A “patchwork” for peace: institutions and activities in Kenya’s northern drylands

ABSTRACT

Despite the plethora of peacebuilding and conflict management institutions operating in Kenya, peace is often elusive in the northern drylands. With a lack of strong conflict management and peacebuilding processes in place from government, despite an active framework for such processes, non-state actors have filled this conflict management space. In this article, we draw on the institutional bricolage and sustainable peace literatures to understand peacebuilding through the frame of legitimacy. Using Laikipia County, Kenya as a case study, we draw on empirical findings which show that different institutions are attributed legitimacy differently. We find that while the Laikipia Professional Peace Caravan was seen as legitimate to pastoralists in conflict areas, its legitimacy was challenged by other practitioners. Similarly, while pastoralists viewed homeguards as legitimate, practitioners did not. The analysis links to discussions of the “business of peace” within the literature to consider why long-term peace has been elusive in Kenya’s northern drylands.

KEYWORDS:

• Cattle raiding
• conflict
• institutional bricolage
• Laikipia
• pastoralism
• peacebuilding

Acknowledgements

Fieldwork for this article was undertaken in Kenya under permit no. NCST/RRI/12/1/AS-11/6. We thank our research assistants, Jenina Samaita and Ben Mathenge. Special thanks to our respondents in Laikipia for participating in our research. We also thank the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments which helped to develop our paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Jennifer Bond http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3924-3005

Kennedy Mkutu http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0104-3374

Notes

1. The coming of devolution has affected the operations of local peace committees which no longer receive direct funding, but have to apply to county governments; several have stopped operating. The latter are also creating their own peace secretariats which to some extent duplicate the peace committee role (Mkutu and Lokwang 2017).

2. Interviews revealed that 32–34 Samburu were killed and up to 12 Pokot were killed in retaliation. Okumu (2013) states that the death toll was 31 Samburu and 11 Pokot based on Peace Caravan estimates. Greiner (2013, p. 227) quotes “35 casualties” based on newspaper reports.

3. This area is now part of Laikipia North.

4. Moran is the warrior age set within several pastoralist age-set systems. See Spencer (2004) for in-depth analysis of Samburu, and Bollig (2000) for discussion of Pokot social systems.

5. Interview, Interview, NGO staff member, 24 October 2011, Laikipia West.

6. Focus group, 26/10/2011, Laikipia West.

7. Focus group, 26/10/2011, Laikipia West.

8. Focus group, 11/11/2011, Laikipia West.

9. Interview, Laikipia Peace Caravan Professional 1, 16 November 2011, Nanyuki.

10. However, recent work undertaken since the fieldwork of this study shows that in the devolved governance context of the County system, competition between the newly elected leaders and the elders undermines the ability of the latter to manage conflict (Mkutu and Wandera 2014; Mkutu and Lokwang, 2017).

11. Interview, Pastoralist, 27 November 2011, Olmoran.

12. Interview, civil society key informant, 10 November 2011, Nanyuki.

13. Interview, Pastoralist, Olmoran.

14. Interview, Peace Caravan Professional 3, 19 March 2012, Nakuru.

15. Interview, Peace Caravan Professional 3, 19 March 2012, Nakuru.

16. The regions were Laikipia, Nyeri, Kiambu, Marsabit, Nakuru and Isiolo.

17. Interview, Laikipia West DPC member, 28 November 2011, Laikipia West.

18. Interview, Peace Caravan Professional 3, 19 March 2012, Nakuru.

19. Interview, NGO staff member, 24 October 2011, Laikipia West.

20. Interview, NGO staff member, 24 October 2011, Laikipia West.

21. Interview, Divisional Peace Committee member, 25 November 2011, Ol Moran.

22. Interview, Laikipia Peace Caravan Professional 1, 16 November 2011, Nanyuki.

23. Respondents claimed that the Peace Caravan was “late” but they supported it nonetheless as they did not perceive any other effective conflict management strategies by other institutions (see Bond 2014a,b).

24. Interview, Laikipia Peace Caravan Professional 1, 16 November 2011, Nanyuki.

Additional information

Funding

Funds were received from the Danish Consultative Committee for Development Research (FFU) through project no. 11-082LIFE, the University of Copenhagen and Oticon Fonden. The funding grants were used for fieldwork costs and the funding bodies have had no influence over the publication of the article.