Publication: Pokot pastoralism

Environmental Change and Soci-Economic Transformation in North-West Kenya.

\"\"In East Africa and beyond, pastoral groups find themselves and their livelihoods under increasing threat when dealing with rapid environmental change. On the one hand, they contemplate major upheaval as a result of landscape and climate change on a scale never seen before. At the same time, these often-marginalised groups find themselves subsumed by the wider interests of national political economies prioritising new investment in land as well as encouraging tourism. This book investigates one such group – the nomadic pastoralists in East Pokot in north-west Kenya – and traces their social and ecological transformation over the past two hundred years to show how modern challenges are linked to the past history and also shape the perceptions of pastoral futures.

In East Pokot the grass bush savannah upon which the pastoral lifestyle depends has strongly declined over a long period of time, with the encroachment of acacia. Though traditionally cattle-rearing, its people have been forced to diversify into raising other browsing animals as well as cattle husbandry. The development efforts of the Kenyan government to use natural resources have also threatened their environment and their way of life. Bringing a long view to the history of human-environmental relations, the author reveals a more complex picture of change that, contrary to earlier assumptions, is not due exclusively to the pastoralists\’ pasture management, but also to the extinction of wildlife populations in the region, which were hunted heavily in colonial times. Attempts to move beyond Pokot territory, to the regions west of Lake Baringo and to the hard-fought Laikipia Plateau, have often been compromised by violent conflicts. While a younger generation looks to develop new sources of income through the job opportunities created by geothermal energy production, and diversify into other agricultural activities, this has also brought a dynamic social transformation: increasing production and sale of alcohol, decreasingly nomadic lifestyle, growing differences between the older and younger generations, and so on. Contributing to debates on future rural Africa, ecological history and environmental change, the book will appeal to anthropologists, sociologists, geographers, historians, and development scholars.

Vehrs, HP 2022, \’Pokot Pastoralism: Environmental Change and Socio-Economic Transformation in North-West Kenya\’, James Currey, Future Rural Africa Series, Access Link.

More CRC News

portrait image of mfundo mlilo

Mfundo Mlilo Awarded 2024 Geoforum Best Student Paper Award

Future Rural Africa researcher Mfundo Mlilo (Project C01 Future in Chains) has been awarded the “2024 Geoforum Best Student Paper Award“ for his article Coloniality ...
Read More »
poster for a public lecture

CRC-TRR Public Lecture: Franklin Obeng-Odoom (Online)

Mon | June 2nd, 2025 | 16:00 – 17:30  (CEST) I Online via Zoom Property and Power Prof. Dr. Franklin Obeng-Odoom (University of Helsinki) The ...
Read More »

Thomas Widlok Awarded Leo Spitzer Prize for Academic Excellence

The University of Cologne recently awarded research prized to excellent researchers from the natural and life sciences, the humanities, economics and social sciences. Thomas Widlok (Project ...
Read More »
poster for an event at the gssc on 20 may 2025

GSSC Seminar Series: Is the Africa Charter a Helpful Tool in Creating a More Inclusive and Transformative Global Science Culture?

May 20th, 2025 | 12:00 – 13:00 (CEST). Seminarraum 3.03 Global South Studies Center (GSSC), Classen-Kappelmann-Straße 24, 50931 Köln GSSC Seminar Series 20 May 2025 ...
Read More »
cover for a web post

Be a Student Reporter at Tropentag 2025

September 10th – 12th, 2025 | Hybrid Event The annual interdisciplinary conference on research in tropical and subtropical agriculture, natural resource management and rural development ...
Read More »
Scroll to Top