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

A household in the Turkana community is a single unit
formed by a group of persons (family or closely related
people) living in the same physical homestead when
they do not live in the cattle camp, answerable to the
same head, sharing the same granary and food from
one pot, and money from the same purse (they may
have different sources of income but they combine their
income to share a common ‘purse’) (Household
Interview 4 th February 2007, Morulem village;
Household Interview 14 th March 2007, Lokichar
Village).
3.5 Preparation for the interviews.
Household interviews were the main source of both qualitative and
quantitative 58 data used in answering my research questions. The head of
each household was interviewed in-depth. Where possible, the rest of the
members in the household participated to supplement information. In my
study, a household was referred to as male headed when the husband, or
the man who has inherited the woman, has regular contact with the
wife/or widow and takes part in decision-making in the household, i.e. he
lives in the same area, either together with another wife or in cattle camps,
or temporarily away. A household is female headed if the woman does not
have any, or only sporadic, contact with the husband or the man who has
inherited her. 59
The timing of the household survey had a number of methodological
justifications. First, the drought had lasted for nearly two years and its
effects had been felt within the household and at an individual level. It was
therefore the ideal time for the people to tell of their own experiences and
how they had responded on their own to the 2005-2006 drought and
famine, before any livelihood support reached them from outside the
community. Secondly, I had already gained enough experience with
58 I will present the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data in Chapters 6 and 7.
59 A woman whose husband is dead or displaced, or who is divorced and taken care of by
another man is assumed to have been inherited.
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