The Politics of Pastoralist Vulnerability: an Intersectional Perspective

The persistent of vulnerability of Ethiopian pastoralists’ to drought and conflict has attracted a number of state and non-state development actors. Though vast relief efforts are underway, the vulnerability of the people still persists. Perspectives on pastoralists’ vulnerability have been polarized between the two epistemological stances, foundationalist vis-à-vis anti-foundationalist, adopted by the government and PFE respectively with inconsistent stands when it comes to policy visions and implementation. There is limited attempt on both sides to understand pastoralism and pastoralists in plural terms. As a result, neither of the perspectives makes an effort to adequately address the complex factors that caused pastoralists vulnerability, nor does their prescribed solution address the lived experiences of the people under a strained mode of life. In this paper, I argue that the persistence of pastoralists’ vulnerability is due to lack of appropriate response rooted in lack of understanding of the interplay between social, political, economic and environmental forces within and outside the mode of life that caused vulnerability. The efforts to reducing pastoralists vulnerability and to alleviate their burdens requires finding a common platform for action to built an understanding of complexity from a situated perspective with concern for context, perceptions and action of marginalized sub-groups within pastoralists communities, namely the women and minority clans who have an epistemic privilege to see and understand more objectively the dynamics within and outside the mode of life that affect them directly.