Understanding lived experiences of climate change adaptation processes: Diversification subjectivities among Maasai pastoralists in southern Kenya

Abstract

Adaptation planning efforts frequently overlooks the experiences of those undergoing broader transformations in their daily lives, notably in rapidly changing pastoral systems facing an interplay of both climatic and non-climatic pressures. This paper explores lived experiences related to engagement in three livelihood diversification activities among Maasai pastoralists in southern Kenya: small-scale fishing, crop farming and small businesses. We build and expand on insights from feminist political ecologies to contribute to the growing scholarship on the role of intersectional subjectivities in adaptation processes. Photovoice is used in combination with qualitative interviews to probe how socially differentiated pastoralists experience and engage with diversification activities. This approach allows us to unpack pastoralists’ sense of self and others amid important changes in pastoral livelihoods. We find that engagements with diversification are non-linear, entailing everyday practices that shift seasonally and annually. Maasai pastoralists who diversify increasingly articulate their engagement as entrepreneurial to complement pastoral livestock keeping amidst economic and climatic instability, thereby also rearticulating their belonging to an evolving pastoral identity. Examining pastoralists’ lived experiences highlights social differentiation processes, notably due to intersecting gendered norms and wealth differences and brings into view localized understandings of what being adaptive means. It further points out the materialities of different diversification activities and the role of place and space in reshaping how individuals and groups understand and frame their roles in communities, revealing contradictions and tensions associated with engaging in diversification as an adaptation strategy. Such insights are crucial to ensure adaptation planning efforts better correspond with local resource users’ own ambitions without deepening social inequalities.