. 162).

Regarding the issue of development, Spencer is relatively pessimistic. To Spencer, the herders are "caught in an ecological trap" (p. 5) caused by human and livestock population increases and the expansion of market relations into peripheral, semiarid areas. The generally optimistic pastoralists are unable to cope with the contradiction between their hunger for bigger herds and the environmental degradation their feeding animals inevitably engender. Moreover, they remain uncaptured by a money economy and capitalism as they are reluctant to diminish their cattle herds or diversify their economy and remain tied to the "moral boundaries" (p. 44) of tradition. Finally, Spencer notes the widening gap between rich and poor with the wealthy gaining control over land and the poor increasingly having to seek wage-paying jobs as herders.

The contributors to the edited book present the broader context that development planners need to consider as they devise ways to help herding peoples. Thus, Hellander gives insights into the social dimensions that are associated with Somali poverty. In a similar manner, Tomasz Potkanski analyzes clan-based institutions for wealth redistribution among Ngorongoro Maasai and advocates their revitalization as a means of facilitating development. Rekdal and Blystad not only put contrasting Datooga and Iraqw attitudes towards the future into historical perspective, but they also demonstrate how religious attitudes influence access to wealth. Zaal and Dietz's well done comparative study of the impact of commoditization in Kenya's West Pokot and Kajiado Districts distinguishes between the survival strategies undertaken by the poor and the way the wealthy respond to economic challenges. Anderson's final chapter examines the successes and failures of development efforts since they were first undertaken on a large scale in the colonial era sixty years ago. His dispassionate treatment of contentious issues and his unwillingness to prescribe a universal panacea for the problem of pastoral poverty makes a fitting conclusion to the anthology.

Both of these books have much to recommend them. Taken together, their bibliographies are extensive and up-to-date. Spencer not only integrates his vast knowledge of East African herders, but reminds his readers of "the wider links between pastoralism and other forms of livelihood" (p.5). The contributors in The Poor are Not Us likewise succeed in their task of presenting a more holistic view of pastoral societies. They go beyond the widely held stereotypes that herders are conservative egalitarians and challenge the notion that pastoralism is a doomed means of subsistence. The scholarly articles demonstrate that one cannot understand wealth simply in economic terms, but must also take into account social and cultural variables. Aid agencies would do well to consider this holistic approach to pastoral poverty before embarking on potentially misguided development projects in a part of Africa that is in crisis today.

George L. Simpson Jr.
High Point University