Presentation short abstract

Milk is an important pastoral food for the Maasai of East Africa. This paper will offer an ethnographic account of how changes in the taste of milk reflect wider political-ecological dynamics as well as how these dynamics are embodied in everyday Maasai sensorial experience and worries about health.

Presentation long abstract

Milk is an important pastoral food for Maasai (Århem 1989; Talle 1990). Research carried out among Maasai communities in Loita (Kenya) and Terrat (Tanzania) over 2024 and 2025, revealed two different stories of a change in the taste of milk. Inspired by a human and more-than-human relational approach and the concept of cuerpo-territorio, this paper will offer an ethnographic account of how this reflects wider political-ecological changes as well as how these changes are embodied in everyday Maasai sensorial experience and worries about health.

To develop the first argument, we draw on an emerging more-than-human perspective within the anthropology of milk (Ahearn 2021), food studies (Elton 2019, Reynolds et al. 2024) and the political ecology of food (Moragues-Faus & Marsden 2017). Using the Terrat story and exploring Maasai-livestock-grass relations we will explore what a changed taste of milk can tell us about wider political-ecological changes and struggles.

The second argument builds on the first. It combines insights from the literature on cuerpo-territorio (Zaragocin & Caretta 2021) and food and body (Counihan 2000), and derives from both the Terrat and the Loita stories. Here, the changed taste of milk is linked to health concerns about toxicities associated with environmental changes and the introduction of modern veterinary care that find its way to human bodies through milk.

This paper contributes to a sensorial political ecology by showing that a relational approach helps to connect the dots between the underexplored sensory aspect of changing food taste (Sutton 2010) and wider political ecological dynamics.