Carolyn Lesorogol
: Institutional Change among Samburu Pastoralists
My research focuses on the political and economic dimensions of social change processes. I have studied these processes in the context of privatization of communal lands among Samburu pastoralists in Kenya. Why did one Samburu community decide to privatize their land even though their livestock production system depends on access to large tracts of range that have been fairly effectively managed under communal ownership for hundreds of years? Using participant observation, in-depth interviewing and archival research, I analyzed this change in land tenure as a conflict among individuals and groups with divergent interests in land and differing conceptions about the value of private ownership and alternative land uses. Building on bargaining models of institutional change, I demonstrated how the parties to the conflict deployed their initial endowments of bargaining power (conceived of both in material and ideological terms) and worked to enhance their bargaining positions over the course of the conflict. In the end, relatively equal bargaining power between the parties led to a compromise solution of equal sub-division of land. I also explored the emergence, after privatization, of new rhetoric in favor of privatization, even among those initially opposed to privatization. I show how this rhetoric serves interests of old and new leaders who have turned privatization into yet another source of bargaining power as they re-position their community vis-à-vis their neighbors.
Another aspect of this research is to examine the outcomes of privatization on household well-being and individual behavior. While there are some studies of privatization of pastoral lands in Africa, there is very little data on the actual implications of privatization on either of these levels. Using household level socio-economic data on a range of variables, I compared the situation in the privatized community to another Samburu community in which land remains communally owned. Contrary to assumptions among many scholars of pastoral areas that privatization inevitably leads to landlessness and economic decline, my data indicate that, in this case, privatization enabled a greater diversification of production which buffered the community from losses in the recent drought of 1999-2000. This analysis reinforces the importance of detailed examinations of actual outcomes in order to draw conclusions about the likely effects of changes in land tenure.
To explore shifts in individual behavior that might be attributable to privatization, I conducted a series of experimental economics games in the privatized and communal communities. These games are designed to elicit certain behaviors by controlling a set of strategic choices made by the participants. Combined with ethnographic observations and demographic data, games provide a rigorous way to compare behavior across communities and cultures. My results in Samburu indicate that privatization may decrease cooperative behavior, but seems to have no effect on self-interested or trusting behavior. These results are consistent with those found in a larger study of cross-cultural behavior using the same methods.
