Coping Strategies Employed by Indigenous Communities After Resettlement: A Case of the Ogiek Community of Mau East, Kenya

Abstract

Indigenous people pursue traditional livelihood strategies and related forms of employment and occupation as part of their right to exist, have their cultures and ways of life. Natural resources are significant for the survival of any community especially the indigenous and those living in marginal areas. The Ogiek are one of Kenya’s indigenous’ communities who traditionally depended on forests for their livelihoods.  Before the initiation of land resettlement the Ogiek were involved in the local and regional trading networks, bartering honey and meat from wild animals. Honey was eaten, stored for future use, brewed into beer and traded. It is said to have been the main product for barter trade. In the 1990s’ Kenyan government initiated land resettlement of Ogiek households living in of Mau East, the land was demarcated and allocated to individuals in order to enable them live in a modern way and practice new methods of agriculture and trade. The study therefore, sought to evaluate coping strategies employed by Ogiek households after resettlement Through a cross –sectional survey, primary data was collected using sets of structured and semi-structured questionnaires and focused group discussions while secondary data was obtained from documented materials.. To select respondents to be interviewed, snowball sampling was used to pick the household heads from the five locations in Mau East to give 150 respondents. The unit of analysis was household heads from the five locations in Mau East. The data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Subsequently, descriptive statistics was used to describe the results, and Chi-square performed to explore the relative importance of a number of variables in evaluating coping strategies employed by Ogiek households after resettlement. The results indicated that, Ogiek households practiced farming and herding, business, bee keeping, formal and informal employment, and sale of charcoal and timbers as coping strategies after resettlement. It was concluded that, land resettlement transformed the Ogiek’s lifestyle of hunting and gathering to that of agriculture and entrepreneurship. It is recommended that creation of awareness of new methods of farming, technological improvements and, marketing of farm produces is needed. Further, it is anticipated that the findings of the study will add to the knowledge of policy makers on improving the socio-economic livelihoods of the Ogiek households in general.

Keywords: Coping Strategies, Land Resettlement, Livelihoods, Ogiek