Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Bayreuth, 2004. / Title from title screen (viewed June 10, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 529-541).

To keep in mind while reading and focus of the thesis: -       Sustainable tourism, what is it and who is it for?  -       How can the tourist industry affect cultures?  -       Why do some hosting population fear culture losses but happily receive tourists?  -       Why do people choose to travel?  -       What and how can I as an individual contribute?    The numbers of international tourists are steadily increasing along globalization, which makes it an important phenomenon to highlight. The tourist industry contributes to global development, which would preferably be done through sustainability’s three pillars: economically, socially, and environmentally. Sustainable development and eco-tourism are the main fields for this research. Based on the wish to avoid disturbing peace and harming people, the topic is relevant to investigate. The field study aims to explore and understand the correlations between the development of the tourist industry and the Maasai communities.    Different stakeholders were defined within the tourist industry, to collect various perspectives on this matter through semi-structured interviews and field observations. I choose to investigate the topic by focusing on the world known ethnic group Maasai´s. By centering the conditions of a village based in Siana conservancy, which is located next to Maasai Mara in Kenya. The village consists of habitats who practice traditional and culture settlements. Thus, the interest of the study is to explore and explain why Maasai cannot be viewed as an homogenic ethnic group, with the aim to reduce assumptions.    Social Exchange Theory (SET) was applied as a lens to analyze the findings. To discuss possible reasonings when calculating expected outcomes made by the stakeholders, whether to socially interact based on the key principles in the theory: evaluating profits versus costs before socially engaging.    The findings identify complications with the social exchange that the tourist industry implies. However, the Maasai´s culture based on livestock came to be a central topic from the stakeholder’s perspectives while I was processing and writing the findings. Furthermore, other topics that were highlighted were: education, equity, and education. Lastly, the village members shared a significant fear regarding culture loss, even though they welcomed the root cause of it to continue and even expand - tourism.

Thesis (doctoral)--Sorbonne, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (v. 2, p. 283-312).

Thesis (doctoral)--Sorbonne, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (v. 2, p. 283-312).

This thesis explores the roles of women of faith in peacebuilding in the conflict between the Gusii and Maasai of South-western Kenya. While religion has at times legitimated women’s exclusion and predominantly created male religious elite figures in peacebuilding, I demonstrate how women of faith deploy religious resources for peace. Acting within complex unequal gendered socio-cultural conditions and positions, the women of faith deploy religious faith as an identity, motivation, and legitimating moral authority and voice in peacebuilding. Gendered barriers hinder them from finding status and a place in formal peacebuilding mechanisms alongside males, but still the women of faith struggle and develop an attitude and disposition of moral influence, and faith power that facilitates them to act as agents in peacebuilding. The women of faith deploy religious resources in mourning and burial rituals of healing and reconciliation, in everyday spiritual practices of sharing lives, and through services that provide security and protection especially for children, the elderly, the injured and the infirm. Religion enables women to establish protective infrastructure through women of faith networks and organizations that provide services to the community, mobilize human capital, and conduct outreach and community engagement. I show that even as the women of faith deploy these religious resources for peacebuilding, they recognize the gendered barriers they are faced with and the public peacebuilding mechanisms that they are excluded from. Deployment of religious resources for peacebuilding intersects with gender identities and relations, and in some instances religious faith transcends established gender norms and gendered barriers or even removes them.

<p>This is a case study about the Maasai and their land rights. The Maasai are semi-nomadic pastoralists, living in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. It is said that they came to this area, now called Maasailand, about 300 years ago. In the beginning, they were independent and free to walk and graze their cattle without limitations and regulations. But when the British and German colonizers of these countries came to Maasailand, they discovered the advantages of its nature and started creating reserves. The Maasai were not strong enough to resist and it resulted in a land loss of two thirds for them. This has forced them to change their livelihood. They have to combine their pastoral lifestyle with other ways to make a living.</p><p>The main purpose with the study is to look at how the land loss has affected the Maasai and their livelihoods. The essay is mainly built on secondary sources, but also on a field work from the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, with qualitative interviews. This is used here, in order to give an example of a conservation area where the Maasai and the wildlife successfully coexist. To be able to understand the changes in Maasai livelihoods, the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach has been adapted. With this approach, a more holistic view of the changes can be made. The land losses have not always brought negative results for the Maasai. They have been able to adapt a multiple livelihood, including pastoralism, agriculture and tourist industry. The Maasai might benefit more by adapting different assets; instead of only rely on one.</p>

This thesis presents findings from a qualitative enquiry into the rapid uptake of the mobile phone by pastoral communities in Tanzania and its use as a tool to tackle marketing constraints. The research design involves an interregional comparative analysis of two key production regions: Arusha and the Lake Zone, and two groups of livestock producers (the Maasai pastoralists and Wasukuma agro-pastoralists respectively). Applying the Social Shaping of Technology (SST) perspective from Science and Technology Studies (STS), and in particular the concept of 'appropriation', the study examines the embrace of mobile phones by those producers - who keep livestock under the extensive (pastoralist) and semi-intensive (agro-pastoralist) systems respectively. The thesis examines the extent to which the mobile phone is changing how livestock keepers interact in the livestock market and how this is affecting their livelihoods. The thesis shows that the significance of the mobile phone varies with user groups; for instance, for the Maasai who still lead a nomadic life, the mobile phone is used 'conservatively' to communicate about herd management and to coordinate household affairs in ways that do not substantially disrupt traditional social practices and roles. In contrast, the Wasukuma agro-pastoralists use mobile phones to introduce new processes to support production and marketing, one good example being the strategy used to coordinate transportation of cattle to market. The study findings suggest the extension of the 'appropriation' (Williams, Stewart, & Slack, 2005) conceptualisation by adding the possibility of a spectrum from shallow to extended according to users' role and the context of use. Nevertheless, and in more generic terms, it is possible to say that the mobile phone use did not disrupt some of the traditional practices and trade customs amongst the Maasai, and it has reinforced the innovative behaviour of the Wasukuma. The thesis also examines a parallel initiative whereby aid agencies and public bodies in Tanzania supported the development of the Livestock Information Network and Knowledge System (LINKS), as an ICT platform designed to improve the livestock market by sharing market information. However, studies show that LINKS has not had the intended effect, is not trusted and has not been adopted by many pastoralists. The study shows how the concept of trust, which is key in market dynamics and trade relations, has been reshaped, because the mobile phone has supported informal communications that reinforce traditional methods of policing trust in the market. The thesis contributes to ongoing debates surrounding the conceptualisation of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D). The failure of early ICT4D initiatives was attributed to a failure to address users' specific requirements, due to gaps in the translation process, as well as to socio-political and technical fragilities such as the lack of adequate infrastructure, and a deficient social learning process. The initial reworking of ICT4D highlighted the need to design technology as a specific solution appropriate to particular contexts/user groups. These were seen as finished solutions (corresponding to the idea of a 'technical fix'). Focusing upon 'appropriation', in line with the Social Shaping of Technology - Mark 2 approach - allows scope for a further rethinking of ICT4D which addresses not just design but the active role of users in shaping technological innovation to the context and purposes of communities in developing countries.

The martial eagle (Polemaetus bellicosus) is a vulnerable species that is declining throughout large portions of its range. There is an urgent need to improve understanding of this species’ ecology to inform its conservation. I equipped 20 adult martial eagles with global positioning system backpack transmitters to characterize diet and space use of the species in the Maasai Mara region of Kenya. The resulting high-resolution transmitter data sets allowed for the rapid location of kills and provided a means to estimate home range size. From November 2016 to April 2018, 191 kills were identified from 206 kill location visits. Martial eagle diet comprised 26 prey species of which hares (two Lepus species, 17.3%), impala fawns (Aepyceros melampus, 13.6%) and helmeted guineafowl (Numida meleagris, 12%) were the most numerous. Sex-based differences in diet were found, with females selecting for heavier prey items (p < 0.001). The average 95% kernel density estimated home range for the duration-of-transmitter-placement (average of 372 days) was 174.5 ± 83.2 km2, a much larger estimate than previously reported. This study is the most extensive to date on martial eagle diet and spatial ecology in eastern Africa, and the first to show dietary differences between the sexes.

This is a case study about the Maasai and their land rights. The Maasai are semi-nomadic pastoralists, living in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. It is said that they came to this area, now called Maasailand, about 300 years ago. In the beginning, they were independent and free to walk and graze their cattle without limitations and regulations. But when the British and German colonizers of these countries came to Maasailand, they discovered the advantages of its nature and started creating reserves. The Maasai were not strong enough to resist and it resulted in a land loss of two thirds for them. This has forced them to change their livelihood. They have to combine their pastoral lifestyle with other ways to make a living. The main purpose with the study is to look at how the land loss has affected the Maasai and their livelihoods. The essay is mainly built on secondary sources, but also on a field work from the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, with qualitative interviews. This is used here, in order to give an example of a conservation area where the Maasai and the wildlife successfully coexist. To be able to understand the changes in Maasai livelihoods, the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach has been adapted. With this approach, a more holistic view of the changes can be made. The land losses have not always brought negative results for the Maasai. They have been able to adapt a multiple livelihood, including pastoralism, agriculture and tourist industry. The Maasai might benefit more by adapting different assets; instead of only rely on one.

This thesis analyzes examples of current female circumcision discourse within U.S. feminist contexts and western-based anti-circumcision projects operating in Kenya. This analysis reveals that, despite recent critiques from postcolonial scholars and activists, the knowledge produced around female circumcision perpetuates discursive and material violence against Kenyan Maasai communities. I explore how this violence has persisted in neo/colonial eras as part of the white western feminist ‘care of self’ technique of displacing female abjection through the pleasure of whiteness. I trace how these formations of race and gender have become attached to understandings of genitalia through colonial-era race science, Freudian psychoanalysis and some feminist texts from 1949-1970. I suggest that these western feminist constructions of sexual liberation rely on depicting racialized women as primitive and degenerate. Finally, I argue that these racial and gendered constructions now inform concepts of ‘developed’ versus ‘underdeveloped’ bodies and nations in contemporary international development work.