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PhD thesis Title Page Final _Richard Juma - Victoria University ...

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1.2 Research problem: Critical gap in response to drought and famine<br />

in the Turkana district, Kenya.<br />

This study broadly explores how Turkana 6 pastoralists 7 are able to sustain<br />

their livelihoods in increasingly arid conditions, and the most appropriate<br />

ways in which their livelihood strategies can be enhanced. The Turkana<br />

people represent an interesting example of how pastoralists adapt to arid<br />

environments and cope with a number of adversities that are profoundly<br />

affecting their livelihoods. These pastoralists are an ethno-linguistic group<br />

identified as a paranilotic 8 people who speak one language, Ngaturkana,<br />

and by 2006, were estimated to number approximately 568,020. 9 Like the<br />

majority of pastoralists in Africa, Turkana pastoralists’ have traditionally<br />

led a lifestyle geared towards subsistence production. Their principal asset<br />

and the primary source of their sustenance is livestock. They keep cattle,<br />

sheep, goats, camels, and donkeys, and their staple food is meat, milk,<br />

and blood (Republic of Kenya 2002). Their culture revolves around flexible<br />

movement of livestock in response to sparse, erratic rainfall, ephemeral<br />

vegetation, water and security needs. They have traditionally adapted to an<br />

ecological niche in the Northwestern part of Kenya known as the Turkana<br />

District (see Figure 1).<br />

6 Turkana is the name of both a tribal group of people, and the geographical area<br />

(Turkana District) they inhabit in Northwestern Kenya. Turkana people call their area<br />

eturkan meaning Turkanaland (Lamphear 1992).<br />

7 This study adapts Nikola’s (2006) definition of pastoralists as cattle keepers who reside<br />

in areas which receive less than 400mm of rainfall per year with a length of growing<br />

period of 0 to 75 days and where cropping is not practised, and derive more than 50 per<br />

cent of their livehood from livestock rearing through opportunistic tracking on communal<br />

lands.<br />

8 See chapter 4 for detailed discussion of the origin of the Turkana people.<br />

9 The last population census in Kenya was taken in 1999. It was estimated that the<br />

population of the Turkana District would increase from 450,860 persons in 1999 to<br />

568,020 persons by 2006 (Republic of Kenya 2002: 18).<br />

10

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