Title:	The elusive granary: herder, farmer, and state in northern Kenya
Authors:	J. D. Y. Peel, Peter D., Little J. M. Lonsdale,
Keywords:	Agriculture and state - Kenya - Baringo District
Issue Date:	1992
Publisher:	Cambridge
Description:	This book examines the social and political dimensions of Africa's current food and environmental crises. Written by an anthropologist, it focuses on the changes and the problems faced during this century by one particular ethnic group, the II Chamus (Njemps) of Kenya, and traces the area's transformation from a food-surplus "granary" in the late nineteenth century to one that is currently dependent on food imports and aid. By documenting the history, social structure, and ecology of the area, Peter Little is able to show that the crisis among the region's herders is rooted in processes that preceded the devastating droughts of the past decade. Drought is in fact a "normal" state of affairs in semiarid Kenya, but the processes that have inhibited herders from adequately coping with it are not. These trends include growth in absentee herd ownership, which competes for local pastures; engagement in wage labor, which constrains local labor supplies; and a form of sedentary pastoralism that overuses certain range areas while underusing others. Current discussions of Africa are dominated by themes of hunger, drought, and environmental devastation that shape the outsider's perception of the continent. Sweeping generalizations are substituted for the empirical data and analysis required for understanding the origins and directions of Africa's contemporary crises. These broad characterizations are perhaps nowhere more apparent than in Africa's semiarid rangelands, described as overgrazed, overpopulated, and overrun by "tradition-bound" herders. By addressing one particular dry region of Africa - northern Kenya - this book argues for the importance of localized data and careful analysis in deconstructing stereotypes about African agriculture and ecology. The book has been taking shape for several years. It reflects more than a decade of my thinking about social and agrarian change in rural Africa. Although the work presents a detailed case study, it is motivated by a strong conviction that analyses of pastoral change should be placed in a comparative perspective. The first and most important period of field research for this project took place during 1980 and 1981 and resulted in my doctoral dissertation (1983)
URI:	http://10.6.20.12:80/handle/123456789/9829
ISBN:	0-521-40552-1
Appears in Collections:	African Studies

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