Human ecology and political process: the context of market incorporation in west Pokot District, Kenya

Abstract

Comprehensive theories of economic change such as world systems or dependency models fail to consider the diversity and resilience of rural economies. To analyze the processes of market incorporation, it is necessary to consider several aspects of the local context, including human ecology and administrative policy. These areas have been undervalued both by world systems theorists and their critics. The market has definite impacts upon the ecosystem which, in turn, constrains and directs market penetration. In addition, diversities exist in the structure of local economies and in the economic goals and motives of states. These are reflected in the varying roles that states play mediating between world market conditions and local incorporation in each local economy. economies. While human ecology and policy provide contexts for human behavior, they do not exist separately from human choice. It is individual choice which unites these contexts and creates the specific history of market This study examines the relationship between economic behavior and processes of market incorporation in West Pokot District, Kenya. It combines a critical synthesis of written and oral history with an examination of current survival strategies. A comprehensive economic and demographic survey of 140 farming and herding families was conducted from March 1977 to September 1978 in Kishaunet Sub location of Mnagei Location. Data were also obtained through extensive participant observation and structured and unstructured interviews with key informants. The study draws upon published and unpublished documents, colonial archives, and oral histories to place existing economic relations into temporal and regional context. In Kishaunet, Pokot have approached the possibilities of market participation in a pragmatic fashion, as potential resources to be tried out and remade to fit their needs. Most sample families who have entered the market have done so selectively with considerable diversification of crops and livestock. The patterns followed insure subsistence stability in a changing economic and political environment