Seminar: ‘I Blame the Sky Rivers’: The Role of Participatory Research in Managing Conflicts over Natural Resources in Africa. Organized by the Cocoon Initiative Kenya Research Project

New arrivals in Malalani Location in Kenya’s Kitui County are greeted with thoughtful but slightly suspicious smiles. Three words − displacement, destitution and death – summarize what is happening in this area, where nomadic Somali pastoralists have made local Kamba abandon hope of being able to sustain their core livelihood practice of agro pastoralism.

Violent conflicts between the Kamba and Somali communities in Malalani over water and pasture are common and often end in deaths. The situation is being aggravated by significantly reduced rainfall regimes in the region. In spite of the demise of local livelihoods and ultimately of the local population itself, the loud cries for justice have not been met with a tangible response from the country’s governance structures, no lasting solution has been proposed. The CoCooN Initiatives Kenya project has used participatory research approaches to build up an understanding of the undercurrents of the conflict and to bring together the protagonists in an attempt to collectively tackle the problem and ultimately prescribe solutions. This seminar will share the project’s initial findings and discuss the Somali-Kamba conflict’s effects and impacts in both the long and short terms.