ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the problem of subsistence change from nomadic pastoralism to sedentary agriculture as a consequence of drought and its subsequent effects on the social, economic, and political structures of Somali populations living in northeastern Kenya. The severe drought affecting the Sahelian region of Africa during the past decade has revealed the vulnerability of pastoralists to extreme ecological pressure and has made evident the lack of scientific understanding of human adaptation to marginal environments. The drought occurring in northern Kenya is an eastern extension of the phenomenon experienced by several million Sahelians in the early 1970s. The severe drought and accompanying loss of livestock were particularly onerous owing to the scarcity of economic alternatives that could absorb famine refugees. In reviewing Somali settlement in Kenya one must note that, although the new settlers were refugees from famine, they were not geographically displaced.
