Interethnic Grievance, Economic Compensation, and Colonial Governance of Kenya’s Northwestern Borderlands

This paper focuses on institutionalization of economic compensation by the British colonial administration to ameliorate “disorder” resulting from inter-ethnic raiding and counter-raiding activities in Kenya’s northwestern borderlands. British administration was drawn into livestock raiding feuds between the local Turkana community and their Dassanech and Donyiro neighbors from Ethiopian across the fluid border. The paper moves away from the militaristic perspective of colonial enforcement of law and order in porous borderlands and focuses on institutionalization of livestock “payments” by the British to discourage cattle raids and loss of human life. The paper demonstrates the ability by colonial states to expand their repertoire of governance strategies in unstable borderlands beyond military policing, by coopting local modes of production in resolving inter-ethnic grievance while staking claims to contested areas of the borderlands. Besides its political expediency, this strategy expanded the colonial state’s revenue base, ensuring that pacification of borderlands was inextricably tied to the government’s economic needs.