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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Risky trade, resilient traders: trust and livestock marketing in northern Kenya
Author:Mahmoud, Hussein AbdullahiISNI
Year:2008
Periodical:Africa: Journal of the International African Institute
Volume:78
Issue:4
Pages:561-581
Language:English
Geographic term:Kenya
Subjects:trade
livestock
risk
social networks
Burji
External links:https://doi.org/10.3366/E0001972008000442
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/africa_the_journal_of_the_international_african_institute/v078/78.4.mahmoud.pdf
Abstract:This article examines innovations in livestock marketing that livestock traders in northern Kenya use to overcome a host of trading obstacles. Livestock trading in northern Kenya is one of the toughest and most risk-prone jobs in the region, yet livestock traders have been able not only to transform the ways in which trading is conducted through 'home-made' innovations, but also to mitigate trading risks. The article demonstrates how livestock traders have become resilient to risks and have been able to succeed in a trade that in the past many have had to abandon. Trust embedded in social networks and relations reinforces the adoption of risk-minimizing strategies. The article focuses on the broad field of pastoral risk management to illustrate how an innovative risk management strategy can be used to create a successful business entrepreneurship in a risk-prone environment. The author draws on fieldwork conducted during 2001-2002 among cattle traders in Moyale District of northern Kenya and Nairobi, focusing on the Burji ethnic group, which dominates livestock trade in the area. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract]
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