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Table of Contents Table of Contents East African Pastoralism and Underdevelopment: An Introduction Leif Manger Institutional Erosion in the Drylands: The Case of the Borana Pastoralists Johan Helland Changing Patterns of Resource Control among the Borana Pastoralists of Southern Ethiopia: A Lesson for Development Agencies Boku Tache Problems of Sustainable Resource Use among Pastoralist Societies: The Influence of State Intervention on the Pastoral Life of the Karrayyu Assefa Tolera Effecting Development: Reflections on the Transformation of Agro-Pastoral Production Systems in Eastern Sudan Salah Shazali Dryland Pastoralism among the Northern Bisharien of the Red Sea Hills, Sudan Omer A. Egemi The Struggle for Land Rights and the 1990 Squatter Uprisings in the Former Government Ranching Schemes of Uganda Frank Emmanuel Muhereza Challenging Encounters: Datoga Lives in Independent Tanzania Astrid Blystad Oral Traditions and Past Human Uses of Natural Resources: The Case of Iraqw'ar Da/aw, North- Central Tanzania Yusufu Q. Lawi Emissaries for Peace, Envoys for Management: external Relations and Drylands Management in the Zaghawa Sharif Harir Ethnicity and Scale Frode Storaas Dryland Soil Classification: Some Implications of Two Knowledge Systems Mustafa Babiker EAST AFRICAN PASTORALISM AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT: AN INTRODUCTION Leif Manger 1. THE EAST AFRICAN PASTORAL CRISIS It is a long established fact in studies on East African pastoralists that an understanding of pastoral adaptations cannot be limited to a man/land relationship in isolation, i.e., a focus on the direct relationship between the natural environment and human adaptation. We know that contemporary East African pastoralism is also affected by factors outside such immediate ecological relationships. Also, an understanding of this complexity needs a perspective based on broad socio-economic causes as they are interlined with factors like demographic growth, agricultural impasse, incorporation of pastoral economies into the market economy, general insecurity arising from civil wars and conflicts, faulty national and international policies as well as factors arising from climate and ecology. These processes have led to rapid sedentarisation and urbanisation, a breakdown of traditional cultures, transformation of gender relations, degradation of natural resources and growing vulnerability of groups to ecological and economic stress. Instead of a general acceptance of such complexities, the past history of planning and contact between public authorities and East African pastoralism has been one of misunderstanding as well as more or less conscious policies of marginalisation based on simplistic assumptions. The most common of these are the widespread generalisations that accuse pastoralists of creating desertification, of managing their stock according to irrational economic principles and of being technically stagnant and backward, of wandering about destroying nature, and of adhering to conservative social structures and cultural notions, i.e., being against development. Similarly, states have tried to control pastoralists, condemning their lifestyle, forcing them into rigid administrative structures and imposing upon them national identities. Such notions have led to harmful interventions by governments and donors alike. Development programmes characterised by technical weaknesses, lack of understanding of social systems and inadequate politico-administrative framework have not been uncommon. Lack of co-operation on the part of pastoralists has been explained by resistance to change and inherent conservatism. The pastoralists themselves have often responded to such developments with distrust, resistance and violence. At the same time pastoral societies have undergone great transformations during their contact with such state structures. Animal health, water policies, sedentarisation schemes, land tenure reforms are all key words that indicate areas of public policies that have brought about profound changes in pastoral adaptations. Not all of them have been detrimental to African pastoralism, nor have pastoralists shied away from involving themselves in all of them. But the history of East African pastoral development cannot be limited to one of intended and unintended effects of public policies. And we would be ill-advised if we looked at East African pastoralists as isolated societies, as only victims of public policies, as representing a "past" and as withdrawing from the public arenas. Rather, what we actually we find on the ground is a dynamic picture in which pastoralists pursue their interests, participating when they see benefits, withdrawing when they feel threatened. Certainly, the general tendency is clear and indicates that pastoralists are at the losing end of such developments. However, this is not a game in which all pastoralists are similarly affected. Nor were all pastoralists equal in the past. On the contrary, pastoral societies have at all times been characterised by inequality. Historically, such inequality grew out of internal dynamics within the pastoral society itself. Today, it is also combined with unequal access to external resources. Thus, by participating in the public spheres certain elite groups among pastoralists have advanced and improved their positions, including within their own pastoral societies. For the poorer strata of pastoralists, such links to the external world, through politics and through the market, have a different type of effect. Rather than benefiting from them, they find themselves in a double-bind situation in which they are more and more dependent on he market, for their own survival, but at the same time occupying a peripheral position in that system. The effect of this type of structural position is dramatised in times of crisis, particularly the periods of drought and famine. During such periods pastoralists are badly hit by the price fluctuations in the markets, by falling animal prices and rising grain prices. In many cases it is this type of unfavourable terms of trade relationship, rather than the drought itself, that lead to the loss of animals through unfavourable exchange. Ironically, the richer groups of pastoralists may stand to gain from this situation, as they make up part of the buyers of such animals, alongside traders and civil servants. "Losers" and "winners" become two distinct categories. The predicament of the East African pastoralists is, therefore, not dependent solely on the state of the range on which they live, and on the quality of their animals, but rather on a series of dynamics that reaches far beyond the limits of the pastoral communities themselves. But at the same time, local factors, range and animals alike, make up important premises for the continuation of pastoralism as a particular mode of adaptation. The challenge we are faced with is, therefore, to see the various interrelationships between the local factors and various types of external factors that together shape the contemporary reality of East African pastoralists. 2. BASIC FEATURES OF EAST AFRICAN PASTORALISM · The natural environment in East Africa is a varied one, with variations in altitude, rainfall patterns in dry and wet seasons, river systems, soil types and vegetation cover. This varied pattern has in basic ways affected the distribution of settlements and population movements, and the distribution of productive activities such as cultivation and grazing. · The human responses to this variation have been to develop adaptive patterns that have been flexible enough to cope with the variation and to minimise risk. This coping has been characterised by movements across zones in different seasons and by a combination of many types of activities - cultivation and animal herding; hunting and gathering; wage labour, etc. Such a mixed economy puts demands on the labour power of economic units, their patterns of development, and knowledge and organisational capacity. · Cultural and political boundaries are also affected by this type of adaptational game. Population movements, historically as well as contemporarily, can be understood in this context. Such movements and adaptations have also forged links between groups: violent ones such as cattle rustling and raids, peaceful ones such as marriages, reciprocal relationships built on sharing of animals, and collaborative ones such as creating labour networks. Regional markets and trading centres as well as towns were important meeting places that further added to the development of relationships. The same goes for the development of various power centres. East African states can historically be viewed as an interaction between different ecological zones, and hence different adaptations (e.g., the highland/lowland dimension in Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Nile Valley/savannah dimension in the Sudan, etc. The state centres were in the highlands and the Nile Valley, but the exploitation of lowlands and savannah areas were basic mechanisms in maintaining the viability of the states). · Returning to the issue of resource management, then, a broad perspective as the one outlined above allows us to link many developments in East Africa. It facilitates an understanding of the distribution of groups, and makes visible the migration of the Nilotic, Bantu and Cushitic peoples around the region. We can see how adaptive processes, such as coping with drought, shifts between agriculture and pastoralism, etc., also lead to concomitant shifts in identities. And we can see how such links affect the borders
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