This article analyzes the progression from traditional to current pastoralist practices and the contemporary diversification of livelihoods of the Jie group of the Karimojong in the Kotido district in Karamoja (Uganda). the focus is on changes of land use, framed by the commons debate. We identify factors that have forced the Karimojong to abandon their traditional mobile pastoral lifestyle and to adopt new income-generating activities, including charcoal production and brick-making, which may have detrimental effects on local forest and soil cover. These have included repeated enclosure of common grazing lands by colonial and post-colonial governments. We conducted empirical research (interviews and focus group discussions) in 2012. They confirm the superiority of traditional pastoralist practices (in terms of safeguarding sustained productivity of pastures) compared to the current situation. An important factor leading to current unsustainable pastoralist practice involved the mass acquisition of firearms by the Karimojong in the 1970s and 1980s, violent cattle raiding and subsequent unequal disarmament and establishment of army-controlled cattle herding. This radical enclosure of the commons by the government, linked to impoverishment of a large part of the population in terms of cattle numbers, has necessitated the emergence of new, potentially environmentally detrimental livelihoods for the Jie. However, the escalation of the firearm crisis cannot be seen in isolation from a century of commons enclosure by governments, curtailing traditional practices and leading to insecurity and impoverishment of the Karimojong. The situation is exacerbated by current policies of the Ugandan government, geared to agricultural sedentarization, which may be unsustainable given the local natural and climatic conditions.
Changes in pastoralist commons management and their implications in Karamoja (Uganda)
Published 2017 in Journal of Political Ecology
ABSTRACT
PUBLICATION RECORD
- Publication year
2017
- Venue
Journal of Political Ecology
- Publication date
2017-09-27
- Fields of study
Sociology, Economics, Environmental Science
- Identifiers
- External record
- Source metadata
Semantic Scholar
CITATION MAP
EXTRACTION MAP
CLAIMS
CONCEPTS
- agricultural sedentarization
A policy orientation that promotes settled farming over mobile pastoral livelihoods.
Aliases: sedentarization, settlement farming
- army-controlled cattle herding
A cattle-management arrangement in which livestock herding is organized or overseen by the army.
Aliases: military-controlled cattle herding
- brick-making
A household or local production activity that manufactures bricks for construction markets.
Aliases: brick making
- charcoal production
An income-generating activity that turns wood into charcoal for sale.
Aliases: charcoal making
- common grazing lands
Shared rangelands used collectively for grazing livestock in Karamoja.
Aliases: commons, shared grazing lands
- commons enclosure
Restriction, appropriation, or control of shared grazing land by state or other authorities.
Aliases: enclosure of the commons, common enclosure
- firearm crisis
The period of widespread firearm acquisition and associated cattle-raiding violence in Karamoja.
Aliases: mass acquisition of firearms, gun crisis
- traditional pastoralist practices
Mobile cattle-based herding and grazing arrangements used by the Jie and other Karimojong groups.
Aliases: mobile pastoralism, pastoralist practices
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