Uncertainty, pastoral knowledge & early warning in northern Kenya

The article “Uncertainty, pastoral knowledge and early warning: a review of drought management in the drylands, with insights from northern Kenya” by Samuel Derbyshire and colleagues, published in Pastoralism: Research, Policy and Practice (June 2024, https://doi.org/10.3389/past.2024.13006), explores the recent history of early warning systems in Kenya. It identifies key features of the political, technical and conceptual processes that prefigure contemporary drought management in Kenya. It draws out wider implications regarding drought and anticipatory action across Africa’s drylands, considering the friction between the dynamics of disaster risk management that structure formal early warning systems and those that shape pastoralists’ engagement with the uncertain worlds they inhabit. Surveying recent literature on pastoralism’s unique relationship with uncertainty and associated forms of networked, relational resilience, the authors reflect on some limitations of current approaches to “local knowledge” in the humanitarian sphere. It emphasises the need for new, creative approaches to early warning and anticipatory action that are oriented around local pastoralists’ drought preparation and mitigation strategies and include enough flexibility to adapt to a fast-shifting terrain of challenges and possibilities.

Posted on 7 June 2024 in Pastoralism & Climate Change, Pastoralism & Natural Resources