Routledge Remembering Turkana: Material Histories and Contemporary Livelihoods in North-Western Kenya (Routledge Studies in African Archaeology and Cultural Heritage)

This book explores aspects of the socio-economic and political history of the Turkana of northern Kenya, examining the making and remaking of the regional economy via the trajectories of socio-material interaction that have structured key practices, relationships and livelihoods over the past century. Traversing Turkana’s constituent livelihoods and examining the historical relationships between them in relation to shifting economic, ecological and political factors, the book asks what perspective emerges from an in-depth understanding of the everyday things that have taken part in processes of substantial socio-cultural transformation. By setting out a series of new examples established through long-term research in the region, it offers a characterisation of Turkana’s iterative transformation as the articulation of a set of long-term continuities. Investigating quotidian personal and community histories, it argues that Turkana’s complex network of livelihood interactions has, on the whole, strengthened over time through its continual reformulation, as identities, livelihood practices and social institutions have been re-imagined and reshaped with each new generation in order to reconstruct accumulated memory and knowledges. Remembering Turkana provides a wide-ranging socio-historical overview of the Turkana region and people, situating critical contemporary issues within diverse bodies of literature. The characterisation of long-term change and continuity, as articulated and enacted via material culture production, use and exchange, that it offers will be of significance to a broad array of scholarly disciplines, including archaeology, history, anthropology and political science. Review "Samuel Derbyshire gifts us a refreshing book about the Turkana drylands in northern Kenya, about the complexity of pastoral societies, and about memory, history and change." - Greta Semplici and J. Terrence McCabe, Nomadic Peoples "The book presents a picture of Turkana history and social change that manages to weave together the different pieces of knowledge that archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, political ecologists and others have so far produced... Derbyshire utilises a wide range of literature, making the book particularly interesting to development and historical anthropologists, historical archaeologists, material culture researchers, researchers working on sustainability issues and political scientists alike. I would especially recommend it as one of the first books to read for researchers just starting out in the region." - Nik Petek-Sargeant, AZANIA: ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN AFRICA About the Author Samuel F. Derbyshire is a Junior Research Fellow in Anthropology at St John’s College, University of Oxford.