Links between gendered division of labor and land use in Oloitokitok Division, S.E. Kajiado District, Kenya

Pastoral production systems have been undergoing endogenously and exogenously driven change in recent years. One predominant change in pastoral production systems involves a shift from pure pastoralism to an integration of crop and livestock production. In this study, I explore the impact of one such livelihood and land use shift on gender roles and relations among the Ilkisongo Maasai of Oloitokitok Division in Southeast Kajiado District, Kenya.; My research uses the feminist political ecology theoretical frameworks to investigate how gender roles and relations are related to land use patterns, and how land use and gender roles and relations vary along the Mt. Kilimanjaro ecological gradient. I collected data using a variety of methods, and at various scales. The land use and land cover maps were from secondary sources and they had been analyzed from Landsat MSS, Landsat TM and SPOT imagery. Data on cropping patterns, labor allocation and intra-household labor negotiations were collected from men and women in household interviews, key informant interviews, group meetings and through participant observation.; Irrigated and rain-fed farming have expanded at the expense of grazing areas in the study area. Crops are increasingly grown for sale. Livestock kept and patterns of animal husbandry have also changed. In irrigated areas, men contribute most of the labor used in crop production. Women contribute most of the labor required for livestock production in all the agro-ecological zones. Forces of change include structural adjustment policies, the national land reform, ecological conditions and a variety of social and political factors. Patterns of labor negotiation display both cooperation and conflict within the households. I also found gendered patterns of landscape use in both crop and livestock production in Oloitokitok Division.; In this study, I argue for the re-inclusion of men in gender analysis. I contribute to the recent literature on masculinities by illustrating the role that men play in crop production in an agro-pastoral community. My findings also contribute to the literature on gender and pastoralism by arguing for the recognition of the importance of women in pastoral communities. By including both men and women and investigating their relations within the crop and livestock production process, I have made a contribution to the feminist political ecology theoretical framework. I make a second contribution to feminist political ecology through a discussion on the gendered landscapes of cropping, grazing, conflict and marketing. My third contribution to feminist political ecology is through the investigation of the processes of cooperation and conflict and how these change as livelihoods change. My results have important implications for policy in agriculture and natural resource management. Crop cultivation and livestock rearing need to be understood in the context of their gendered labor requirements. Both men and women need to be engaged from the planning stages of agricultural development projects. Natural resource management projects need to be understood as land uses that compete for land and labor with relatively more profitable land uses such as crop and livestock production. In this study, I also explore the implications that the results have for other pastoral societies in Eastern Africa.