Clemens Greiner

From Cattle to Corn: Attributes of Emerging Farming Systems of Former Pastoral Nomads in East Pokot, Kenya

Crop cultivation under rain-fed conditions is a recent innovation among the formerly pastoral-nomadic Pokot in north-central Kenya. We have examined the socioecological dynamics of land-use change from an interdisciplinary perspective. The patterns of transition to agropastoralism are closely related to both the biogeophysical attributes of the area and the economic characteristics of the households. While the use of advanced agronomic practices in the highlands is associated with annual maize grain yields of >2 Mg ha−1, unfavorable climatic and edaphic conditions, as well as the limited agronomic knowledge of the newcomer farmers in the lowland and mid-hill zones, make field crop production there an opportunistic, spatially scattered, and rather erratic land-use strategy. The accelerated transition to crop cultivation and the spatiotemporal differences in sedentarization between zones contribute to a fragmentation and shortage of land, which results in growing interhousehold inequalities and increasing conflicts within Pokot society.

Agricultural change at the margins: adaptation and intensification in a Kenyan dryland

ABSTRACT Land-use and livelihood patterns among Eastern African pastoralists have undergone dramatic change in recent decades. The dynamics in East Pokot effectively illustrate these changes. We focus on the spread and intensification of honey production and crop cultivation, describing the patterns of adaptation and diffusion and the current techniques of production. These processes must be understood as dynamics of agricultural intensification, and not as forms of diversification, because current transformations in pastoral communities go beyond temporal strategies of risk avoidance. In the case of East Pokot, intensification is related to population growth, albeit not in the linear manner proposed by Boserup. Rather, this relation is mediated by variables that include markets, labour, technology and the micro-conditions of the agro-ecological environment.

Land-use change, territorial restructuring, and economies of anticipation in dryland Kenya

ABSTRACT Land-use patterns in the Eastern African drylands have changed greatly in recent decades. Ethnographic data from East Pokot, in Kenya’s Baringo area, illustrate some of the major dynamics of change and point to relevant drivers. While the pastoral Pokot people managed an open, unfragmented rangeland until the 1990s, wildlife conservation, sedentarization, and land-use intensification, together with increasing contestation of borderlands, have led to a profound fragmentation and contraction of the commons, and a fundamental territorial restructuring. These dynamics are driven by economies of anticipation, fuelled by expectations of future developments such as large-scale infrastructural expansion and changing institutional frameworks, and entail massive conflicts around access to and control over land. While much attention has been paid to the role of external actors in land appropriation in East Africa, this paper directs attention to endogenous agency and compliancy in territorial restructuring.

Inscribing Identity and Agency on the Landscape: Of Pathways, Places, and the Transition of the Public Sphere in East Pokot, Kenya

Abstract: Drawing upon the dynamic interrelationship between human agency and space, this article sheds light on the constitution of and relation between “place” and “path” among the pastoral Pokot of East Pokot District in the Kenyan North Rift Valley. It discusses the transformation from a more mobile pastoralist model of spatialization, which relies on a flexible network approach combining paths and places, toward a more “place-making,” postpastoralist model linked to increasing sedentariness, privatization of land, a clearer definition of external and internal boundaries, and a rapid emergence of schools, churches, and other physical structures. Résumé: En s’appuyant sur la relation dynamique entre les espaces occupés par les hommes et l’activité qui s’y déroule, cet article met en lumière la constitution de la relation entre la notion de “lieu” et celle de “chemin transitoire” dans le contexte de la vie pastorale des Pokot du district Est “Pokot” dans la Vallée du Rift au nord du Kenya. Il étudie la transformation d’un modèle pastoral mobile d’utilisation de l’espace, reposant sur une approche de réseau flexible en combinant les chemins transitoires et les lieux, en un modèle “postpastoraliste” plus enclin à l’installation d’un lieu, lié à l’augmentation de la tendance sédentaire, de la privatisation des terres, à une définition plus claire des frontières internes et externes, et lié à l’émergence rapide d’écoles, d’églises et autres structures physiques permanentes.

Migration, Environment and Inequality: Perspectives of a Political Ecology of Translocal Relations

Research into the relationship between environment and migration—particularly how the environment influences the decision to migrate—has gained currency in the last decade. However, the growing body of recent environmental-migration literature exhibits an under-theorized and depoliticized notion of the environment. Furthermore, migration is usually perceived as an emergency response, a one-time movement, neglecting the often inherent circularity and continuous effects of migration. In this chapter, we introduce the concepts of translocality and political ecology as a means to address this lapse. We also propose a political ecology of translocal relations as a framework for research into the migration-environment nexus. This to be an important issue in this time of mounting and often reductionist debates.

The translocal villagers. Mining, mobility and stratification in post-apartheid South Africa

Abstract Internal labour migration from rural areas to urban centres has been and remains one of the dominant patterns of migration in South Africa. Based on data from ethnographic field research, this paper explores the mobility patterns and translocal relations of miners in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. By considering the tension between mobility and locality in a historical and political perspective, the concept of translocality helps to explain why miners try to expand their action space and, at the same time, why they are embedded in certain places. Thus, a translocal perspective enhances the interpretation of the spatio-temporal transformations in South Africa’s mining communities and beyond, as it sheds light on the agency of mine workers, superseding merely structuralist explanations.