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The literature on the demography of pastoral populations tends to consider pastoralism as an independent determinant of the levels and patterns of fertility and mortality. Despite a general lack of adequate data, there is a preoccupation with the low fertility of pastoral populations. Demographic data are presented for three Malian populations: sedentary Bambara cultivators and two Kel Tamasheq groups of nomadic pastoralists. These populations are compared and contrasted and internal social class differentials are examined. Bambara have higher fertility than the two pastoral populations and all three groups have different patterns of mortality. Child mortality levels vary significantly between Kel Tamasheq social classes. An examination of the intermediate determinants of fertility identifies marriage as the most important differentiating factor. For mortality a similar approach is unable to identify any particular intermediate variable as the dominant determinant of the observed patterns. The principal mortality differentials occur, however, within the pastoral populations, where high status, rich social classes have higher child mortality than poor, low status ex-slaves. Intensive, qualitative studies of marriage and social class variation show that although the pastoral Kel Tamasheq are demographically different from the Bambara, these differences are caused as much by socio-cultural factors as by economic ones. Kel Tamasheq kinship, household formation patterns and the importance of prestige and status mean that women may spend many of their child-bearing years between marriages, either divorced or widowed. This contrasts with the Bambara pattern of continuous marriage maintained through divorce, polygyny and inheritance, vhere much status and wealth is acquired through having children. The same socio-cultural factors create variation in Tamasheq child care patterns. Social constraints on high status mothers operate in the opposite direction from economic constraints, producing unexpected patterns of social class mortality differentials. The study concludes that nomadic pastoralists are not demographically different from cultivating populations because of their production system. To understand why the observed differences do occur, intensive qualitative studies are needed to supplement and explain the quantitative data.

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Diss. Uppsala : Uppsala universitet, 2006.

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In recent decades, various perspectives have emerged that draw attention to the construction of gender and gender inequalities. This discussion examines feminist perspectives in relation to development and development's effects on women in pastoral societies. The article compares the Women in Development (WID), eco-feminist and postmodernist approaches to development and seeks to understand what kind of criticism these theoretical orientations can offer on pastoral development projects. I focus especially on the effects of development on women's bargaining power within the household, using data from my own fieldwork in Niger and records from other pastoral societies. My discussion shows that while WID criticizes the pastoral development as being gender-biased and reducing women's bargaining power within the household, the ecofeminist and postmodernist perspectives would question the development practice itself and attempt to deconstruct the dimensions of power within the field of development.

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Nigeria recently became the leading economy in Sub-Saharan Africa with a total GDP of 522.64 billion of US dollars (Tradingeconomics.com). As GDP increases, population rises and food demand intensifies. Within this context it is of critical importance to achieve food security. However, Nigeria heavily relies in exportations in order to meet the growing food demand, especially of meat products, a situation which is not desirable. The livestock industry, although one of the largest in Sub-Saharan Africa, still constrained by several endemic livestock diseases which result in annual economic loses for value of 140 million of US dollars (Fadiga et al., 2013). Within this group, bovine and porcine trypasosomiasis alone has been estimated to be responsible for 50 million of US dollars in economic loses in Nigeria (Fadiga et al., 2013). However, the real epidemiological situation, and hence the possibility of developing a rational control programme, remains largely unknown across the country due to the absence of large epidemiological studies. Majority of the trypanosomiasis research studies in Nigeria employ the Haematocrit technique or the Buffy coat technique and Giemsa stain as a diagnostic method. These techniques possess a high specificity but a much lower sensitivity than the molecular method employed in this research study. In fact, better epidemiological studies employing molecular techniques have been conducted in recent times such (Majekodumni et al., 2013a; Takeet et al., 2013) and results displayed much higher trypanosomiasis prevalence than previously detected by microscopy. In many sub-Saharan countries the majority of national livestock herds are owned by mobile communities; however, the trypanosome status of cattle owned by mobile pastoralist communities have been less thoroughly studied when compared to those of sedentary livestock keepers. In this doctoral work, the epidemiology of trypanosomiasis was studied, in transhumant herds located in two different Nigerian enclaves: the Kachia grazing reserve and the Jos Plateau, both located in North-central Nigeria. Within Kachia, the ecology appears to determine the presence of infection with a spatially differentiated distribution of the detected trypanosome species being observed across the reserve that appears not to be related to the migration of livestock. While upon the Jos Plateau, the current reduction in trypanosome prevalence suggests an abrupt change in the trypanosome infection rates in this part of the country. The hypothesis established in this doctoral work is that these epidemiologically different scenarios are the result of land pressures that have ultimately resulted in the habitat destruction of the vector. Longitudinal data was also collected in order to assess the effectivity of different formulations of synthetic pyrethroids for the combined control of trypanosomiasis and tick-borne diseases. Insecticide treated cattle represents at the moment the best long-term and cost-effective method for the control of the vector responsible for the transmission of trypanosomiasis, the tsetse fly. Since no data exist about the efficacy of the insecticide or the compliance of the pastoralist population with its application under migratory conditions, its performance was assessed in this doctoral work. In addition, animal health outcomes were monitored to stablish the possible relationship between clinical symptoms and disease outcome and socio-economic data relevant for the dynamics of disease such as migration trends, husbandry practices, awareness and administered treatment has been also analysed. The compiled information of this data will establish the risk associated with contracting the disease and provide further indications for the control of African bovine trypanosomiasis in the specific context of transhumant pastoral systems of sub-humid sub-Saharan African.

Kenya's Maasai Mara ecosystem is a particularly contested landscape when it concerns conservation and development interests. In recent years, private conservancies have emerged, redefining the relationships between conservation, tourism and local Maasai pastoralists. The partnership forged between ecotourism operators and Maasai landowners is celebrated as community conservation, bringing together a win for wildlife, and a win for livelihoods. Despite the rhetoric, inherent trade-offs are being made, particularly by pastoralists who now have to navigate an extended network of conservation boundaries with their livestock. Through a qualitative methods approach, this research gauges various stakeholder positions in relation to the emerging conservation partnership. Initial findings suggest the conservancies have made progress in alleviating some of the historical failures inherent in East Africa’s well-preserved ‘fortress conservation’ story. Yet the future of the conservancies remains unclear, in large part due to community concerns for livestock, resource access, and rights to self-determination. The conservancy format in Maasailand needs to consider greater efforts in fashioning a true partnership before it can consider itself a win-win enterprise.