Cattle Bring Us to Our Enemies: Turkana Ecology, Politics, and Raiding in a Disequilibrium System

11. Conclusions and Discussion

chapter 11 Conclusions and Discussion 7 In this final chapter, I return to some of the key issues and questions raised earlier. First, do Turkana mobility and the system of livestock management correspond to what would be expected if the environment in which they live is understood as a persistent but nonequilibrial ecosystem? The second set of questions relate to the possible limitations of this approach. If the Turkana do move and manage their livestock in a way that is consistent with this “new ecological thinking ,” does this explanation provide sufficient information to understand human-environmental relationships? Are other sorts of ecologies needed? Finally, do the conclusions reached here have policy implications? Turkana Mobility, Livestock Management, and Nonequilibrial Ecosystems It has been hypothesized that herbivore populations living in nonequilibrial ecosystems (1) will be highly mobile, (2) will have opportunistic movement strategies, (3) will display a high degree of variability in movement patterns from one year to the next, and (4) will have highly dynamic populations. It has also been noted that pastoral peoples living in these unstable environments will need to depend occasionally on resources external to the local area and that conflict 235 may be a direct result of the dynamics of this type of ecosystem. I believe the study presented here supports most of these expectations, if not totally, then at least to a large degree. Mobility, Variability, and Opportunism The Turkana are one of the world’s most mobile peoples, not in the distances moved each year, but in the frequency of their movements. Three out of the four herd owners considered in this study moved their awi more than once a month on average. In dry years the livestock were divided into individual herds of cattle, milking and nonmilking camels, and milking and nonmilking small stock, with the nonmilking animals following a migratory route independent of the awi. By almost any measure, the degree of variability is high. The distances moved and the frequency of moves per year are highly variable for a single herd owner from one year to the next. For any given year, each herd owner followed a migratory pattern that was distinct from those of the other herd owners, sometimes differing radically, suggesting a very different management strategy in response to the same environmental stresses. The variety of ways in which Angorot and Lorimet moved and managed their livestock during drought episodes illustrates this point. In ecosystems at disequilibrium, mobility patterns should reflect a high degree of opportunism. Opportunistic movements are those that take advantage of temporary patches of resources while avoiding hazards . Opportunistic movement should be reflected in variability on an annual and seasonal basis as well as among herd owners. Variability has been demonstrated, but it was impossible to analyze the data in terms of patch dynamics except as a function of frequency of movement . However, based on many conversations that I had with individual herd owners, I feel confident that herd owners were constantly evaluating different patches of forage resources, taking into account the climate, species mix of their herds, the risk of raiding, and the location of other herd owners and their livestock. Opportunistic movements are reflected in how the individual herd owners responded to seasonal climatic variations. Each year the Ngisonyoka migrate south, but where they go, the route that they take, and where they stop along the migratory route vary. Nevertheless, as it gets drier, the Ngisonyoka move into areas of progressively higher primary productivity, regardless of their location in any one year. 236 cattle bring us to our enemies It is very clear that the herd owners considered in this study place tremendous emphasis on avoiding hazards, to the extent that this is possible. While disease is a major hazard and is taken into account in making a decision where and when to move, the most immediate hazard is raiding. The narrative accounts in chapter 7 illustrate how concerned the individual herd owners were about this threat and the measures they took to avoid being the target of raids. The individual responses relating to the reasons for moving also reflect how important it was for all the herd owners to avoid raids. For some theorists opportunism allows for the optimization of patch dynamics. Thus Behnke and Scoones remark: The producers’ strategy within nonequilibrium systems is to move livestock sequentially across a series of environments each of which reaches a peak carrying capacity in...