ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on northern Kenyan livestock trading networks, which present an array of different risks and a multi-ethnic setting. The cattle trading chain in Kenya/Ethiopia borderland area follows an ascending sequence starting from smaller market places in southern Ethiopia through a medium size market in Moyale, Kenya, to a large market in Nairobi. The chapter argues that social relations based on trust reduce market transaction costs. Cattle traders in northern Kenya find it increasingly necessary to forge trading partnerships and establish networks to avoid or reduce trading risks. It concerns specific trading that includes insecurity, high transport costs, loan defaults and a poor credit system in Nairobi. A chain of livestock market actors has sometimes been referred to as trading partners. The current pastoral literature covers aspects as the commodification of livestock and the process by which pastoral communities are gradually drawn into the larger economic system of the state and world system.
