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

However, it was not possible to generalize about the impact of drought and
famine on local people’s livelihoods across the Turkana District, because
conditions and problems tend to be very location specific. This follows
Zoomer’s (1999) argument that there is need to consider structural
components while analysing people’s livelihoods. She argues that
structural components such as geographical settings, whether rural or
urban, and different agro-ecological zones such as mountainous regions,
distance to markets, and demographic structure, influence the set of
opportunities and outcomes of the actor. For instance, the impact of 2005-
2006 drought and famine was not the same in all areas in the Turkana
District, as some areas were worse affected than others. Based on this fact,
I selected two contrasting villages (Morulem and Lokichar) in southern
Turkana, of varying social environments. 51 The two sites were not only
reportedly hit hardest by 2005-2006 droughts and famine, but both also
had a large number of famished pastoralists being fed by the Turkana
Rehabilitation Project Management (TRPM). At the time of the survey, the
feeding programme had been running for almost six months, the first
consignment of famine relief food having reached the sites towards the
beginning of September 2006.
Morulem is located approximately 180 kilometers south of Lodwar (district
headquarters). Morulem experiences an average daytime temperature of 38
degrees Celsius with very limited rainfall for most of the year (Republic of
Kenya 2002: 8). When it rains, it falls in torrents, washing away the
planted seeds and much of the grass and therefore has very little pasture
for animals. Consequently, Morulem is purely a pastoralist area. Residents
have to walk long distances to access water in view of the low water table.
Other infrastructures such as roads are in equally bad condition. For
example, the road from Lokichar to Morulem, which is the only access
road, is completely impassable when it rains (Republic of Kenya 1999).
51 See the location of these two study areas in Figure 1.
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