Pastoralist Resilience to Environmental Collapse in East Africa since 1500

Gufu Oba is Professor at the Faculty of Landscape and Society (LANDSAM) in the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

“The historical events each chapter describes and the different forms of adaptation are put into the context of meteorological events. … The author envisages the immediate use of the book as a foundational text for a pastoralist training centre in the Obbu Boran region. In this context, too, it will be a source of inspiration and the rich information the book provides bodes well for the success of this enterprise.” (Günther Schlee, Nomadic Peoples, May 1, 2025)

• Chapter 1. Managing Resilience in Pastoralism: An Introduction.- Part I Regional Memories of Disasters.- Chapter 2. Historical Research Methods: Regional and Local Cases.- Chapter 3. Social Memory on a Historical Scale: Configuring Cyclic Disasters, 1500–the 1900s.- Chapter 4. Colonial Trans-frontier Grazing Controls: Responses to Political and Climatic Shocks, 1908–1962.- Part II Reorganization and Adaptive Diversities.- Chapter 5. Collapse and Transformation of Pastoralism: Pathways of Land-use Change, the 1960s–2000.- Chapter 6. The Individual in Drought Livestock Management Strategies: Mobility as a Proxy for Pastoral Resilience, the 1980s–2011.- Chapter 7. Impacts of Decadal Droughts on Cattle Populations: Tracking Household Wealth Dynamics, 1982–2011.- Part III Collapse and Transformation of Social Capital Networks.- Chapter 8. Resilience of Social Capital Networks: Collapse and Transformation, 1991–2012.- Chapter 9. Resilient Neighborhood Household Food Security: Women’s SocialCapital Networks, 1987–1996.- Chapter 10. Innovating Pastoral Resilience in the Future: A Synthesis./