The New Shepherd: A Paradigm Shift in an Age-Old Tradition

pastoralism;Maasai;land use;cultural ecology;women;Natural Resources and Environment

Poelking, ClaireHardin, Rebecca ;

University of Michigan

关键词: pastoralism;    Maasai;    land use;    cultural ecology;    women;    Natural Resources and Environment;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/136598/Poelking_Claire_TheNewShepherd.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

Across sub-Saharan Africa pastoralists live alongside large densities and distributions of wildlife.Today, the relationships between pastoralists and spaces dedicated to wildlife are changing.Pastoralists are losing communal land due to changes in land tenure and an increase in wildlifebasedtourism. This has led to shifts in land access and use, as well as in the political economy oflabor for livestock production. The objective of this research is to understand how new landtenure arrangements and shifts in the tourism economy are affecting access to grazing resourcesand restructuring herd management. This case study from southwest Kenya employs qualitativemethods including semi-structured interviews, informal conversations, and ethnographicobservations gathered from accompanying individuals on their daily routines. In the first chapter,I argue that there are both positive and negative effects to the shifts in land tenure with respect tolivestock production strategies for pastoralists who reside on the borders of protected areas.Some of the effects explored in this chapter include changes in social capital, increased fences,and private wildlife conservancies. The second chapter answers the question of how Maasaiwomen’s identities have changed to become livestock managers. I explore how women areengendered, occasionally by default, to care for cattle herds and hired herders, and insuccessfully doing so, they gain trust in themselves and from their male family members ascapable and competent contributors to their families’ predominant livelihood. This researchseeks to provide a comprehensive understanding of how changes on these shared landscapes areaffecting relationships within pastoralist societies; it is also an effort to produce useful studies onwomen in marginalized and underrepresented societies in order to provide place-based andsocietally appropriate explanations of and recommendations for increasing women’s roles andresponsibilities towards a goal of gender equality.