7 research outputs found
Conflict resolution and crime surveillance in Kenya: local peace committees and Nyumba Kumi
No full textNach zahlreichen interethnischen Zusammenstößen und terroristischen Angriffen von al-Shabaab in den letzten Jahren hat der kenianische Staat Sicherheitsfunktionen auf die kommunale Ebene verlagert. Rechte zur Beilegung lokaler Konflikte und zur Verhütung von Straftaten wurden lokalen Friedenskomitees übertragen -ein Versuch, gewohnheitsrechtliche Verfahren zu standardisieren-, sowie Nyumba-Kumi-Komitees, mit denen Kommunalpolitik auf der Ebene der Haushalte verankert werden soll. Den politischen Hintergrund dafür bilden generelle Pläne zur Dezentralisierung und zur Verlagerung staatlicher Funktionen auf die kommunale Ebene. Der Autor des Beitrags stellt folgende Fragen: Sind hybride Formen der Ausübung staatlicher Funktionen effizient und angemessen? Inwieweit fördern lokale Friedens- und Nyumba-Kumi-Komitees die friedliche Lösung von Konflikten und die Verbrechensbekämpfung in Kenia? Wie kann ein Erfolg ihrer Arbeit gesichert werden beziehungsweise was könnte den Erfolg gefährden? Grundlage der Analyse ist eine ethnographische Erhebung im Maasai-Kikuyu-Grenzgebiet in der Nähe des Naivasha-Sees, einem früheren Brennpunkt interethnischer Auseinandersetzungen.In the wake of widespread interethnic "clashes" and al-Shabaab terrorist attacks in Kenya over the last few years, the state has embarked on the devolution of capacities for ensuring security and peace to the local level. The state gave the rights to handle specific local conflicts and crime prevention to local peace committees in an attempt to standardise an aspect of customary law, and to Nyumba Kumi committees in a strategy of anchoring community policing at the household level. These changes were conditioned and framed by ideas of decentralisation and the delegation of responsibilities from the state to the community level. In this paper, the following questions are raised: Are hybrid governance arrangements effective and appropriate? To what extent do peace committees and Nyumba Kumi provide institutional support for peaceful conflict management and crime prevention in Kenya? What guarantees and what constrains their success? The author draws on ethnographic data from the Maasai-Kikuyu borderlands near Lake Naivasha, a former hotspot of interethnic clashes
Konfliktlösung und Kriminalitätsprävention in Kenia: Lokale Friedenskomitees und Nyumba Kumi
No full textIn the wake of widespread interethnic "clashes" and al-Shabaab terrorist attacks in Kenya over the last few years, the state has embarked on the devolution of capacities for ensuring security and peace to the local level. The state gave the rights to handle specific local conflicts and crime prevention to local peace committees in an attempt to standardise an aspect of customary law, and to Nyumba Kumi committees in a strategy of anchoring community policing at the household level. These changes were conditioned and framed by ideas of decentralisation and the delegation of responsibilities from the state to the community level. In this paper, the following questions are raised: Are hybrid governance arrangements effective and appropriate? To what extent do peace committees and Nyumba Kumi provide institutional support for peaceful conflict management and crime prevention in Kenya? What guarantees and what constrains their success? The author draws on ethnographic data from the Maasai–Kikuyu borderlands near Lake Naivasha, a former hotspot of interethnic clashes.Nach zahlreichen interethnischen Zusammenstößen und terroristischen Angriffen von al-Shabaab in den letzten Jahren hat der kenianische Staat Sicherheitsfunktionen auf die kommunale Ebene verlagert. Rechte zur Beilegung lokaler Konflikte und zur Verhütung von Straftaten wurden lokalen Friedenskomitees übertragen – ein Versuch, gewohnheitsrechtliche Verfahren zu standardisieren –, sowie Nyumba-Kumi-Komitees, mit denen Kommunalpolitik auf der Ebene der Haushalte verankert werden soll. Den politischen Hintergrund dafür bilden generelle Pläne zur Dezentralisierung und zur Verlagerung staatlicher Funktionen auf die kommunale Ebene. Der Autor des Beitrags stellt folgende Fragen: Sind hybride Formen der Ausübung staatlicher Funktionen effizient und angemessen? Inwieweit fördern lokale Friedens- und Nyumba-Kumi-Komitees die friedliche Lösung von Konflikten und die Verbrechensbekämpfung in Kenia? Wie kann ein Erfolg ihrer Arbeit gesichert werden beziehungsweise was könnte den Erfolg gefährden? Grundlage der Analyse ist eine ethnographische Erhebung im Maasai-Kikuyu-Grenzgebiet in der Nähe des Naivasha-Sees, einem früheren Brennpunkt interethnischer Auseinandersetzungen
Poverty and livelihood strategies at Lake Naivasha, Kenya: a case study of Kasarani village
No full textThis study investigates livelihood strategies developed to overcome poverty in Kasarani, a recently developed village north of Lake Naivasha in Kenya. Lake Naivasha is a wetland of international importance known for extensive cut flower investments mostly exported to Europe. Kasarani is one of the informal settlements that have emerged around Lake Naivasha owing to employment-driven immigration at the flourishing floriculture and other investments in the area. My interest was to investigate flower workers and other labour migrants, a research area that has received little attention compared to the lake and flower farms.
I discuss how global economy-driven wetland conversion creates inequalities in access and use of resources (land, water etc.) between powerful and powerless actors in a common property resource, the ensuing marginalised of groups and livelihood threats. The study investigates and explains coping and response mechanisms to livelihood stress and shocks within social resilience and sustainable livelihoods approaches using data from participant observation, semi-structured interviews and a household survey.
Strategies for building social resilience in Kasarani interplay with discernable poor-rich gaps, deprived livelihood assets, challenge-burdened flower farm employment and diversification pitfalls for scores of residents, undermining pursuit of sustainable livelihoods. Limited sources of financial capital and inadequate physical capital as well as asymmetry in resource access and use also cripple pursuit of sustainable livelihoods, leaving social capital, informal institutions and social organizations among the feasible options.
The study reveals that diversification is the main strategy for reducing poverty and coping with uncertainties of employment. Migration and diversification have necessitated livelihood multi-locality and networks, whereas little evidence showed temporary out-migration as a response strategy. Cash and commodity flows together with informal arrangements and networks, such as informal credits and sharing are essential responses to livelihood shocks
Turning conflict into coexistence: cross-cutting ties and institutions in the agro-pastoral borderlands of Lake Naivasha basin, Kenya
No full textThe Maasai/Kikuyu agro-pastoral borderlands of Maiella and Enoosupukia, located in the hinterlands of Lake Naivasha’s agro-industrial hub, are particularly notorious in the history of ethnicised violence in the Kenya’s Rift Valley. In October 1993, an organised assault perpetrated by hundreds of Maasai vigilantes, with the assistance of game wardens and administration police, killed more than 20 farmers of Kikuyu descent. Consequently, thousands of migrant farmers were violently evicted from Enoosupukia at the instigation of leading local politicians.
Nowadays, however, intercommunity relations are surprisingly peaceful and the cooperative use of natural resources is the rule rather than the exception. There seems to be a form of reorganization. Violence seems to be contained and the local economy has since recovered. This does not mean that there is no conflict, but people seem to have the facility to solve them peacefully. How did formerly violent conflicts develop into peaceful relations? How did competition turn into cooperation, facilitating changing land use?
This dissertation explores the value of cross-cutting ties and local institutions in peaceful relationships and the non-violent resolution of conflicts across previously violently contested community boundaries. It mainly relies on ethnographic data collected between 2014 and 2015. The discussion therefore builds on several theoretical approaches in anthropology and the social sciences – that is, violent conflicts, cross-cutting ties and conflicting loyalties, joking relationships, peace and nonviolence, and institutions, in order to understand shared spaces that are experiencing fairly rapid social and economic changes, and characterised by conflict and coexistence.
In the researched communities, cross-cutting ties and the split allegiances associated with them result from intermarriages, land transactions, trade, and friendship. By institutions, I refer to local peace committees, an attempt to standardise an aspect of customary law, and Nyumba Kumi, a strategy of anchoring community policing at the household level. In 2010, the state “implanted” these grassroots-level institutions and conferred on them the rights to handle specific conflicts and to prevent crime.
I argue that the studied groups utilise diverse networks of relationships as adaptive responses to landlessness, poverty, and socio-political dynamics at the local level. Material and non-material exchanges and transfers accompany these social and economic ties and networks.
In addition to being instrumental in nurturing a cohesive social fabric, I argue that such alliances could be thought of as strategies of appropriation of resources in the frontiers – areas that are considered to have immense agricultural potential and to be conducive to economic enterprise. Consequently, these areas are continuously changed and shaped through immigration, population growth, and agricultural intensification.
However, cross-cutting ties and intergroup alliances may not necessarily prevent the occurrence or escalation of conflicts. Nevertheless, disputes and conflicts, which form part of the social order in the studied area, create the opportunities for locally contextualised systems of peace and non-violence that inculcate the values of cooperation, coexistence, and restraint from violence. Although the neo-traditional institutions (local peace committees and Nyumba Kumi) face massive complexities and lack the capacity to handle serious conflicts, their application of informal constraints in dispute resolution provides room for some optimism.
Notably, the formation of ties and alliances between the studied groups, and the use of local norms and values to resolve disputes, are not new phenomena – they are reminiscent of historical patterns. Their persistence, particularly in the context of Kenya, indicates a form of historical continuity, which remains rather “undisturbed” despite the prevalence of ethnicised political economies. Indeed, the formation of alliances, which are driven by mutual pursuit of commodities (livestock, rental land, and agricultural produce), markets, and diversification, tends to override other identities.
While the major thrust of social science literature in East Africa has focused on the search for root causes of violence, very little has been said about the conditions and practices of cooperation and non-violent conflict resolution. In addition, situations where prior violence turned into peaceful interaction have attracted little attention, though the analysis of such transitional phases holds the promise of contributing to applicable knowledge on conflict resolution.
This study is part of a larger multidisciplinary project, “Resilience in East African Landscapes” (REAL), which is a Marie Curie Actions Innovative Training Networks (ITN) project. The principal focus of this multidisciplinary project is to study past, present, and future thresholds and sustainable trajectories in human-landscape interactions in East Africa over the last millennia. While other individual projects focus on long-term ecosystem dynamics and societal interactions, my project examines human-landscape interactions in the present and the very recent past (i.e. the period in which events and processes were witnessed or can still be recalled by today’s population).
The transition from conflict to coexistence and from competition to cooperative use of previously violently contested land resources is understood here as enhancing adaptation in the face of social-political, economic, environmental, and climatic changes. This dissertation is therefore a contribution to new modes of resilience in human-landscape interactions after a collapse situation
Cross-cutting Ties and Coexistence: Intermarriage, Land Rentals and Changing Land Use Patterns among Maasai and Kikuyu of Maiella and Enoosupukia, Lake Naivasha Basin, Kenya
No full textThis paper explores the value of cross-cutting ties and conflicting loyalties for the peaceful management of conflicts and the emergence of collective action across previously violently contested community boundaries in two communities in the Lake Naivasha Basin, Kenya. In the researched communities cross-cutting ties result from intermarriages, land rentals and friendship. Fieldwork was conducted in six neighbouring villages on the border between Nakuru and Narok Counties in 2013 and early 2014. Half of these villages fall within the Maiella Sub-location and the other half within Enoosupukia Location. Enoosupukia, especially, has become notorious in the history of ethnicised violence in Kenyas Rift Valley. In October 1993 more than 20 farmers of Kikuyu descent were killed in an organised assault perpetrated by hundreds of Maasai vigilantes with the assistance of game wardens and administration police; later thousands of farmers were evicted from the area at the instigation of leading local politicians. Nowadays, intercommunity relations between Maasai and Kikuyu are surprisingly peaceful and the cooperative use of natural resources is the rule rather than the exception. How did formerly violent conflicts develop into peaceful relations? How did competition turn into cooperation facilitating changing land use? In this paper we explore the role of cross-cutting ties and the conflicting loyalties associated with them to explain changing community relations
Cooperation in the midst of violence: land deals and cattle raids in Narok and Laikipia, Kenya
No full textThe ‘Bald’ Ecosystem: Indigenous Resource Governance and Restoration of Kivaa Forest, Kenya
No full textThe Kivaa ecosystem was rich in biodiversity until the late 1940s. Following human-induced conversion through logging and uncontrolled extraction of trees for charcoal, timber, and herbal medicine, the ecosystem changed progressively between the 1950s and the early 2000s, culminating in a ‘bare’ landscape. For over 50 years, the hill resembled a baldhead, thus befitting its name Kivaa (Kamba for baldhead). Natural springs dried and could no longer supply fresh water. Increased human action completely decimated vegetation cover, and the remaining wildlife migrated in search of habitat. Conversion of the ecosystem coincided with an increase in poverty, diseases, and social problems, which the local community associated with supernatural punishment. Since the last decade, however, community-led efforts to restore the ecosystem using indigenous resource governance mechanisms have witnessed a form of landscape reorganisation. The ecosystem is increasingly regaining its former glory. In this research article, we examine the local adoption of eco-cultural beliefs and practices for the conservation of nature. Further, we interrogate questions of commitment and enforcement of traditional rules against the backdrop of rising demand for forest resources. A qualitative study under the cross-sectional research design and qualitative data collection methods were utilised in ascertaining the conservation methods used in conserving the Kivaa Indigenous Forest from purposively and non-probability sampled respondents of 100. The study revealed that some of the eco-cultural beliefs and practices adopted include the use of shrines, taboos and myths, customary laws, rules and regulations and rituals. Adherence to traditional norms and values for the conservation of nature obtains favour because the governance system builds on traditional systems. The questions of commitment and enforcement, though linked to supernatural power, remain rather problematic, particularly due to generational problems, immigration, population increase, growing demands for natural resources, and changing attitudes
