https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1794-4775
![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This article examines increasing prominent claims of ‘heritage’ and ‘culture’ along the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor. In particular it looks at how heritage is being used to promote pastoralism, communal land ownership and the survival of indigenous cultures in Northern Kenya. In the context of the ambitious infrastructural development projects contained in the LAPSSET and Vision 2030 plans, ‘heritage’ is emerging as a way of negotiating change. Various legal instruments, including the formalisation of customary laws and ‘bio-cultural community protocols’ are currently being developed to protect pastoralist heritage and communal land tenure. An important example is the attempts in Isiolo County to reinvent and strengthen a Borana customary institution for grazing management: a council of elders called dedha. The article explores the ways in which these attempts to promote pastoralist heritage are part of a larger conversation about the value of pastoralism and pastoralist culture and how the heritage of pastoralism is being positioned as the basis for an alternative ‘vision’ for the future of Kenya’s arid lands. Heritage is not simply about preserving the past; it has effects on the present. This article will show how attempts to revive customary institutions are themselves part of the process of transforming space in Northern Kenya; shedding light on the intentional and unexpected ways in which large-scale development plans reconfigure the landscape.
Acknowledgements
I am extremely grateful to the Kivulini Trust and to Natural Justice, whose practical support and intellectual enthusiasm for studying the BCP made this research possible. I am also grateful to members of the Kinna dedha council for discussing their work with me. In Kinna, Garba Tulla and Isiolo I was assisted by Mohamed Halakhe, Hassan Ibrahim Ali, Bushra Abdinoor Jillo and Boru Hussein Boru, each of whom made an invaluable contribution to my research. I am indebted to Elizabeth Watson and Jason Mosley for their incisive comments on an earlier draft.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
ORCID
Zoe Cormack http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1794-4775
Notes
1. LAPSSET Community Network, “Aspirations.”
2. PDNK, “Isiolo.”
3. Elmi and Birch, “Creating Policy Space.”
4. Shrumm and Jonas, Bio-cultural, 13–14.
5. Fieldnotes 5 December 2014 Kalacha, Marsabit County.
6. Bakker, Odiaua, and Abungu, “Heritage Impact Assessment;” UNESCO, “State of Conservation.” There is a campaign to have Lake Turkana placed on the UNESCO list of Heritage Sites in danger http://www.internationalrivers.org/resources/8332 (accessed November 5, 2015).
7. Ashworth, Graham, and Tunbridge, Pluralising Pasts, 3.
8. Smith, The Uses, 276.
9. Harrison, “Beyond ‘Natural’,” 35.
10. Basu and Modest, “Museums, Heritage,” 6.
11. Hewison, The Heritage Industry, 47.
12. Elmi and Birch, “Creating Policy Space,” 4.
13. Blaser, Feit, and McRae, In the Way, 6.
14. Lane, “Sustainability.”
15. Marsabit County is particularly active in this regard, see Samar Al-Kindy and Kepher Otieno, Marsabit County, 21–2. Since devolution many counties have put culture, tourism and investment within the same ministry.
16. Galaty and Bonte, Herders, Warriors and Traders, 4.
17. Swift, “Desertification Narratives,” 77.
18. Odhiambo, “The Unrelenting.”
19. Galaty, “Cultural Perspectives,” 15.
20. Heather de Jode, “The Green Quarter,” 10.
21. Vetter, “Rangelands.”
22. Kratli and Schareika, “Living Off Uncertainty.”
23. Engle, The Elusive Promise, 102.
24. Hodgson, Becoming Indigenous; Igoe, “Becoming Indigenous.”
25. Upton, “The New Politics,” 211.
26. Kharono, “Pastoralist Lobby,” 5.
27. Little, Economic and Political, 99. The (now disbanded) Kenya Pastoralist Forum, formed in 1994, was an early umbrella group bringing together pastoralist and ASAL civil society, particularly in the north. See Livingstone, “A Comparative Study,” 27–8. In Isiolo, the Waso Trustland project was formed in 1995 to advocate for pastoralist land rights.
28. Morton, Livingstone, and Mussa, “Legislators and Livestock.”
29. Odote, “The Dawn.”
30. Odhiambo, “The ASAL Policy.”
31. Odhiambo, “The Unrelenting,” 19.
32. GoK, Kenya Vision 2030, 18.
33. GoK, Vision 2030 for Northern Kenya, 52.
34. Fitzpatrick, “Best Practice.”
35. Browne, “LAPSSET,” 51.
36. Sena, “Lamu Port,” 17.
37. LAPSSET Community Network, “Aspirations.”
38. Anaya, “Letter.”
39. Anon, “Lapsset Fuelling.” Abdi and Kwama, “Disquiet.”
40. Elliott, “Planning.”
41. JPC & BAC/GKA JV, “LAPSSET Corridor,” 6.
42. Letai and Tiampati, “Capturing Benefits,” 31; Browne, “LAPSSET,” 53–7. Goldsmith “Future of Pastoralist Conflict,” 11.
43. Anon, “Local and Surveyors.” A similar disruption of beacons occurred in Ngaramara in November 2015, Jebet, “Isiolo Residents.”
44. Kochore, “The Road.”
45. Khalif and Oba, “Gaafa Dhaabaa,” 5.
46. Whittaker, “Forced Villigization.”
47. Hogg, “Development, ” 53–6.
48. Interview with a founder of RAP ISI_002_23.03.2015. Isiolo, Isiolo County.
49. A similar pattern of local administration undermining grazing management occurred in southern Ethiopia, see Watson, “Inter Institutional,” 13.
50. IUCN and DFID, “Strengthening Community,” 2.
51. Wells and Hesse, “Isiolo County.”
52. IUCN, “Improving Governance,” 18.
53. A copy of this document is with the author.
54. Toulmin et al., “Investing.”
55. Tari and Pattison, “Evolving Customary.”
56. The maps are online http://webgis5.geodata.soton.ac.uk (accessed September 13, 2015).
57. For a copy of this bill see ILEG, RAP, and IUCN, “Customary Laws.”
58. Comments to this effect were made in Governor Doyo’s Madaraka Day speech in 2014. A new Customary Institutions Bill was being drafted in April 2015. For a summary of different land claims in Isiolo County, see Boye and Kaarhus, “Competing Claims,” 116.
59. Watson, “Culture and Conservation.”
60. Bassi, “The Politics;” Tache and Irwin, “Traditional Institutions;” Watson, “Culture and Conservation;” Watson, “Examining the Potential.”
61. Shrumm and Jonas, Bio-cultural, 15.
62. Ibid., 13. Also see http://biocultural.iied.org (accessed September 13, 2015).
63. Kivulini Trust, www.kivulinitrust.org (accessed August 26, 2015).
64. A list of BCPs being developed globally is in Shrumm and Jonas, Bio-cultural, 10.
65. Fieldnotes 4 April 2015, Kinna, Isiolo County.
66. Harrison, “Beyond ‘Natural’;” Zetterstrom-Sharp, “Heritage as.”
67. Similarly in Lamu in Bremner, “Towards,” 408.
68. Odhiambo, “Moving Beyond.”
69. Tari, King-Okumu, and Jarso, “Strengthening Local.”
70. Scott-Villiers, “We Are Not Poor!”
71. Interview_ISI_006_29.03.2015, Kinna, Isiolo County.
72. Interview_ISI_018_02.04.2015, Kinna, Isiolo County.
73. Engle, The Elusive Promise, 182.
74. Elliott, “Planning.”
75. Stated in several interviews and in their constitution.
76. Interview_ISI_009_31.03.2015, Kinna, Isiolo County.
77. Smith, The Uses, 6; Lowenthal, The Heritage.
78. See Tari, King-Okumu, and Jarso, “Strengthening Local;” IUCN, “Improving Governance;” Wells and Hesse, “Isiolo County.”
79. Dahl, Suffering Grass, 41.
80. Ibid., 161–2.
81. Hogg, “Changing Property,” 25.
82. Ibid., 30.
83. Sobania, “Social Relationships,” 2.
84. Schlee, “Territorialising Ethnicity,” 6.
85. Hogg, “Changing Property,” 24–5.
86. Carrier and Kochore, “Navigating.”
87. ILEG, RAP, and IUCN, “Customary Laws,” 7.
88. Fieldnotes 29 November 2014, Kinna, Isiolo County.
89. Hodgson and Schroeder, “Dilemmas.”
90. Interview_ISI_017_02.04.2015, Kinna, Isiolo County.
91. Interview_ISI_012_01.04.2015, Kinna, Isiolo County.
92. Arero, “Coming.”
93. Interview_ISI_015_02.04.2015. Kinna, Isiolo County.
94. Interview_ISI_017_02.04.2015. Kinna, Isiolo County.
95. Watson, “A Hardening.”
96. Akoth, “Challenges.”
97. Interview_ISI_012_01.04.2015, Kinna, Isiolo County.
98. Greiner, “Land-use Change.”