Samuel Frederick Derbyshire

SAMUEL DERBYSHIRE, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom, was awarded a grant in October 2019 to aid research on ‘Reconfiguring African Pastoralism: A Historical Ethnography of Resilience, Mobility and Ingenuity.’ This project seeks to develop and refine the concept of resilience as a characteristic of contemporary African pastoralism by means of an innovative and pioneering, cross-regional and cross-cultural comparative ethnographic study. Research thus far has taken place over the course of two years and has comprised a detailed ethnographic investigation of communities in northwest Kenya. This research has facilitated the exposition of a range of hitherto neglected historical narratives. The data accumulated serve as evidence that might facilitate new ways of thinking about resilience and socio-economic change in pastoralist contexts. In the future, through the comparison of this research with research to be undertaken in other African pastoralist contexts to the north and east, the project will seek to foster new discussions about how pastoralist institutions, livelihoods and economies take shape through substantial contextualising transformational processes.