Pastoralism and Pentecostalism: Christian dimensions of land changes in southern Kenya

Abstract (English)

In southern Kenya, cultural, social and economic transformations in Maasai (agro)pastoralists’ lives and livelihoods reflect their conversion to Pentecostalism. Yet, despite conspicuous Evangelical Christian faith-related manifestations across these pastoral communities – from proliferating local/transnational Pentecostal churches to lively public religious performances – contemporary analyses of Maasai livelihoods and environments sidestep the potential influence of Pentecostalism in transforming local relations with the land. In this paper, we analyze long-term ethnographic data (2002-23) to examine entanglements of Pentecostalism with land tenure and use changes, evolving concepts of human-non-human relationships, and responses to climatic instability on former land commons in Narok and Kajiado Counties. We find that in both the Maasai Mara and Amboseli areas, Pentecostal churches (and their pastors) are key, though unrecognized, actors in land privatization processes and the booming land market – being simultaneously involved in purchasing land, preaching against land sales and arbitrating land conflicts. We highlight the formal subdivision of a communally owned group ranch and show how its ongoing land demarcation, whose plan was co-designed by a group of young Christian men and pastors of a consortium of Pentecostal churches, is leading to socially equitable and ecologically appropriate outcomes. In contrast with neighboring privatized group ranches, the “Biblical” group ranch subdivision plan has guaranteed equal parcels of land for all families while preserving the mobility of domestic and wild animals. At the same time, by offering seminars, business training, and mobile financial products, some churches encourage “progress” and engagement with the market through farming, “modern” livestock production, wildlife conservation and exotic tree planting in ways that reshape local ecologies. Other churches lead climate change mitigation efforts and collective prayers for rain. Answering Wilkins’s (2021) call for political ecological inquiry to take religious actors and institutions seriously, this study exposes the complexity of religious-environmental relationships in Kenya Maasailand. We argue that scholarship on Maasai pastoralism, livelihoods and their changing environments would benefit from paying attention to current religious transformations.