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Pre-print version: Scoones, I. (2023). Resilience in the drylands: contested meanings, in:
Konaka, S., Semplici, G. and Little, P. (eds.), Reconsidering Resilience in African
Pastoralism: Towards a Relational and Contextual Approach. Kyoto University Press/Trans
Pacific Press, pp. 354-366.
Epilogue
Resilience in the drylands: contested meanings
Ian Scoones, PASTRES Programme, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex,
Falmer, Brighton BN1 9RE, UK
Introduction
Scattered across the drylands of East Africa, there are countless signboards from NGOs,
donor projects and government agencies, with the word ‘resilience’ on them. Resilient
pastoralism, farming, women, youth, livelihoods and more. But what does the word mean?
Does adding the word ‘resilience’ to development activities make a difference, or do
standard, failed approaches persist? What new, critical thinking and practice might inject
some alternative perspectives? Through contributions from across East Africa, this book
offers some answers.
Development is prone to fads, and sadly lessons from past failures, perhaps especially in the
drylands, are often not learned (cf. Krätli et al. 2015). Too often ‘resilience’ projects in
pastoral areas look remarkably like those that existed before - livestock marketing groups to
improve incomes, livelihood diversification for women, community rangeland management
and so on. How can the idea of ‘resilience’ be made more relevant and meaningful for
pastoral areas?
Whether through climate change, population growth, conflict, land fragmentation or large-
scale investment, East Africa’s pastoral areas are changing dramatically (Lind et al. 2020a).
This makes new thinking around resilience and vulnerability crucial, if carefully adapted to
these new contexts. Based on in-depth empirical studies from Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda,
this book joins other reflections on these themes (e.g., Lind et al. 2020b; McPeak and Little
2017; Catley et al. 2013; Catley 2013; McPeak et al. 2011) in attempting to offer a more
critical, contextual understanding of a massively over-used term. Given the omnipresence of
the ’resilience’ buzzword, this book is very timely.
Multiple pastoralisms: context matters
With a focus on context, the basic questions of resilience of what, for whom and where?
come to the fore. In thinking about how pastoral settings have changed in the Greater Horn of
Africa, Catley et al. (2013) offer a simple framework (Figure 1).
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Figure 1: Future trajectories of pastoralism (from Catley et al. 2013)
Based on two axes – more or less market and resource access – four trajectories of
pastoralism are suggested: increasing commercialisation and (export) market orientation;
sustaining traditional mobile pastoralism linked to local economies; diversification of
livelihoods but linking to the pastoral economy; and finally exit and movement out of
pastoralism, including away pastoral areas. Within any area, different combinations of these
trajectories (and their multiple variants) are seen, resulting in highly differentiated pastoral
settings.
Extending the analysis to five different pastoral areas across the region, Lind et al. (2020b,
2016) examine the patterns of change in different settings. Those areas with good access to
markets in the Gulf (such as the wider Somali region) are characterised by increasing patterns
of market-orientation and commercialisation of livestock, with heightened social
differentiation within the area, along the lines described by Catley and Aklilu (2013) as
‘moving up, moving out’. By contrast, in other areas, such as in the Karamoja cluster, a
process of ‘de-pastoralisation’ (Caravani 2019) is observed, where livestock numbers have
massively declined in part through persistent conflict and in part through aid programmes
encouraging ‘diversification’ away from pastoralism. The result is a highly impoverished
setting with highly constrained opportunities (Catley et al. 2021).
Pastoral societies are thus increasingly differentiated, both within and between areas, with
axes of class, gender, age and ethnicity all important. No longer are the pastoral settings of
East Africa characterised by stable egalitarianism, if ever they were. Today class and social
differentiation with varied patterns of accumulation are evident (Scoones 2021). Pastoralism
therefore looks very different in different places and across time and for different people, and
so ‘resilience’ must be looked at contextually too. This is the value of this book, offering
multiple insights based on in-depth fieldwork.
What is resilience?
Across the chapters of this book, however, some quite different perspectives on resilience are
offered. Accepting the dynamic, non-equilibrium nature of dryland environments (Behnke et
al. 1993), all contributors reject the ‘engineering’ view of resilience, based on a stable system
‘bouncing back’ to its former state (Walker and Salt 2012; Holling 1996), as well as the
frequently deployed ‘coping with shocks’ version of resilience, as seen in much development
debate around social protection, for instance. Instead, a more social, cultural and political
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interpretation is offered, drawing on everything from socio-ecological systems
understandings to management and sciences to social and cultural anthropology. What should
we make of this diversity, and what common threads emerge?
We see at least five different (although overlapping) definitions of resilience within the book
– focusing on diversification, system reconfiguration, reliability generation, identity and
belonging and citizenship practice - each linked to the pastoral contexts of East Africa.
• Resilience can be seen in terms of the persistence of diversified livelihoods, variously
linked to, but not necessarily solely reliant on, livestock production. Responses to
changes involve expanding scales of livelihood interaction and widening relationships
over time. Resilience in this way can be seen in terms of ‘pathway diversity’ (cf. Lade
et al. 2019). This means forging links to different markets, and particularly to small
towns in pastoral regions. It may even mean ‘pastoralists’ adopting totally new
livelihoods, such as the Dassanech youth taking up fishing, as described by Sagawa.
Resilience therefore emerges not just in response to short-term shocks, but in response
to wider structural changes in contexts, such as improved communications, road
building, urban expansion and so on. As in Little’s reflection on Baringo in Kenya, a
long durée perspective is necessary to understand how forms of production and
livelihood reconfigure over time.
• Resilience can also be seen in terms of the ability to reconfigure elements of the
socio-ecological system and, crucially, the connections between. In this sense,
resilience is very much about system change and transformation (e.g., Walker et al.
2004); not staying still, always being flexible and responding agilely to changing
circumstances. Drawing on Gunderson and Holling’s (2002) ‘panarchy’ model. In
many pastoral settings, livelihood strategies have shifted between intensification,
extensification and diversification over time. Sometimes such strategies act to
undermine extensive pastoralism – such as through the adoption of ranching or
farming or wildlife use – with land fragmentation in particular undermining mobility.
Thus, even though ‘resilience’ is achieved for some, it may undermine others’
strategies, with impacts at the wider system level. The reconfigurations of socio-
ecological systems may therefore come with costs and trade-offs, which require wider
interventions, including compensation, targeted social protection and so on.
• Resilience can also be seen as centrally about assuring reliability – and the continued
delivery of desired services from the system - in the face of high variability inputs.
Such a perspective, following Roe (2020; also, Roe et al. 1998) and work on ‘critical
infrastructures’ (Roe 2013), focuses on the ability of networks of ‘high reliability’
professionals, who are able to manage uncertainty and offset ignorance and danger in
real-time. Such a perspective emphasises the active process of generating reliability
(and so resilience) based on the skills, knowledge and agency of key actors. Seeing
pastoralism as a ‘critical infrastructure’ and focusing on the practices of pastoralists
that generate high reliability in the face of uncertainty (and ignorance) therefore
highlights the importance of pastoralists’ networks and social relations. Konaka looks
at conflicts between the Samburu and the Pokot in Kenya and argues that ‘reliability’
(and so resilience) in the face of conflict emerges through the formation of clustered
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settlements (for protection, sharing knowledge and more easily mobilised collective
action) and an inter-ethnic mobile phone network (for enhancing communication and
negotiating peace). Key in these strategies were high reliability professionals at the
centre of networks (cf. Tasker and Scoones (2021) for an example around animal
disease responses from Marsabit, Kenya).
• Another perspective sees resilience as embedded in cultures, belonging and solidarity,
articulated around a shared identity. According to pastoralists’ own definitions,
resilience is therefore not a structural feature of ‘the system’, nor can it be created
from outside through ‘development’ interventions but is central to how everyday life
is conducted and understood, part-and-parcel of what others have termed ‘vernacular
resilience’ (Wandji et al. 2021). Based on extended fieldwork in Turkana, Kenya,
Semplici argues that resilience emerges from a sense of collective belonging,
responding to a sense of isolation and marginalisation from wider society, combined
with the self-identification as ‘Turkana’ in relation to other ethnic groups. This strong
cultural- and identity-centred view of resilience is resonates with the experiences of
other pastoral groups, often cast aside by colonial rule, post-independence state-
building and so-called ‘development’. Identities are however not static; as pastoralists
change their livelihoods – moving to town, working for others or farming in an
irrigation scheme – their ‘pastoral’ identities are mutable, flexible to changing
contexts. In such shifting conditions, resilience is always about solidarity, both in
terms of group identity, but also in terms of the patterns of mutual support and moral
economy with family groups, across age sets and among wider clans. These social
relations, bound by a strong sense of identity and belonging, are central to
pastoralists’ ability to confront uncertainty and live with variability, whether in
remote rangelands or in towns in pastoral areas. In this perspective, resilience is
centred on relational identities, both within and between groups and with the wider
social and political-economic system.
• Finally, and relatedly, Hazama argues that resilience must be seen as part of a
repertoire of citizenship practices, including human/non-human relationships. Work in
Karamoja in Uganda shows how pastoralists have developed their own citizen
practices, including relating to livestock as ‘co-citizens’, that have allowed a pastoral
lifestyle to persist, at least for some. In the Karamoja case, this has been in the face of
huge threats, including state impositions through peace and disarmament
programmes, forced sedentarisation and long-run attempts by missionaries and
development agencies to encourage pastoralists to farm, settle and adopt ‘modern’,
more urbanised lifestyles. That such pastoral ‘citizen practices’ have allowed some to
continue with pastoral livelihoods, despite sustained assault and victimisation, is
testament to a particular, emergent and practised form of resilience embedded in
Karamojong pastoral society.
Resilience as process
Reading across the chapters in this book, there is therefore a clear argument for a more
disaggregated, context-specific view of resilience. As already noted, we must always ask,
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resilience of what in relation to what, and where? The chapters have offered diverse case
studies and different conceptualisations, but there are three important, common threads.
First, resilience is not just a ‘system property’, able to be visualised in terms of balls and
cups, as in the ‘engineering view’. Just as with that other buzzword, ‘sustainability’,
resilience is inevitably framed in different ways by different actors, and the process of (co-
)construction of pathways to resilience is always a political act, negotiated among different
players, and with power relations always central (cf. Scoones 2016; Leach et al. 2010).
Resilience is therefore always embedded in social relations, culture and identity and wider
political-economic relations.
Second, resilience is not just about responsiveness to and recovery from short-term,
immediate shocks, but about longer-term transformations of livelihood systems and the
relationships that make them up. ‘Relational resilience’ (e.g., West et al. 2020; Chandler
2014) highlights the importance of the reconfiguration of relationships, including human/non-
human relationships, as people, labour and herds and flocks are restructured in the face of
challenging events and changing contexts. A long-term perspective is called for as
relationships emerge over time and in relation to wider structural features of society and
political economy. Thus, for example, relations of age and gender are not fixed, nor are the
locations where pastoral livelihoods are sought. A fixed view of pastoralism – the (male)
pastoralist with his large herd on a distant rangeland coping with the shock of a drought –
gives a narrow view of the challenges of contemporary pastoralism. What about the young,
female smallstock owner living in town, also trading vegetables from her farm plot? What
about the hired herder managing multiple animals owned by absentees? What about the
displaced former pastoralist trying to survive off handouts, but gradually building the
capacity to return to herding? And so on. Centred on diverse relationships at the centre of
resilience building, identities and identifications, forms of solidarity and moral economy and
social bonds forged through everything from age sets to religious congregations or WhatsApp
groups become important. Relationships exist within networks, so how these are constructed
– and the power relationships within them – become vital in thinking about how resilience
emerges over time.
Third, resilience has to be seen as emerging out of people’s everyday practices and their
social relationships within networks. It is the process through which resilience emerges that is
important, not the endpoint. Rethinking resilience as ‘high reliability management’ is helpful
in this regard. Transforming high variance inputs into relatively low variance outputs via
diverse practices and processes is central to generating reliability, and so a sustained
provision of goods of services that support pastoral livelihoods (cf. Roe 2020). This may be
around just managing a herd or flock, but it may be much else too, as pastoral livelihoods
become more diversified and complex. But central to the process of generating reliability is
the knowledge, skill and practice of so-called reliability professionals, embedded in networks.
Thus, in order to ensure reliability in the marketing of pastoral products in the face of highly
volatile markets, skilled, well-connected people with a good sense of the overall dynamic, as
well as those who are able to adapt flexibly to changing circumstances in order to deliver
milk or meat safely and on time, are crucial. They must be linked to each other in networks,
and be able to communicate in real time, managing uncertainty and avoiding ignorance and
potential disaster. All pastoral systems have such networks – for example, around the
delivery of camel milk to consumer markets from remote pastures in the pastoral hinterlands
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or in relation to mobilising local responses to animal disease outbreaks. As a result,
enhancing the capacity of reliability professionals and their networks is a sure way to increase
resilience, but in ways that are very different to the standard, instrumental modalities of most
development projects being promoted in pastoral areas in the name of ‘resilience’.
Conclusion
Across the chapters and in relation to the three cross-cutting themes highlighted above, a
strong conclusion emerges. Resilience is not a ‘thing’ – a definable system property offering
stability in the face of variability and shocks – but a ‘process’ – something emergent out of
relationships, connections, networks and practices, rooted in cultures and identities, and
always in-the-making by people (and their relationships with the non-human world) in places.
Resilience therefore should not be seen as noun, but a verb.
The chapters in this book offer important insights into such a contextual, processual
perspective on resilience. The repeated emphasis on relationships, cultures, identities and
practices highlights the importance of looking at particular settings and understanding their
dynamics and the perspectives on ‘resilience’ of those who live there. This is a vitally
important counter to the standardised, instrumentalised version of resilience promoted
through development programmes across the drylands and promoted on the multiple project
signboards littering the landscape.
Perhaps because of the disciplinary associations of most of the contributors, and their
engagement with particular research sites over extended periods, there were perhaps some
missing dimensions, however. As highlighted earlier, looking outwards from particular cases
to the wider context, we see the way wider political economies – of investment, accumulation
and class relations - structure – both constraining and enabling – the possibilities of building
resilience, and indeed the wider potentials to transformations to more resilient futures (cf.
Scoones et al. 2020). Implicitly, of course, all the contributions point to the fact that
resilience is a political concept, but the politics of resilience is not especially highlighted. As
a contested idea, being central to development activities across the drylands, the politics of
resilience is however a vital concern, and needs to be at the forefront of any agenda for
‘rethinking resilience’ (e.g., Rigg and Oven 2015; Brown 2015). Even when stripped of its
political meaning, the ‘resilience programming’ interventions of the aid agencies and NGOs
in pastoral areas are always political – whether pushing particular types of market
engagement, or encouraging livelihood diversification presented as ‘alternative’ livelihoods
(to pastoralism) or urging other forms of ‘sedentist’ modernisation.
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Taking account of the increasingly differentiated nature of pastoral societies (and following
Fraser 2013), resilience thinking and practice therefore must encompass a politics of
redistribution, addressing increasingly important issues of class and social difference,
including gender, age, ethnicity, and so take account of how resilience is framed by different
social groups through a political process of deliberation and negotiation. This must go
together with a politics of recognition, and so raise questions of identity and identification,
and how resilience is associated with how people see themselves. And finally, this must
connect with a politics of representation for pastoralists, often marginalised within wider
political systems, and so questions of community, belonging and citizenship. As Fraser
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https://pastres.org/2022/03/18/how-sedentist-approaches-to-land-and-conservation-threaten-pastoralists/
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argues, in order to imagine a more progressive, emancipatory perspective in response to
contemporary ‘crises’ all three political dimensions must be combined. This also applies to
thinking about resilience, and so transforming development practice in the pastoral drylands.
Acknowledgements
This chapter was written thanks to support from the European Research Council through an
Advanced Grant to PASTRES (Pastoralism, Uncertainty, Resilience: Global Lessons from
the Margins (www.pastres.org); ERC grant number: 740342).
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Ian Scoones is a professor at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex.
He leads the ERC Advanced Grant funded PASTRES programme (Pastoralism, Uncertainty
and Resilience: Global Lessons from the Margins, www.pastres.org). He has worked on land,
agriculture and livelihoods, including pastoralism, for over 35 years, mostly in sub-Saharan
Africa (see ianscoones.net)
