Karen Witsenburg

Climate change, violent conflict and local institutions in Kenya's drylands

Many regions that are endowed with scarce natural resources such as arable land and water, and which are remote from a central government, suffer from violence and ethnic strife. A number of studies have looked at the convergence of economic, political and ecological marginality in several African countries. However, there is limited empirical study on the role of violence in pastoral livelihoods across ecological and geographical locations. Yet, case studies focusing on livelihood and poverty issues could inform us about violent behaviour as collective action or as individual decisions, and to what extent such decisions are informed or explained by specific climatic conditions. Several case studies point out that violence is indeed an enacted behaviour, rooted in culture and an accepted form of interaction. This article critically discusses the relevance of geographical and climatic parameters in explaining the connection between poverty and violent conflicts in Kenya’s pastoral areas. These issues are considered vis-à-vis the role institutional arrangements play in preventing violent conflict over natural resources from occurring or getting out of hand. The article uses long-term historical data, archival information and a number of fieldwork sources. The results indicate that the context of violence does not deny its agency in explanation of conflicts, but the institutional set-up may ultimately explain the occurrence of the resource curse.

Of Rain and Raids: Violent Livestock Raiding in Northern Kenya

In the face of the current focus on climate change, the question whether climate variations have effects on ethnic violence is addressed. This article shows the results of an empirical study on the relationship between violent livestock raiding and climatic conditions. The practice of livestock raiding causes large numbers of casualties in northern Kenya. While conflicts over scarce resources may be largely explained by drought conditions, population pressure, and access problems, livestock raiding is more violent during wet seasons, when pasture and water are abundant and when the livestock is in good health. The higher incidence of violent deaths during wet times hints at opportunistic behaviour of raiders.

Dimensions of vulnerability of livelihoods in less-favoured areas: Interplay between the individual and the collective

The geographical concentration of persistent poverty in so-called less-favoured areas (LFAs) calls for a critical look at the link between poverty and environment. Livelihood studies tend to focus on poverty at the individual level, whereas the concept of LFA implies a problem for the collective. Studies on vulnerability tend to be biased towards external ecological causes at the regional level, while studies on coping and survival usually focus on the household. However, recent insights into the internal and external dimensions of livelihood vulnerability in LFAs provide an argument for linking both dimensions to dynamics at the individual and collective level. At an aggregate level, individual and household responses to vulnerability lead to intended and unintended effects, while there is also evidence of collective responses to factors originating from the external vulnerability context. These linkages between the external and internal dimensions of vulnerability and responses at the individual, aggregate and collective level should be studied to understand and mitigate current trends of increasing vulnerability of livelihoods in LFAs. Emerging key issues include: (i) analysis of change; (ii) analysis of livelihood pathways; (iii) aggregate consequences of behaviour; and (iv) cultural dynamics.