Pastoralism volume 7 , Article number: 13 Cite this article. Metrics details. The colonial experiences of pastoralist women have been largely ignored in the literature on Africa. The paper explores the process by which Borana society was brought into contact with the colonial economy and commercialization of their pastoralist activities. Though the discourse of inequalities and marginalization of pastoralists is well-documented in literature on pastoral societies, case studies of pastoral women's experiences with colonization have received little attention.
It was only recently that the previously ignored responses by pastoral societies to the changing socio-economic and political situations have begun to get some scholarly attention. At the same time, case studies regarding how women experienced changes did not - with exceptions -For example, Hilarie Kelly , Gudrun Dahl , Aud Talle , and Jean Ensminger explore how roles, rights and gender relations have changed over time within pastoral production.
Even so these studies have examined the status and roles of women as if they are a recent phenomenon when such roles have been part of a long tradition. Women played roles ranging from herding small stock to economic roles of processing the primary products of milk, meat and skins and exercised considerable power and influence over the distribution and exchange of these products Kipuri and Ridgewell Footnote 1. However, this changed during the s colonization of Africa. During the almost seven decades of British rule in Kenya, the colonial government introduced socio-economic and political policies to facilitate the integration of Kenyan societies into the colonial economy.
For pastoral societies in northern Kenya, British authorities challenged the legitimacy of pastoral institutions through state-imposed policies of compulsory destocking, grazing controls and restriction of movements. This process gradually led to the integration of pastoralists into the colonial economy. The Borana women, like other pastoral women, discharged their roles based on the principles outlined above. The history of Christianity in northern Kenya has been explored by Tablino , but it is important to note that unlike other parts of the colony, in northern Kenya, Christianity did not establish a significant presence until the final decades of colonial rule.
(mh=Y1nhp2ffkWC4eReI)1.jpg "Woman in Gainesville")
Although missionary presence dates back to the early twentieth century, Christianity started taking root in northern Kenya only in the s and s. While both men and women were affected, it fell largely on women who dominated religious and ritual practices as a venue to assert their roles.
