1st Edition

Remembering Turkana Material Histories and Contemporary Livelihoods in North-Western Kenya

By Samuel F. Derbyshire Copyright 2020
254 Pages 52 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

254 Pages 52 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

254 Pages 52 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book explores aspects of the socio-economic and political history of the Turkana of northern Kenya, examining the making and remaking of the regional economy via the trajectories of socio-material interaction that have structured key practices, relationships and livelihoods over the past century. Traversing Turkana’s constituent livelihoods and examining the historical relationships... Read more
Part I: Situating Turkana

Chapter 1. Remembering Turkana: an introduction

Chapter 2. Turkana in historical and ethnographic perspective

Chapter 3. The fieldwork: theoretical and methodological reflections

Part II: Akichem (fishing)

Chapter 4. Hippopotamus hide shoes, colonial taxes and cotton blankets

Chapter 5. Fishing nets, fibreglass boats and the NORAD scheme

Chapter 6. Fish bone ornaments, ngakoroumwa and marriage

Part III: Akitare (cultivation)

Chapter 7. Mobility, seasonal exchange and atap: cultivation before Ekaru a Atchaka Ekipul (the Year of the Lost Padlock)

Chapter 8. Cars, relief food and irrigation canals: the 1980-1982 famine and the Turkana Rehabilitation Project

Chapter 9. Sugar sacks, maize flour and the establishment of commercial markets

Part IV Akiyok ka Aremor (Herding and Raiding)

Chapter 10. Livestock, divination and the era of the abuzibuzi headdress

Chapter 11. Spears, shields and colonial conquest

Chapter 12. Guns, cloth ngapukoto and Ekaru a Ngatuk a Nakirionok (the Year of Black Cows)

Chapter 13. Synthetic fibre hats, plastic spoons and ngoroko: herding and raiding in the years after Ekaru Asur (the Fleeing Year)

 

Part V: Tracing Change and Facing the Future

Chapter 14. A dilemma of perspectives

Chapter 15. The nature of change

Biography

Samuel F. Derbyshire is a Junior Research Fellow in Anthropology at St John’s College, University of Oxford.

"Samuel Derbyshire gifts us a refreshing book about the Turkana drylands in northern Kenya, about the complexity of pastoral societies, and about memory, history and change." - Greta Semplici and J. Terrence McCabe, Nomadic Peoples

"The book presents a picture of Turkana history and social change that manages to weave together the different pieces of knowledge that archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, political ecologists and others have so far produced... Derbyshire utilises a wide range of literature, making the book particularly interesting to development and historical anthropologists, historical archaeologists, material culture researchers, researchers working on sustainability issues and political scientists alike. I would especially recommend it as one of the first books to read for researchers just starting out in the region." - Nik Petek-Sargeant, AZANIA: ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN AFRICA