LAUSR

Abstract Studies about resource access in pastoral communities in sub-Saharan Africa have tended to focus on rangelands where livestock graze. While rangeland spaces are indeed critical to livestock production and pastoral livelihoods, the emphasis on resources in rangelands has obscured the importance of livestock-related resources and the management of such resources in other spaces; namely, the pastoral home. Moreover, given that herders who lead livestock to graze in rangelands are generally male, the focus of studies in rangelands has underemphasized women’s roles in managing livestock-related resources within the home. This article therefore demonstrates how the question of resource access for pastoralists pertains not only to forage in rangelands where livestock graze but also to resources within households and women’s spaces. Contested resources in households include livestock themselves and the milk that they produce as a principal source of food, both of which are primarily managed by women. Relying on mixed methods data (including interviews, surveys, an in-depth focal household study, and participant observation) collected over 14 months from 2014 to 2015 in a pastoral community in southern Kenya, this article uses a gendered approach to re-conceptualize resource access in pastoral households by considering the multiple, gendered spaces and levels at which livestock-related resources are managed. This article provides evidence for how alternative views of livestock management strategies based on intra-household resource access can complement existing scholarship on pastoral livelihoods.