Livestock Raiding Among the Pastoral Turkana of Kenya: Redistribution, Predation and the Links to Famine

The long-persisting and erroneous conception of famine in Turkana as an essentially 'drought-driven' event has given way to growing recognition today of the key role which livestock raiding plays in the breakdown of herders' coping strategies. However, the phenomenon of cattle raids per se is not the problem. Common portrayals of raiding as a manifestation of 'tribal' hostilities fail to recognize its traditional livelihood-enhancing roles. Rather, the problem is the fashion in which raiding has been transformed over the years, from a quasi-cultural practice with important redistributive functions, into more predatory and violent forms driven by a criminal and acquisitive logic and waged with sophisticated weaponry. Here, Hendrickson et al highlight the central distinction between 'redistributive' and 'predatory' forms of livestock raiding. They also examine the increasingly modern and violent forms in terms of the changing functions which raiding serves within pastoral society and, increasingly, outside it. Furthermore, they illustrate the complex ways in which violence and the threat of violence interact with drought to undermine coping strategies, particularly with regard to herder mobility.