On 11 July, please join our fourth Pastoralism and Drylands Development Seminar Series featuring Dr. Fred Ikanda and Dr. Samuel Derbyshire speaking on ‘Pastoralists and refugees: livelihood and kinship across shifting contexts.’
This joint seminar draws on long-term research from diverse settings in northern Kenya to explore emerging perspectives on livelihood and kinship among both mobile pastoralists, and those who, as refugees from pastoralist backgrounds, have been displaced from past forms of mobility. The seminar surveys research into questions of long-term livelihood change in Turkana, and on the role of kinship in negotiating the harsh and precarious conditions of camp life in Dadaab. It aims to bring these disparate bodies of evidence into conversation with, on the one hand, more recent discussions of uncertainty and relational resilience in the drylands, and on the other, the roles of global, cross-border networks and digital platforms in facilitating the navigation of precarious circumstances. It asks whether – and how – the knowledge, skills and sensibilities shaped by pastoralist life might continue to inform the experiences of Somali refugees, particularly in their search for long-term solutions rooted in trans-border kinship, nomadic practices, transnational networks and historical economic and political ties. At the same time, it invites reflection on how the experience of displacement and camp life might reshape understandings of mobility, kinship and pastoralist livelihoods, revealing new perspectives on what it means to move, to stay and to sustain connections across space under conditions of constraint.
Fred Ikanda is a senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Maseno University and an FFVT fellow at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS). He has published widely on refugee and forced migration issues. He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for Africa, the journal of the International African Institute, Sapiens, the critically acclaimed magazine of the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and Mila, a journal of the Institute of Anthropology, Gender and African Studies, University of Nairobi. His article ‘Somali refugees in Kenya and social resilience’, published in African Affairs (2018), has won two academic prizes.
Samuel Derbyshire is Regional Research Lead for the Jameel Observatory for Food Security Early Action at the International Livestock Research Institute, Kenya. His research focuses on pastoral economies and livestock systems in the drylands of the Greater Horn of Africa, particularly the Turkana region of northern Kenya, where he has been engaged in research for over a decade. Before taking up his current appointment, he held positions at the British Institute in Eastern Africa and the University of Oxford, exploring the socio-economic and political contexts of drought and pastoralist livelihood change in eastern Africa.Join us to exchange ideas, hear new perspectives and engage in friendly debate on the core issues shaping Africa’s drylands.
More information on the seminar series
Convened by the Jameel Observatory for Food Security Early Action, the Dryland Futures Academy and the Rift Valley Institute, the monthly series is hosted by the British Institute in Eastern Africa.
