Livelihood Shifts and Gender Performances: Space and the Negotiation for Labor among East Africa's Pastoralists

In the last few decades there has been a distinct shift in Masai pastoral livelihoods in Kenya's rangelands, creating new livelihood activities and new gendered demands on labor. This article builds on new feminist political ecologies (FPEs) that incorporate recent developments in postructuralist and performative theorizations of gender. I extend new FPE theoretically, through the incorporation of Arendt's theory of action, especially her theorization of plurality. Plurality allows us to capture the unique dynamics of the performance of negotiation for labor control displayed by Masai husbands and wives. I also extend FPE empirically, through the examination of an African and pastoralist context. I pay attention to the role that space plays in the process of negotiating gendered inequality. Based on forty in-depth interviews complemented by ethnographic fieldwork, the research demonstrates that the women and men interviewed are deeply aware of how space conveys particular meanings during negotiations. In all instances, the effectiveness of each man and woman's performance cannot be understood outside of this spatial context. As pastoral livelihoods shift, the boundaries of what it means to be a Masai are pushed. In this context, the disciplinary power of culture and the meanings of gender become destabilized, allowing for a renegotiation and forging of gender norms and subjectivities.