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SUMMARY:Changing Landscapes and Lifestyles: Adapting and Building Resilien
 ce to Droughts in Turkana\, North-West Kenya (1963—2013) - Gregory Akall
 \, PhD Candidate\, Dept. of Geography
DTSTART:20130514T120000Z
DTEND:20130514T130000Z
UID:TALK45759@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:RSKD
DESCRIPTION:Abstract: Drought has long disrupted lives and livelihoods in 
 Turkana\, Kenya. As climate change creates new environmental uncertainties
  across the world\, there are new fears that droughts and other extreme we
 ather events will disrupt lives and livelihoods further. In dryland region
 s like Turkana\, there has been an emergence of new activities to help com
 munities become more resilient\, especially to drought. \n\nThis research 
 will investigate the perspectives of developers and Turkana on the ‘prob
 lems’ facing lives and livelihoods\, which shape the nature of the inter
 ventions that are implemented. Where this research is distinct is that it 
 will examine the current views and developments in their historical contex
 t. The research examines changing attitudes to the ‘problems’ and ‘s
 olutions’ of adapting to drought\, and how this has changed—if at all
 —over a period of 50 years\, particularly given the new challenge of cli
 mate change. The study compares two periods of interventions\, 1970-1990 a
 nd 2000-2013. The first\, 1970—1990\, was an era of top-down modernizing
  activities\, where irrigation and settlement of Turkana pastoralists were
  the preferred development policies (Anderson and Broch-Due\, 1999). The r
 esults of these initiatives were generally poor: irrigation systems failed
  to live up to their promise and sedentarization was linked to poverty and
  malnutrition (Adams\, 1992). The second\, 2000—2013\, represents a new 
 era of development based around ideas of resilience and adaptation. Report
 s from the region suggest that\, in practice\, many of the new interventio
 ns on the ground are remarkably similar to those that went before. For exa
 mple\, some ‘new’ initiatives are restoring abandoned irrigation schem
 es from the 1970-1990 period. (From 1990-2000s\, there were few developmen
 t interventions\; organizations working in the region mainly carried out f
 ood distributions).\n\nThe aim of this research is to see what is new and 
 what is different about the development initiatives across these different
  periods\, and to see how projects that aim to help the Turkana adapt to d
 rought have changed (or not). This will be done by looking at the history\
 , and by doing an analysis of the way the interventions were framed by ‘
 developers’. In addition\, the conceptualizations of the developers will
  be compared to the views of Turkana people on the problems and the soluti
 ons. The research will examine the narratives of environmental change\, 
 ‘blueprint’ development\, ‘experts’ and ‘indigenous’ knowledge
 s and governmentality. This will help to examine whether present developme
 nt discourses exhibit similar characteristics of past policies or are new 
 ones and compare these with the perspectives of Turkana themselves.
LOCATION:Seminar Room
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