Women's changing economic roles with pastoral sedentarization: Varying strategies in alternate Rendille communities

The trend of pastoral sedentarization in Africa presents new economic opportunities to women through the sale of dairy products, agricultural produce, and labor. This study of Rendille of northern Kenya shows a variety of economic strategies pursued by women in nomadic pastoral, settled agro-pastoral, and town communities. Results of household budgets and interviews with married women indicate that urban centers attract both wealthier Rendille women selling milk and poorer women engaged in wage-labor and petty commodity trade; time allocation data shows that women living in towns work as strenuously as those in pastoral communities, while men in towns work less than in pastoral communities and less than women in both communities; and anthropometric data of women and children suggest that increases in women's income may have a beneficial effect on the nutrition and well-being of their children.     

Stability and resilience in East African Pastoralism: The Rendille and the Ariaal of northern Kenya

The social organizations of two closely related nomadic pastoral societies of northern Kenya, the Rendille and Ariaal, are compared in the context of the relative constancy and variability of their herding environments. It is concluded that the application of Brooks and Yellen's model of stability and resilience in human populations is of value in understanding the impact of environmental constraints on social organization, but it is argued that other social features including the organization of labor and ownership of different livestock types directly bear on the differences between the Rendille and Ariaal.