Paper short abstract:

Approaching “remoteness” as a way of being rather than a geographical property, I consider how urban elites’ childhood experiences, memories, and imaginations of rural herding livelihoods figure into the future of Turkana pastoralism amidst development and change on Kenya’s northwest frontier.

Paper long abstract:

Like much of Africa, Turkana is a place of great social contrasts, home to both pastoral homesteads living frugally on the arid plains as well as to educated elites chasing urban jobs and construction contracts. Town-and-country connectivity is usually depicted according to the economic relationships between rural herders and modern urbanites, but models differ based on whether the two are diverging as classes - usually entailing a "transition" from traditional pastoralism to capitalism - or hybridizing as inter-dependent sectors of broader, diversified livelihood units. Both perspectives suffer from over-emphasis on the economic dimensions of urban and rural livelihoods, rather than the experience of learning and practicing livelihood skills (Ingold 2000) or performing rural and urban "styles" (Ferguson 1999). Drawing from Edwin Ardener's (1987) phenomenological conception to the notion of remoteness, as well as more recent phenomenological approaches in ethnography (Desjarlais & Jason Throop 2011), I consider how growing up as a herder, visiting pastoralist kin, and reflecting on romanticized forms of tradition creates a sense of nostalgia for life in "the reserve", a term alluding to the deep rurals of Turkana County. Presently, most politicians are educated elites with childhood experiences and family connections to pastoralist life. Going forward, the policy positions that the political class adopt toward pastoralism will depend upon their sense of connection to, belonging in, and nostalgia for life in the remote "reserve".