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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | How the East African Pastoral Nomads, Especially the Rendille, Respond to the Encroaching Market Economy |
Author: | Sato, Shun |
Year: | 1997 |
Periodical: | African Study Monographs |
Volume: | 18 |
Issue: | 3-4 |
Pages: | 121-135 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Kenya |
Subjects: | Rendille market economy nomads Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Economics and Trade |
External link: | https://jambo.africa.kyoto-u.ac.jp/kiroku/asm_normal/abstracts/pdf/18-3&4/18-3&4%20121-135.pdf |
Abstract: | In Kenya, many rangeland specialists have criticized the maximizing strategy of indigenous herders as leading to the destruction of ecological balance through overgrazing and overstocking. However, the concepts of ecological carrying capacity and optimal herd size, often used to promote the apparently rational production of livestock for a market economy, are not applicable to the tropical arid zone of East Africa, with its unstable, drought-prone conditions. Moreover, economic market transactions are principally different from indigenous livestock transactions, which aim to promote social coexistence through reciprocal interpersonal relationships. Among the Rendille, for example, camels are not only their essential means of production, but also important property for social exchange, through which the solidarity of kindred is enforced and networks of favourable friends expanded. While the Rendille are more involved in the market economy than ever before, they never sell female camels for cash. Their manipulation of the local dual economy and their symbiotic personal relationships with local dealers provide a buffer against the encroaching market economy. Bibliogr., note, sum. |