Paper short abstract:

Paper examines the link between corruption and invasive species in a region of Kenya heavily penetrated by conservationists. These two issues not only share in a colonial history, but work together in a mutualistic fashion that dematerializes the cactus while embedding corruption deeper in the landscape.

Paper long abstract:

In a region of northern Kenya recently dubbed the 'Naibunga Conservancy', pastoral communities cite corruption and an invasive plant species called 'opuntia' as the two greatest detriments to their livelihoods and futures. Both these pestilent entities have a discernible colonial history. Corruption, it is believed, crept into Kenya through the open windows of a ruined empire, while opuntia was similarly left behind by the British who introduced it as a remedy for the dreariness of the northern desert. But are these two scourges, today, being fought by pastoralists on separate phenomenal fronts? Or has the eminence of both issues created a political climate where corruption and cacti can feed off of each other? This paper will discuss recent efforts to combat opuntia and how they've been muddled by the incursion of local elites seeking to capitalize on the creation of the Naibunga Conservancy. The paper will contemplate the challenge of rangeland management in contexts where the landscape is heavily shaped by history and by politics. It will comment on the momentous importance of studying these crises through an ethnographic approach, as both governments and conservationists tend to separate the biological from the political - a tendency that continues to obscure the experiences of Kenya's most ecologically vulnerable communities.