Publication date: 1 November 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781806552092

Number of illustrations: 29

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Pastoral Prosperities

Rethinking African drylands

Samuel F. Derbyshire (Editor), Tahira Mohamed (Editor), Rahma Hassan (Editor)

Series: Global Prosperity in Thought and Practice

Pastoral Prosperities brings together contributions from diverse disciplinary perspectives to explore the future of mobile pastoralism in Africa’s drylands. Offering new empirical material from across the continent, it builds on pioneering works that have challenged fundamental assumptions about development, questioning approaches that overlook well-being, purpose, quality of life and environmental health as central bearings of human flourishing. The book asks how the future is imagined and fought for in the drylands, and how understandings of this might broaden analytical frames that otherwise privilege narrow economic indicators.

Taking stock of the enduring power of negative narratives about pastoralism, the volume considers counter-narratives from multiple corners, tracing their alternative visions of both the past and the future. It explores everyday aspirations and practices to make sense of sweeping socio-economic, political and environmental change. In doing so, Pastoral Prosperities gestures towards new cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral conversations that might inform more grounded approaches to investment, governance and support in the years ahead.

List of figures
List of tables
List of contributors
List of abbreviations
Foreword
Acknowledgements

Introduction: Pastoral prosperities
Samuel F. Derbyshire, Tahira Mohamed and Rahma Hassan

Part I: Crisis

1 Pastoral prosperity in crisis
Samuel F. Derbyshire and Rahma Hassan

2 Projections of prosperity: crisis, development and the marginalisation of pastoralism in Ethiopia
Roba Jilo

3 Sharing futures: lessons from pastoralist disaster response in northern Somalia
Sahra Ahmed Koshin

4 Prosperity in decline: moral and political ecologies of pastoral adaptation in Guji and Borana, Ethiopia
Geleta Tesfaye Berisso

Part II: Commerce

5 Negotiating prosperity: pastoralist livestock marketing in northern Kenya
Guyo Roba

6 Markets, conflict and change: forging prosperity through uncertainty in pastoral Kenya and Ethiopia
Rupsha Banerjee, Tanaya DuttaGupta, Kelvin Shikuku, Meshak Baraza, Watson Lepariyo, Diba Galgalo and Wako Gobu

7 Pastoralist women’s pathways to prosperity: collective solidarity, commoning and moral economy practices in Kenya’s arid and semi-arid lands
Eunice Wangari-Muneri and Tahira Mohamed

Part III: Connection

8 Social capital and everyday practices of resilience building among pastoralists in Karamoja
Padmini Iyer and Simon Peter Longoli

9 Nomadic skillsets beyond the desert: Western Sahara’s post-pastoralist generation
Matthew Porges

10 Navigating uncertainty through institutional adaptability in northern Uganda
Matteo Caravani

Afterword: the drylands of tomorrow
Gufu Oba

DOI: 10.14324/111.9781806552092

Number of illustrations: 29

Publication date: 01 November 2026

PDF ISBN: 9781806552092

EPUB ISBN: 9781806552108

Hardback ISBN: 9781806552078

Paperback ISBN: 9781806552085

Samuel F. Derbyshire (Editor)

Samuel F. Derbyshire is a social anthropologist at the International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya. His work explores social and environmental change across Africa's drylands.. He was previously Junior Research Fellow in Anthropology at St John’s College, University of Oxford (2018-2023). His past work has explored social and economic change in pastoralist contexts in northern Kenya, including in his book Remembering Turkana: Material Histories and Contemporary Livelihoods in North-Western Kenya (Routledge, 2020).

Tahira Mohamed (Editor)

Tahira Mohamed is Regional Partnership and Engagement Lead at the Jameel Observatory for Food Security Early Action at the International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya. Her research examines resilience-building programs and humanitarian support in response to crises in the Horn of Africa. She holds a PhD from the University of Sussex, which she undertook via the PASTRES program. She has roughly 10 years of research experience in pastoralism, climate change, livelihood transformation, photo-voice research methods and migration.

Rahma Hassan (Editor)

Rahma Hassan is a researcher with the Centre for Research and Development in Drylands and holds a PhD in Development Studies from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Nairobi. She has worked extensively with the Feinstein International Centre and the Centre for Research and Development in the Drylands (CRDD) on pastoralist livelihoods and resilience. She has published on communal land rights and has contributed to examinations of natural governance and gender issues at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi.

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Pastoral Prosperities

Rethinking African drylands

Series: Global Prosperity in Thought and Practice

Publication date: November 1, 2026

Open Access PDF ISBN: 9781806552092

Paperback ISBN: 9781806552085

Hardback ISBN: 9781806552078

Trim size (hardback): 23.4cm x 15.6cm

Trim size (paperback): 23.4cm x 15.6cm

Download free PDF online

https://uclpress.co.uk/book/pastoral-prosperities/

Pastoral Prosperities brings together contributions from diverse disciplinary perspectives to explore the future of mobile pastoralism in Africa’s drylands. Offering new empirical material from across the continent, it builds on pioneering works that have challenged fundamental assumptions about development, questioning approaches that overlook well-being, purpose, quality of life and environmental health as central bearings of human flourishing. The book asks how the future is imagined and fought for in the drylands, and how understandings of this might broaden analytical frames that otherwise privilege narrow economic indicators.

Taking stock of the enduring power of negative narratives about pastoralism, the volume considers counter-narratives from multiple corners, tracing their alternative visions of both the past and the future. It explores everyday aspirations and practices to make sense of sweeping socio-economic, political and environmental change. In doing so, Pastoral Prosperities gestures towards new cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral conversations that might inform more grounded approaches to investment, governance and support in the years ahead.

Samuel F. Derbyshire (Editor)

Samuel F. Derbyshire is a social anthropologist at the International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya. His work explores social and environmental change across Africa's drylands.. He was previously Junior Research Fellow in Anthropology at St John’s College, University of Oxford (2018-2023). His past work has explored social and economic change in pastoralist contexts in northern Kenya, including in his book Remembering Turkana: Material Histories and Contemporary Livelihoods in North-Western Kenya (Routledge, 2020).

Tahira Mohamed (Editor)

Tahira Mohamed is Regional Partnership and Engagement Lead at the Jameel Observatory for Food Security Early Action at the International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya. Her research examines resilience-building programs and humanitarian support in response to crises in the Horn of Africa. She holds a PhD from the University of Sussex, which she undertook via the PASTRES program. She has roughly 10 years of research experience in pastoralism, climate change, livelihood transformation, photo-voice research methods and migration.

Rahma Hassan (Editor)

Rahma Hassan is a researcher with the Centre for Research and Development in Drylands and holds a PhD in Development Studies from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Nairobi. She has worked extensively with the Feinstein International Centre and the Centre for Research and Development in the Drylands (CRDD) on pastoralist livelihoods and resilience. She has published on communal land rights and has contributed to examinations of natural governance and gender issues at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi.