Elliot Fratkin

• PhD
• Professor at Smith College

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION - Volume 60 Issue 3 - Elliot Fratkin, Sean Redding

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION - Volume 60 Issue 2 - Sean Redding, Elliot Fratkin

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION - Volume 60 Issue 1 - Elliot Fratkin, Sean Redding

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION - Volume 59 Issue 3 - Elliot Fratkin, Sean Redding

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION - Volume 59 Issue 2 - Elliot Fratkin, Sean Redding

Little Peter D.. Economic and Political Reform in Africa: Anthropological Perspectives. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014. 258 pp. Photographs. Map. Bibliography. Index. Cloth. $75.00. Paper. $25.00. E-book $21.99. ISBN: 978-0-253-01084-1. - Volume 58 Issue 2 - Elliot Fratkin

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION - Volume 58 Issue 1 - Elliot Fratkin, Sean Redding

This paper examines the role that laibons (diviners and ritual healers) played and continue to play in warfare among Samburu pastoralists through their use of divination and sorcery to defeat external enemies. The paper focuses on the 1931 death of Theodore Powys, a white ranch manager in northern Kenya whose death was, in time, attributed to murde...

Ethiopia's current economic plans call for extensive development along its riverine resources in lowland regions, areas typically occupied by pastoral and agro-pastoral peoples. These plans include the development of large dams for hydroelectric power and irrigating large agricultural estates producing sugar, cotton and rice in state-run and privat...

This round table explores the experiences of authors from different academic disciplines writing for the interdisciplinary audience of the African Studies Review, the journal of the African Studies Association.

In April 1998, the first issue of the African Studies Review with Ralph Faulkingham and Mitzi Goheen as editors was published (volume 41, number 1). For the next thirteen years, Ralph has worked tirelessly to shape the ASR into the distinguished journal it is today. His vision and dedication as an editor and a scholar have left an indelible mark on...

An in-depth look at the ecology, history, and politics of land use among the Turkana pastoral people in Northern Kenya Based on sixteen years of fieldwork among the pastoral Turkana people, McCabe examines how individuals use the land and make decisions about mobility, livestock, and the use of natural resources in an environment characterized by a...

Abstract The settling of formerly mobile pastoral populations is occurring rapidly throughout East Africa. Pastoral sedentarization has been encouraged by internationaldevelopment

Throughout the arid regions of Africa formerly mobile pastoral populations are becoming sedentary. Although pastoral sedentarization is encouraged by international development agencies and national governments as solutions to food insecurity, poor health care, and problems of governance, it has not been demonstrated that abandoning the pastoral way...

This paper examines longitudinal data to assess the effects of the recent transition from pastoralism to sedentary agriculture for Ariaal and Rendille mothers in northern Kenya. Dietary, morbidity, and anthropometric data resulting from bimonthly repeated surveys of the pastoral community of Lewogoso and the sedentary agricultural community of Song...

▪ Abstract Pastoralist societies face more threats to their way of life now than at any previous time. Population growth; loss of herding lands to private farms, ranches, game parks, and urban areas; increased commoditization of the livestock economy; out-migration by poor pastoralists; and periodic dislocations brought about by drought, famine, an...

"'Sustainable development' currently has a firm grip on the lexicon of development agencies from the World Bank to small nongovernmental organizations, but it offers little practical guidance for tackling diverse problems in specific places. The concept is of particular importance to pastoral populations throughout the world-those people dependent...

Les sociétés pastorales de l'Afrique de l'Est (Kenya, Tanzanie, Ouganda) voient leur mode de vie soumis à des demandes plus impérieuses qu'à tout autre moment de leur histoire. La croissance démographique, la perte des terres d'élevage au profit des fermiers, des propriétaires des ranchs, des parcs d'attraction et du développement urbain, la commer...

For over 20 years, demographic analyses have shown female education associated with decreased fertility and infant/child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. Far less studied are the pathways and overall effects of female education upon Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs). An earlier 1996 study of one community of Ariaal Rendille pastoralists in Mar...

Many nomadic pastoralists of Africa are settling near towns and famine-relief centers in response to drought-induced livestock loss, loss of pasture land, increased involvement in market economies and political turmoil including civil war. The present study uses measurements of child health, particularly morbidity, dietary and growth patterns, to e...

In some respects nomadic pastoralists resemble most of our descriptions of hunter-gatherers. Like most hunter-gatherer groups, pastoralists use lands whose vegetation they only minimally manage: They graze their animals on wild grasses, shrubs, and, sometimes, fallow crop lands. On the other hand, like agricultural populations, pastoralists invest...

The trend of pastoral sedentarization in Africa presents new economic opportunities to women through the sale of dairy products, agricultural produce, and labor. This study of Rendille of northern Kenya shows a variety of economic strategies pursued by women in nomadic pastoral, settled agro-pastoral, and town communities. Results of household budg...

Extensive drought in the 1970s and 1980s prompted national and international development efforts aimed at the pastoralist populations of Marsabit District of Kenya. Famine relief efforts by the Catholic Church and the African Inland Mission contributed to the settling of former nomads and the growth of small towns, while international development e...

Historical studies of the Maasai loibonok have emphasised their ritual and political leadership, particularly during the inter-Maasai warfare of the nineteenth century. This study of a modern Samburu loibon illustrates that the loibon's primary activity i n non-crisis periods is the private performance of rituals of divination ( nkidong ) and the d...

PIP In 1985, anthropologists interviewed stock owners from 38 households in Lewogoso Lukumai settlement in northern Kenya which were the same households studied in 1976 to determine whether the 1984 drought increased wealth differences between the rich and poor in this community of Ariaal pastoralists. They compared the 1985 post drought herd size...

To assess the impact and pattern of drought-induced livestock loss on Rendille pastoralists of northern Kenya livestock censuses for a nomadic 1976 and a sendentary 1985 village are compared. Results of a logistic regression analysis support an earlier model (Schwartz) linking Rendille settlement patterns to the distribution of loading camels. Thes...

This paper examines the effects of the 1984 drought upon household wealth differences in a community of Ariaal pastoralists of northern Kenya. The database consists of 1985 post-drought livestock counts and informants' statements of species-specific drought loss, compared to 1976 livestock counts on the same 38 households. The analysis confirms the...

This issue of Human Ecologyis devoted to studies of household organization, originally presented at an invited session of the American Anthropological Association annual meetings in New Orleans in 1990. These papers share an empirical orientation and an interest in demographic processes and economic change, particularly in rural and non-Western soc...

The social organizations of two closely related nomadic pastoral societies of northern Kenya, the Rendille and Ariaal, are compared in the context of the relative constancy and variability of their herding environments. It is concluded that the application of Brooks and Yellen's model of stability and resilience in human populations is of value in...