Reconsidering Resilience in African Pastoralism

' Resilience' refers to the capacity to persist, adapt and evolve in the face of change. This book aims to interrogate the increasingly overused concept of resilience by examining its application to a series of case studies, focusing on pastoralists in East Africa. How do African pastoralists manage and adapt their livelihoods to a range of uncertain environments, including natural disasters, food insecurity, disease outbreaks, unstable infrastructure and conflict? Do development assistance and government intervention to address these issues contribute to enhancing the resilience of African pastoralists? Twelve chapters have discussed and for the first time identified relational contexts of resilience in Africa, including political power, land privatization, gender, human-animal identity, local networks, farmer-pastoralist relations and pastoralist values. Approaching the concept of resilience from relational and contextual perspectives can showcase a counter-narrative to guide more meaningful humanitarian and development framing and sheds light on new avenues of understanding and practicing resilience in this unstable world.