Samuel Lunn-Rockliffe

SAMUEL P. LUNN-ROCKLIFFE, then a graduate student at University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom was awarded funding in October 2016 to aid research on ‘Connecting Past and Present: Cherangani-Sengwer Foragers of the Cherangani Hills, Kenya,’ supervised by Dr. Peter Mitchell. This project aims to explore the long-term history of the Sengwer and Marakwet communities in the Embobut Forest of the Cherangani Hills. Recent attempts by the Kenyan government to move communities from the forest have resulted in a legal case hinged upon the issues of conservation and ‘indigeneity.’ Throughout this process, community activists have been attempting to re-assert their right to live in Cherangani by drawing upon a range of historical and cultural ideas that demonstrate the importance of the relationship they bear with their landscape. By using a combination of archaeological and anthropological methods and theories, this project conducted a diachronic analysis alongside the Sengwer and Marakwet community from January 2017 – July 2017 in order to examine how they have constructed their landscapes and engaged with their environment through time.