ABSTRACT
The Kenyan pastoral rangelands are undergoing tenure reform, changing from “customary” systems of communal management to the privatization and allocation of individual freehold title. This process has stirred up considerable debate among scholars, policy-makers, and pastoralists, with many warning of impending crises regarding livelihood disruption and advocating a return to the customary collective land-tenure systems. At the academic and policy levels, the voices and perspectives of female pastoralists are remarkably absent from this debate. Yet locally, among the Maasai in Kenya, women hold strong opinions about how privatization impacts their well-being.
