Boundary-Making and Pastoral Conflict along the Kenyan–Ethiopian Borderlands

Abstract

Abstract:Boundaries are technologies of power and knowledge that shape spatial and social realities and our understandings of them. This article examines the effects of boundary-making between Kenya and Ethiopia, and investigates the effects of borders on states of peace and conflict among Turkana, Samburu, Borana, Gabra, and Dassanetch of northern Kenya. If borders divide people, people benefit nonetheless from the environmental, social, and political entropy that borders generate by using the energy of spatial differences to advance their own individual and collective life projects.