MOLDING THE NON-MAASAI:

PASTORALIST ENCOUNTERS WITH

MODERN EDUCATION

MOLDING THE NON-MAASAI: PASTORALIST ENCOUNTERS WITH

MODERN EDUCATION MOLDING THE NON-MAASAI: PASTORALIST ENCOUNTERS WITH MODERN

EDUCATION

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Table of Contents  

ABSTRACT   3  

INTRODUCTION   4  

SHIFTING POWER RELATIONS – A CENTURY OF CHANGE FOR THE MAASAI   5  SOCIETAL ORGANIZATION AND VALUES   6  PROGRESSION INTO A MODERN SOCIETY   8  

POWER INITIATES – COMPULSORY EDUCATION   12  TRADITIONAL EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES OF THE MAASAI   12  HISTORICAL SETTINGS PRODDING MODERN EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS   14  LOGISTICAL IMPLICATIONS OF COMPULSORY EDUCATION   17  

POWER GAINS STRENGTH – WESTERN-CENTRIC CURRICULUMS   18  UNDERMINING TRADITIONAL MAASAI VALUES   19  CONDEMNATION OF PASTORALISM IN FAVOR OF MODERN JOBS   22  

POWER COMES FULL CIRCLE – THE NEED FOR FORMAL EDUCATION   26  

CONCLUSION   30  INTELLECTUAL MERIT   32  BROADER IMPACT   33  

REFERENCES   36  

APPENDIX 1   38  

APPENDIX 2   39  

APPENDIX 3   40    

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Abstract  

Drawing on several ethnographic literatures that describe how modern practices have

shaped the values, norms, and pastoral traditions of the Maasai of East Africa, this paper seeks to

demonstrate how colonial history and current pushes for development have forced the Maasai to

adapt to the developing and globalizing world. Specifically, this paper depicts how the

imposition of modern education on the Maasai, along with the shifting political and economic

influences that affect them, has threatened the indigenous practices that allowed the Maasai to

live harmoniously with the environment. In this way, such influences have represented the

Maasai’s embeddedness within a web of external power, pushing them into a position crafted by

national and global actors. Connecting existing ethnographies depicting Maasai culture with

analysis and theories on power and globalization, the paper seeks to integrate multiple factors

that have produced the Maasai’s current situation and conclude where it positions them in

regional, national, and global contexts. Furthermore, it aims to illustrate how evolving

knowledge surrounding environmental science, in conjunction with imposed learning, has

undermined the legitimacy of indigenous knowledge as a science and has forced the Maasai to

abandon their traditional sustainable practices. This paper concludes with recommendations for

restructuring Maasai education in a way that allows them to develop the agency to formulate

their own responses to globalization and development, enabling them to sculpt their own position

in broader contexts. It calls for a change to the current educational system that focuses on

maintaining the integrity of the traditional Maasai social structure, which allows them to

continue to interact with the environment in a sustainable way.

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Introduction

As one of the most illustrious indigenous groups in East Africa, the Maasai have been

feared, revered, scrutinized, and celebrated by onlookers for centuries. Picturesque depictions of

children ushering livestock, brooding warriors protecting the clan, and women adorned with

flashy jewelry maintaining simple mud huts have placed the Maasai in a position of “other” – a

space of stark comparison from which the outside world, fascinated by unique customs, can

claim the continuing existence of cultural diversity.1 While this space of distinctiveness acts as a

mental holding place for the position of the Maasai in the context of the globalizing world, the

same external forces that established the space are those that are causing its adaptation and

gradual diminution. Maasai values, traditions, and practices are exposed to and influenced by

increasingly unavoidable elements of globalization and modernity that are impeding this

society’s ability to sustain the customs that not only defined its diversity, but also supported the

social structure that allowed its members to live harmoniously with the environment.

While many factors have played prominent roles in forcing the adaptation of Maasai

culture, the establishment and imposition of modern education has had particularly severe

implications for their social structure because it is responsible for defining and molding the

social actors that will constitute future generations. The Maasai are dependent on this social

structure – not only does it ensure their ability to adhere to traditional practices, but it also

ensures that they can continue interacting with the environment in a sustainable way.2

Nevertheless, external influences have relentlessly pushed for Maasai children to participate in

formal schooling, forcefully arresting the sustainable indigenous knowledge system that dictates

                                                                                                               1 Bruner, “The Maasai and the Lion King.” (881) 2 Blewett, “Property rights as a cause of the tragedy of the commons.”(483)

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the success of their societal practices. In this way, the imposition of modern education has

served as a representation of the Maasai’s embeddedness within a web of external power,

vitiating their capacity to execute sustainable practices and diminishing their ability to resist

being enveloped into a developing and globalizing world.

This demonstration of power can be seen in three critical ways. In both Kenya and

Tanzania, the countries where the Maasai reside, participating in modern education is enforced,

even though it does not align with traditional Maasai practices. Additionally, the content of the

curriculum is structured in a Western-centric way with the ultimate goal of molding children into

citizens that can economically contribute to society. Finally, as an illustration of their

entanglement in these power issues, without some form of modern education the Maasai would

not have the skills they need to advocate for the continuation of their traditional culture. Each of

these examples individually and collectively affects the Maassai’s social organization, their

ability to continue living in sync with the environment, and ultimately where they become

situated in regional and global contexts.

In this paper, I will argue how modern education has been a demonstration of external

power over the Maasai by analyzing this web of factors that influences their constant need for

adaptation. I will then discuss how these points are interconnected and where this positions the

Maasai in a regional and global context. Finally, I will describe some suggestions for how

education could be restructured to avoid further marginalization of the Maasai and will discuss

the impact that these recommendations would have on their position.

Shifting Power Relations – A Century of Change for the Maasai

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While many Western citizens may not know the Maasai by name, most have been

acquainted with the culture at one point or another. As one of the largest indigenous groups

situated in one of Africa’s most popular spots for tourism, images, videos, and descriptions of the

Maasai have been splattered across documentaries and travel books. They are a characteristic

image of African inhabitants in the minds of Western citizens – an image that sticks based on its

extreme contrast to what is considered traditional (see Appendix 1). This image has been

sculpted by the values and traditions that the Maasai have held and employed to make their

society work.

Societal Organization and Values

The Maasai have inhabited and dominated the central Rift Valley in Tanzania and Kenya

since the beginning of the nineteenth century (see Appendix 2). Relying on livestock for their

sustenance, fertile grazing land and access to water is essential for the Maasai’s livelihood.

Their East African region experiences alternating dry and rainy seasons twice each year, making

certain portions of land too arid for grazing at dry times of the year. In order to contend with

this, the Maasai relocate with the seasons, moving to well-watered areas during the dry season

and back to barren areas during the wet season. This movement does not safeguard them from

instances of drought, which makes the communal structure of their society an integral aspect of

survival.3

Their dominance as an indigenous society has not been based on the presence of a strong

central state, but rather a vast dispersion of related groups in the area.4 Socio-spatially, five

levels define Maasai society – the household, the boma, the neighborhood, the section, and

                                                                                                               3 Ibid. (479) 4 Ibid. (478)

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Maasai society. Resources such as grazing land and water are shared amongst the bomas that

comprise the neighborhood level.5

Age is the main determinant of political organization in Maasai society. When boys are

circumcised in their early teenage years, they enter a series of age sets – each about fifteen years

long – that define the male’s role in society.6 These age sets progress from warrior to junior

elder to senior elder, and finally to retired elder. As a warrior, the young male is responsible for

protecting the boma and its livestock. Elders, on the other hand, manage the distribution of

grazing land and water access based on their seniority.7

Women are not represented in politics and are traditionally responsible for maintaining

the hut, cooking the food, and raising the children.8 While teenage girls are also circumcised,

age sets do not distinguish their roles in society.9

Based on this distribution of responsibility, the Maasai do not view their land as property

but rather as a “set of social relationships.” They make the commons work through this complex

organization of social institutions.10

These social institutions are upheld by virtues of bond friendship (osutua) and thanks

(enaashe). The Maasai feel an obligation to help family or clan members in need, and in

response, those members extend their thanks by helping in return. This “Maasai ideal of

selflessness and generosity” is maintained by elders who set a standard for respectable living and

                                                                                                               5 Grandin, “The Maasai: Socio-historical Context and Group Ranches.” (21) 6 Hodgson, “Pastoralism, Patriarchy and History.” (45) 7 Grandin, “The Maasai: Socio-historical Context and Group Ranches.” (24) 8 Summitt, “Cell-Phones and Spears.” (64) 9 Hodgson, “Pastoralism, Patriarchy and History.” (45) 10 Blewett, “Property rights as a cause of the tragedy of the commons.” (483)

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women who publicly humiliate the men who do not adhere.11 These concepts also set a standard

for distributing excess land and cattle, promoting the sustainability of the commons.12

Finally, a great deal of indigenous knowledge is shared within this social structure,

promoting the success of nomadic pastoralism and environmental sustainability. Their pastoral

practice has been defined as “a highly specialized production system adapted to the harsh

ecological and social conditions of the dry savannas.”13 In particular, the Maasai have mastered

breeding, foraging, and milking despite extreme environmental instability in the region.14 All of

this knowledge is passed on to emerging male age sets through traditional education in the form

of experiential training.15

Collectively, these political, social, and technological structures produce the Maasai’s

ability to make the commons work, to be pastoral, and to live in an environmentally sustainable

way.

Progression into a Modern Society

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, a series of civil wars weakened several populations of

Maasai. To make matters worse, in 1891 a particularly severe bout of rindepest appeared,

“killing off an estimated 90% of Maasai livestock,” while smallpox took the lives of many

Maasai themselves.16 This left the Maasai vulnerable to British colonists who began prodding

                                                                                                               11 Ibid. (482) 12 Mwangi and Ostrom, “TOP-DOWN SOLUTIONS.” (12) 13 Western and Manzolillo Nightingale, “Environmental Change and the Vulnerability of Pastoralists to Drought.” (5) 14 Ibid. (2) 15  Phillips  and  Bhavnagri,  “The  Maasai’s  education  and  empowerment.”  (142)  16 Western and Manzolillo Nightingale, “Environmental Change and the Vulnerability of Pastoralists to Drought.” (3)

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them into signing land agreements in 1904, resulting in a loss of the majority of their land. In

addition, towards the middle of the century, the establishment of the national game reserves

prohibited the Maasai from grazing cattle within the areas designated for the Serengeti Park and

Ngorogoro Crater in Tanzania, and the Nairobi, Amboseli, Tsavo Masai Mara, and Sumburu

National Parks in Kenya.17

This loss of land proved to be extremely detrimental to traditional pastoralism because it

left the Maasai more vulnerable to seasonal fluctuations. Certain ranges were set-aside for the

Maasai, but the Maasai rejected them, believing that:

Legal institutions like property rights that allow ownership and exclusion were not what

enabled the productive use of land. Rather, the social institutions that controlled access

and provided insurance made the land useful, and therefore gave it economic value.18

It can thus be seen how colonists lacked an understanding of Maasai ideologies and social

structure, compelling them to institute these culturally insensitive policies.

At the same time, colonists saw economic benefits to integrating the Maasai into the

modern economy, and therefore attempted to assimilate them into modern society. British

colonists set up schools in order to mold Maasai children into citizens that could fill low-end jobs

and promoted cultivation and ranch development as opposed to traditional pastoralism. The

widely held belief that the Maasai were violent also pushed colonists to promote their conformity

to a more “civilized society.”19

                                                                                                               17 Fratkin and Mearns, “Sustainability and Pastoral Livelihoods.” (115) 18 Blewett, “Property rights as a cause of the tragedy of the commons.” (483-484) 19 Phillips and Bhavnagri, “The Maasai’s education and empowerment.” (142)

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Just as colonial rule was ending, Garrett Harding delivered his work on the tragedy of the

commons, describing how shared resources would be depleted by individuals acting according to

self-interest despite knowledge of the resource’s long-term significance.20 This led many

intergovernmental organizations and Kenyan and Tanzanian government officials to believe that

communal sharing of grazing land would lead to overgrazing and would result in a significant

negative toll on the environment. In particular, environmentalists believed it was the reason for

desertification, where “human-induced desiccation...was contributing to the Sahara Desert

moving farther south each year.”21 Policies were thus put in place to promote the Maasai to

become sedentary, take up farming, or develop ranches. 22 In many cases, due to declining land

access and livestock populations, this was the only option for Maasai survival.23

In the postcolonial era, sedentarization, the adoption of cultivation, and a general shift

towards modern practices are becoming increasingly evident in Maasai culture. Over the course

of the twentieth century, Kenya and Tanzania have both experienced population growth and land

shortage as a result of improved health facilities and social services. The expanse of urban

development, the advance of large-scale agriculture, and the set-up of wildlife reserves for

tourists, has further contributed to land shortage. Lacking permanent residence, the Maasai’s

land is often snatched as they move to new locations.24 This has promoted the Maasai to

abandon their traditional pastoral practices. Making matters worse, sedentarization has been

cited to make the Maasai much more vulnerable to climate issues:

                                                                                                               20 Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons.” (1245) 21 Fratkin, “Pastoralism.” (240) 22 Blewett, “Property rights as a cause of the tragedy of the commons.” (486) 23 Western and Manzolillo Nightingale, “Environmental Change and the Vulnerability of Pastoralists to Drought.” (23) 24 Ibid. (4)

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Sedentarization causes local waterhole-effects, the loss of an energy bonus due to

migration, invasion of resilient and less palatable species of plants, greater risk of disease

and less flexibility in droughts. Cumulatively, these factors heighten the ecological

vulnerability of pastoralists and their livestock.25

In addition, many non-governmental organizations and intergovernmental institutions

have sought ways to improve the economic situations in Kenya and Tanzania. In the 1960s and

1970s, both the World Bank and USAID attempted to improve the Maasai’s livestock

productivity by privatizing land and setting up group ranches in order to promote beef and dairy

sales and pastoral market integration. These projects were cited as failures by the end of the

1980s.26 Additionally, the spread of technological infrastructure, the imposition of “accepted”

economic practices, and the establishment of educational institutions have marked the past

several decades in these countries. Many of these organizations have also viewed certain

Maasai values and traditions, such as the reverence of cattle, polygamy, and the practice of

female genital mutilation, as wrong or inhumane.27,28 External institutions have thus imposed

initiatives to ameliorate such practices.

The Maasai are inevitably affected by such changes, and in many cases, have no choice

but to adapt with them. Their actual cultural position and the way in which the Western world

views them is thus constantly at the mercy of the forces of power that surround them. Enmeshed

within this web of influence, the imposition of modern education adds a significant element to

the issue because the Maasai need not only to adapt to it, but are also individually conformed by

                                                                                                               25 Ibid. (21) 26 Fratkin and Mearns, “Sustainability and Pastoral Livelihoods.” (115) 27 Summitt, “Cell-Phones and Spears.” (67) 28 Miller, Maasai Schools.

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it. This not only affects their practices, but also affects the actors that constitute the organization

of their society – actors with specific roles that are necessary to make pastoralism and a

communal structure work. Education thus is embedded within and fuels the modes of

modernization that are already exerting power over the Maasai.

Power Initiates – Compulsory Education

In 2001 the Tanzanian government eliminated all school fees and mandated that all

children between the ages of 7 and 15 enter formal education.29 The Kenyan government

followed this initiative, introducing universal and free primary education to all children between

the ages of 6 and 13 in 2002.30 Formal education has since been compulsory in Tanzania and

highly emphasized in Kenya, pushing the Maasai to enroll their children in public schooling.

Such a requirement represents power not only by its removal of choice, but also by the

implication that students are no longer being educated in the traditional way – the way that, in

the past, maintained the harmony of the Maasai lifestyle.

Traditional Educational Practices of the Maasai

Traditionally, the goal of Maasai education was to shape children into their societal roles

and inculcate a respect for Maasai values and traditions. Since Maasai society and the practice

of pastoralism are so dependent on complex networks of social relationships, creating individuals

who could take on proper roles was essential to the sustainability of their social order.31 It was

                                                                                                               29 Dennis and Stahley, “Universal Primary Education in Tanzania.” (47) 30 Ministry of Education Kenya, “Free Primary Education.” (1) 31 Blewett, “Property rights as a cause of the tragedy of the commons.” (481)

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necessary for reifying “tribal cohesion” and “collective ideology,” ensuring that children were

provided with “practical skills for effectively contributing to a group.”32

In order to produce such citizens, the Maasai took a holistic approach to education – one

that emphasized developing connections to the community, nature, and certain values.33 Both

formal teaching and experiential learning were employed to establish these connections, and by

integrating a variety of styles of teaching, the Maasai enabled their learners to be “liberated from

the authoritarianism of the teacher, the curriculum, and the institution,” allowing them to

“develop self-discipline [and] engage in self-directed learning and self-fulfillment.”34,35

Since age and gender define the roles in Maasai society, it follows that children were

educated according to their age and gender. Following infancy, their mothers and older sisters

taught both boys and girls within the confines of the boma. During this time, the children would

be asked to take on small chores such as looking after the goats.36 Elders also provided lessons

on values, beliefs, and Maasai history by orally sharing narratives, folktales, and songs.37 Once

the children were old enough to take on more substantive tasks, their education diverted

according to their gender.

The ultimate goal of educating young women was to prepare them for their roles as wives

and mothers. Young girls were tasked with household chores such as cooking, tending to the

animals, constructing the homes, and caring for the smaller children. Additionally, young women

                                                                                                               32 Phillips and Bhavnagri, “The Maasai’s education and empowerment.” (141) 33 Omolewa, “Traditional African Modes of Education.” (596) 34 Bonini, “The Pencil and the Shepherd’s Crook. Ethnography of Maasai Education.” (384) 35 Omolewa, “Traditional African Modes of Education.” (604) 36 Bonini, “The Pencil and the Shepherd’s Crook. Ethnography of Maasai Education.” (384) 37 Phillips and Bhavnagri, “The Maasai’s education and empowerment.” (141)

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were socialized by developing relationships with the moran, or warriors, a process that acted as

an entryway to eventual marriage.38

Boys, on the other hand, were trained to take on their roles as warriors and shepherds. At

around age 5, boys would begin to become acquainted with animal husbandry by traveling out to

pasture to look after the cattle with older herders. Through instruction from older boys and

fathers, alongside experiential learning, boys would gain, ”extensive knowledge of animals, the

dangers they may face, as well as knowledge of the grazing environment.”39 At the same time,

children were taught defensive tactics through playful fighting with older boys and their peers.40

This method of teaching promoted societal stability by ensuring the development of

individuals who could take on traditional roles. Through experiential learning, students learned

and mastered the practical skills that were needed to sustain a pastoral lifestyle. This form of

education also enabled students to “learn at their own pace, not on an arbitrarily determined

timeline.”41 Traditional education was thus a vital component to the endurance of Maasai

culture.

Historical Settings Prodding Modern Education Institutions

Formal education began infiltrating Kenya and Tanzania in the early 1900s when

missionaries began setting up schools to promote the conversion to Christianity.42 Shortly

afterwards, British colonial powers began establishing formal schools that would train Maasai

students to fill the lower-level jobs needed to keep national economies in tact. Additionally,

                                                                                                               38 Bonini, “The Pencil and the Shepherd’s Crook. Ethnography of Maasai Education.” (384) 39 Ibid. (385) 40 Phillips and Bhavnagri, “The Maasai’s education and empowerment.” (141) 41 Ibid. (141) 42 Ibid. (142)

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these schools were intended to provide the basic language and counting skills needed to record

the taxes to which they were subjected. Despite forcefully imposing formal education upon the

Maasai, British colonial powers limited the extent of knowledge that these institutions imparted,

ensuring that the Maasai could not improve their economic or political positions and could not

challenge the authority of colonists. This discriminatory impartation of education “allowed

missionaries and colonists to protect the supremacy of white interests.”43

After gaining independence from Britain in 1961, Tanzania entered a period called

Ujaama, a form of African Socialism. During this time, President Julius Nyere sought to achieve

national self-reliance by promoting a ‘villagization’ program, where village farms would be

established throughout the country, and crops would be shared amongst their inhabitants. To

pull Tanzania out of its economic crisis and make the ‘villagization’ program feasible, the

Education for Self-reliance policy was established in 1967 with the intention of promoting

education, adult literacy, and national cohesion in Tanzania. Formal schools were set up across

the country, teaching all lessons in Kiswahili in order to promote the national identity and

providing training in cultivation to support neighborhood farming. Self-reliance was dependent

on the entire nation conforming to these standards, so, in the early 1970s, Maasai children were

ushered into formal schools.44

As both Kenya and Tanzania shifted into post-colonial periods in middle of the century,

formal schooling was viewed as a means to promote national cohesion and development, ideals

                                                                                                               43 Ibid. (142) 44 Bishop, “Schooling and the Encouragement of Farming Amongst Pastoralists in Tanzania.” (13)

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that were undermined in colonial times. As a result, both governments continued to promote the

establishment of schools throughout the countries.45

Since this time, international attention to Africa’s ‘crisis’ has substantiated the supposed

need for intervention. In 2000, the United Nations established eight Millennium Development

Goals, which outline targets for improving conditions in the developing world. The second goal

seeks to achieve universal primary education by the year 2015.46 This call for action has

persuaded many non-profit organizations and agencies, such as UNICEF and USAID, to gear

their objectives towards the provision of education, further targeting the assimilation of Maasai

into schools.

It has been noted that, as the world shifts to a more neoliberal order, such NGOs have

been gaining increasing power over national governments throughout sub-Saharan Africa.47 It

thus follows that, in prospect of achieving the target of universal primary education by 2015, the

Ministry of Education in Tanzania garnered support from international donors in order to

introduce the Primary Education Development Program in 2001, making primary education both

free and compulsory in Tanzania.48 Kenya’s Ministry of Education followed suit in 2002,

collaborating with other ministries and development partners to eliminate all primary school fees

and “achieve free primary education and gender equality by 2015.”49

The establishment and mandate of formal schooling has thus become increasingly

difficult for the Maasai to avoid over the time periods defining the past century.

                                                                                                               45 Owuor, “Integrating African Indigenous Knowledge in Kenya’s Formal Education System.” (30) 46 Information, The Millennium Development Goals Report 2005. (16) 47 Ferguson, Global Shadows. 48 Dennis and Stahley, “Universal Primary Education in Tanzania.” (47) 49 Ministry of Education Kenya, “Free Primary Education.” (1)

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Logistical Implications of Compulsory Education

Compulsory education is, in itself, a representation of external power over the Maasai,

since it removes the element of choice between modes of education from the Maasai. This

element of power applies primarily to Tanzania, where law mandates formal primary education.

However, it also applies to Kenya where the prospect of achieving universal primary education

by 2015 causes government officials to use other means of persuasion to usher students into

schools. In particular, chiefs and sub-chiefs are required to provide the names of school-goers at

the beginning of each academic year, and if parents fail to send these children to school, they can

be charged with refusing to obey a chief’s order.50 Furthermore, the logistical implications that

result from mandatory formal schooling characterize it as an embodiment of power over the

indigenous group.

When children are spending their days at school, they are not at home to be trained in the

traditional way. As described above, this has serious consequences for their societal structure

and their ability to remain pastoral. Young boys miss out on warrior and husbandry training,

while young girls miss out on learning how to upkeep the home.

By not allowing the Maasai to educate their children in traditional ways, external forces

are effectively refusing to allow the Maasai to sustain their culture, depicting how the logistics of

modern education are not conducive to the Maasai’s social organization or a pastoral lifestyle.

This suppression of an element of cultural practice necessary for social sustainability marks one

way that the imposition of formal education exerts power over the Maasai.

                                                                                                               50 King, “Development and Education in the Narok District of Kenya.” (395)

18  

Although fees have been eliminated from most primary educational institutions, students

are unable to secure jobs in a modern economy without succession to secondary school. Maasai

students coming from families with little to no integration in the modern economy cannot afford

to move onto secondary school unless it is funded through highly competitive scholarships. As a

result, students move back home, and, having missed out on a significant chunk of traditional

training, they have a difficult time establishing their role within Maasai society.51

In this way, the mandate of formal primary schooling not only removes the Maasai from

their traditional forms of schooling, but it also ensures that the Maasai are unable to gain any

economic or political power through the acquisition of further education or job experience.

Maasai children educated through formal primary schooling do not gain the holistic education

that molds them into substantive members of their society and also are withheld from an

education that can challenge the forces of power currently being exerted on them. Mandating

education is therefore a mechanism for keeping the Maasai in a certain sphere – one that

prohibits them from gaining power while preventing the continuation of their social organization.

External forces are thus shaping how the Maasai develop and where they are positioned in an

evolving world order.

Power Gains Strength – Western-centric Curriculums

When British colonists began establishing schools in the early 1900s, the curriculums

were largely based on modern Western ideals – ideals that were, in most cases, not applicable to

the Maasai way of life. The goal of education, at this time, was not to produce citizens that could

carry on with traditional Maasai lifestyles, but instead to produce citizens that could fill lower-

                                                                                                               51 Ibid. (397)

19  

level jobs and understand the taxes that were being imposed on them. 52 Curriculums were thus

structured in a way that reflected the transition into a modern economy, and an educational

structure was put in place in order to mold individuals into citizens that could assimilate into

modern culture and contribute to the economic development of the country. The Maasai were

forced into an educational system with curricular content that, not only failed to include

traditional Maasai lessons, but also often directly opposed them. During post-colonial times, this

structure was upheld in order to promote nationalism and further economic development.53

Teaching this content to students – individuals that traditionally would have become significant

social actors contributing to the success of the Maasai’s pastoral society – depicts how the

content of modern education has represented a form of power influencing the Maasai.

Undermining Traditional Maasai Values

A significant feature of traditional Maasai education was its emphasis on infusing lessons

pertaining to traditional Maasai values into daily practice – values that played an essential role in

the success of pastoralism. This was often done through reciting oral history or telling folktales.

Children were taught to hold elders in the highest esteem and embody the values of bond

friendship and thanks, ideals that acted as a pastoral insurance system when certain groups were

struggling.54 Through practical skill training, they also came to learn the value of the role of

each age group in society – roles that were each equally important to sustaining traditional

Maasai ways of life.55

                                                                                                               52 Phillips and Bhavnagri, “The Maasai’s education and empowerment.” (142) 53 Owuor, “Integrating African Indigenous Knowledge in Kenya’s Formal Education System.” (30) 54 Blewett, “Property rights as a cause of the tragedy of the commons.” (480) 55 Phillips and Bhavnagri, “The Maasai’s education and empowerment.” (141)

20  

However, in industrial societies, the institution of education is viewed as a mechanism for

harnessing future potential – for molding subordinate beings into upstanding citizens.56 Children

are placed in an abstract sociological sphere distinguished by incompetence and only shift to the

adult sphere through proper socialization.57 The main goal of establishing modern education in

Kenya and Tanzania was to create this pattern of society that would model the ideal citizen and

aid in shifting these countries into industrial societies. Therefore, under British colonial rule, a

large emphasis of school instruction was placed on obedience training.58 Teaching students

obedience – that the teacher or adult was the ultimate authority and the student or child was the

subordinate – worked to create these spheres, placing the adult at the center of power and the

youth under the control of this power in order to establish the social order that made industrial

societies work.

Examples of this still can be seen in several aspects of modern schooling in both

Tanzania and Kenya. First of all, all students are required to wear school uniforms.59 By making

all students dress in the same outfit, the distinction between childhood and adulthood is not only

reinforced, but it also becomes visible (see Appendix 3). In addition, corporal punishment is

often used in classrooms and students are taught to fear their instructors, further magnifying the

distinction between childhood and adulthood. Furthermore, students lose their reverence for

Maasai elders as they are taught that, in historical contexts, older generations of Maasai acted in

backward or savage ways.60

                                                                                                               56 Comaroff and Comaroff, “Reflections on Youth, From the Past to the Postcolony.” (268) 57 Prout and James, “A New Paradigm for the Sociology of Childhood? : Provenance, Promise, and Problems.” (12) 58 Phillips and Bhavnagri, “The Maasai’s education and empowerment.” (142) 59 Ibid. (142) 60 Ibid. (141)

21  

Modern education has also depicted the treatment of women in Maasai society as wrong

or inhumane. During the colonial years, the strong Christian values held by the colonists were

integrated into curriculums, leading to the condemnation of polygamy and the patriarchal nature

of Maasai society.61 Now, calls for the empowerment of women have shaped both government

and NGO response to the treatment of women in traditional societies. Movements, such as the

Half the Sky movement, that claim that communities can only move out of poverty by

empowering their women to take an equal role in society, have influenced the prioritization of

women’s issues by intergovernmental organizations, local governments, and NGOs.62

However, in comparison to their male counterparts, women have been cited to have an

equally important but different role in ensuring the success of the Maasai society. In particular,

during difficult dry seasons when the typical sustenance of milk and blood is in short supply,

women are responsible for trading skins and surplus milk for grains. Women have the sole

responsibility for making the social links and executing these trades, highlighting their

significant role in the success of the Maasai’s “specialized production system.”63

One particularly controversial example of a gender-related tradition that modern

education challenges is female genital mutilation (FGM).64 While this tradition is considered an

honor to women in Maasai society – a symbol of her transition into a new age group, the

tradition is considered highly inhumane by these movements, opening opportunities for severe

infection and leading to complications during childbirth.65 Navigating through the ethics of this,

                                                                                                               61  Ibid.  (141)  62 Kristof and WuDunn, Half the Sky. 63 Hodgson, “Pastoralism, Patriarchy and History.” (47) 64 Miller, Maasai Schools. 65 Kristof and WuDunn, Half the Sky.

22  

at once highly regarded but also clearly dangerous traditional practice has been difficult for both

institutions establishing modern education and anthropologists.

Finally, under modern education, traditional Maasai customs or norms are often seen as

“backwards.”66 Maasai elders have noted how students return from school believing that the

“hut is dirty or [the] food is not good.”67 During a Morning Edition interview, one Maasai elder

noted, “’I’ve heard it said that those who don’t accept the education are stupid or foolish or

backward, but my question is now that you have embraced something alien, and you have

ditched your culture, what do you become?’”68 In undermining traditional values and customs,

Maasai students are influenced away from their culture in favor of a Western culture. They

come to question their traditional lifestyles in favor of modern lifestyles, and since, as noted

earlier, many do not go on to secondary school or obtain jobs, the result is a group of “young

people who [belong] nowhere, [are] unsure of their own identity, and [can] not find employment

using their new skills.”69 Furthermore, when they return to their homes, this lack of esteem for

their traditional values and customs makes it difficult to take on roles as actors within the Maasai

social network and contribute to the pastoral society.

Condemnation of Pastoralism in Favor of Modern Jobs

In addition to undermining the values that contributed to the Maasai’s communal success,

perceived superior scientific knowledge, coupled with motivation for economic progress and the

hegemonic discourses surrounding Western education, have historically motivated external

                                                                                                               66 Miller, Maasai Schools. 67 Summitt, “Cell-Phones and Spears.” (67) 68 Miller, Maasai Schools. 69 Summitt, “Cell-Phones and Spears.” (68)

23  

forces to condemn the practice of pastoralism and promote more modern, economically

beneficial practices.

First of all, following the conclusion of British colonial rule, the widely-accepted belief

that Maasai pastoralism would result in a tragedy of the commons shaped the perceptions of

traditional Maasai practices. Authorities believed that “Maasai had a ‘cattle complex,’ a

psychological attachment to the beast, which led them to emphasize quantity over quality, further

leading them to overgrazing and environmental degradation.”70 As a result, a significant

emphasis was placed on teaching agricultural practices in schools.71

In addition, under African Socialism, Tanzanian schools were required to set up farms

where students could experientially learn how to cultivate crops in order to contribute to

President Julius Nyere’s prospect for villagization, a requirement that moved many Maasai

families to believe that farming marked a superior style of living. As Elizabeth Bishop notes in

her depiction of the encouragement of farming in Tanzanian schools:

The absence of livestock rearing in self-reliance activities, and the way teachers talked

about self-reliance, made it clear to pupils that self-reliance and the powerful ideology

that surrounded that concept, had very little to do with livestock-keeping. To be self-

reliant, and by extension to be a good Tanzanian citizen, meant cultivating.72

She additionally mentions how students that have attended modern schools, “proudly talk about

their greater skill in farming as something they gained as a result of the schooling process” and

that this perception has “clearly been informed by discourses of development encountered as a                                                                                                                70 Mwangi and Ostrom, “TOP-DOWN SOLUTIONS.” (16) 71 Bonini, “The Pencil and the Shepherd’s Crook. Ethnography of Maasai Education.” (386) 72 Bishop, “Schooling and the Encouragement of Farming Amongst Pastoralists in Tanzania.” (17)

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result of the schooling process.”73 Accordingly, the general discourse surrounding the Maasai’s

traditional pastoral practices depicts them as “lazy” for not choosing husbandry over contributing

to the agricultural economy.74

As a result, many Maasai have turned to forms of agro-pastoralism, where they use the

income that they generate from cultivation as a means to keep their livestock.75 Still considering

themselves “people of the cattle,” they see this as an opportunity for “saving the cattle,”

meaning, “fewer livestock...have to be sold to provide food for the family.”76 Ironically, while

individuals who believed that the Maasai’s practices would inevitably hurt the environment

promoted this practice, this form of living is significantly less sustainable than traditional

pastoralism because it reduces land range and increases stock density, which leads to overgrazing

and soil erosion.77

Today, one of the primary reasons for establishing curriculums that fail to incorporate

appropriate amounts of indigenous Maasai knowledge is the predominance of the discourse

promoting a Western-style education. While Western curriculums were originally established in

colonial times to promote economic development, elites still value this benefit to Western-style

education, even though it promotes a nationalistic, market integration form of development over

individualized, local development. Furthermore, the funding for education is heavily reliant on

Western donors, and both Kenya and Tanzania have to meet the wishes and expectations of these

donors in order to continue providing free education. This often requires them to incorporate

                                                                                                               73 Ibid. (19) 74 Ibid. (16) 75 Ibid. (13) 76 McCabe, “Sustainability and livelihood diversification among the Maasai of Northern Tanzania.”(106) 77 Bishop, “Schooling and the Encouragement of Farming Amongst Pastoralists in Tanzania.” (23)

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Western ideals into the education system and undermines the value of indigenous knowledge.78

As Jenipher Owuor points out while describing how African indigenous knowledge could be

incorporated into education systems:

Disembodiment of indigenous knowledge is as a consequence of the replacement of

traditional local authorities, demographic changes, urbanization, technological changes,

modernization, commercialization, commodification of living resources, and the policies

of external assistance agencies. These forces continue to pressurize the world to adopt

western perspectives to the detriment of indigenous ways of knowing, practice, and

technology.79

In this way, despite years of successful communal living and harmony with the environment, the

Maasai’s indigenous knowledge is undermined – not viewed as a science or technology for

making the commons work and living sustainably but as trivial compared to Western science and

technology.

Modern schools have thus been inclined to teach science and technology skills from a

Western standpoint, making the lessons extraneous to the Maasai. For example, they often

provide lessons in skills such as “electrification, automotive mechanics, typing, using a sewing

machine, and bottle-feeding” a baby – skills which are never used by Maasai students once they

complete primary school.80 Serving as a further reference to the irrelevance of modern education

to the Maasai, they are often taught lessons that pertain to a developed world in areas where

                                                                                                               78  Owuor,  “Integrating  African  Indigenous  Knowledge  in  Kenya’s  Formal  Education  System.”  (31)  79 Ibid. (31) 80 Phillips and Bhavnagri, “The Maasai’s education and empowerment.” (143)

26  

roads, buildings, and technology are scarce.81 The Maasai thus come to view modern education

as highly irrelevant to their lifestyle, and since they often do not move on to further education

and are consequentially unable to secure jobs in the modern economy, learning these skills is

seen as a waste of time.82

Despite the irrelevance of modern curriculums to Maasai lifestyle, these curriculums

remain the model for primary school instruction throughout Tanzania and Kenya. They are

structured to mold citizens in a way that promotes national cohesion and economic development,

shaping citizens that can contribute to the economy.83 They do not take into consideration how

certain lessons may be necessary for establishing local social cohesion, the primary buttress for

the Maasai’s pastoral society. Furthermore, they do not provide the skills training needed for

pastoralism, husbandry, and maintaining the household, instead focusing on lessons that are

inapplicable to the Maasai lifestyle. Maasai values, norms, and traditions are constantly

challenged in modern schools, causing many students to question the quality of their own

society. In this way, the content of education weakens social organization by producing

individuals that cannot or do not want to take on a traditional Maasai role, and since many do not

have the means to further their education or secure a job, they remain stuck in a powerless

sphere, lacking cultural identity and remaining unable to attain national inclusion. This

implicates their position as marginalized within regional, national, and international contexts.

Power Comes Full Circle – The Need for Formal Education

                                                                                                               81 King, “Development and Education in the Narok District of Kenya.” (405) 82 Ibid. (395) 83 Owuor, “Integrating African Indigenous Knowledge in Kenya’s Formal Education System.” (29)

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To further complicate the issue of the imposition of modern education over the Maasai, it

is unlikely that the Maasai could continue their traditional practices without garnering some form

of formal education. A broader web of external development factors is increasingly taking a toll

on traditional Maasai lifestyles, forcing the Maasai to adapt in some ways. In order to face these

issues and advocate for their rights, the Maasai must become knowledgeable in the national

language, mathematics, and politics, subjects that, for the most part, can not be taught through

traditional Maasai education because Maasai community members lack the skills to teach them.84

In addition, environmental factors have taken their toll on pastoral practices, forcing the Maasai

to diversify their economies into cultivation – a shift that also requires formal schooling.85 In

this way, the Maasai are caught in a modernization trap – formal schooling does not allow them

to maintain their lifestyles, but they cannot maintain their lifestyles without formal schooling.

This contradiction serves to further illustrate how modern education is disenfranchising the

Maasai and their ability to sustain their pastoral lifestyle.

The Maasai rely heavily on access to land in order to make pastoralism work. In addition

to this, during the dry season, they must be able to access water for their survival and for the

survival of their cattle. However, when the colonial era brought in land grabs and the

privatization of water, the Maasai’s access to both diminished. Their lack of land ownership and

migratory practices made them easy targets for land snatches. Since then, the establishment of

                                                                                                               84 Summitt, “Cell-Phones and Spears.” (68) 85 McCabe, “Sustainability and livelihood diversification among the Maasai of Northern Tanzania.” (100)

28  

game reserves and conservations areas have served to eat up even more of their land, and these

threats have hindered the Maasai’s ability to maintain their pastoral lifestyles.86

Education is often described to be the best way to eradicate these concerns. The Maasai

consider formal schooling to be necessary in order to learn Kiswahili, the national language of

both Kenya and Tanzania, admitting that this is the only way that they will be able to

communicate with non-Maasai.87 Speaking the national language is necessary for the Maasai to

be able to communicate their wishes to authorities, understand documents that they are prompted

to sign, and ultimately advocate for their rights. Additionally, learning mathematics and politics

can help them negotiate land rights with authorities.88

The push for national development, along with changes in the climate, has also

influenced the Maasai to diversify their economy. Believing that pastoralism would lead to a

tragedy of the commons and was unsustainable, national governments have pushed the Maasai

into adopting cultivation or forming ranches.89 In addition, since the Maasai are continuously

drawn into aspects of the modern economy – having to pay for “food, clothes, taxes, veterinary

drugs, and hospital bills” – they must have some way of acquiring local currency and have

typically resorted to agriculture to do so. Fueling this shift is the uneven increase in human and

livestock populations. With human populations growing faster than livestock populations, a non-

equilibrium society is created, making it difficult for the Maasai to sustain the order that makes

their society work. The Maasai are thus continuously becoming poorer and are more inclined to

                                                                                                               86 Western and Manzolillo Nightingale, “Environmental Change and the Vulnerability of Pastoralists to Drought.” (4) 87 Bonini, “The Pencil and the Shepherd’s Crook. Ethnography of Maasai Education.” (389) 88 Summitt, “Cell-Phones and Spears.” (68) 89 Blewett, “Property rights as a cause of the tragedy of the commons.” (486)

29  

resort to agriculture in order to prevent having to sell their cattle.90 This has inevitably resulted

in sedentarization – a trend that has economic benefits but leaves the Maasai more vulnerable to

drought, lack of biodiversity, and the spread of disease amongst livestock. Increasing inequality

gaps make it even more difficult for the Maasai to secure access to land and water, and these

factors have been cited to have the greatest impact on the “poor and least educated.”91

Education has been cited as the key to enabling the Maasai to successfully diversify their

economy. They need to know the local language and be able to count money in order to assure

that prices are appropriate for items that they buy or sell. In a study of local Maasai thoughts on

education, one Maasai woman described, “’’The children can help us buy grain...if they can

speak Swahili or English, it helps us in many ways. Sometimes we do not have rain and we must

go into town to buy food for the babies. The shopkeepers cannot understand me, so my son

helps.’”92 This woman went on to describe how she did not believe it would be possible to

maintain a pastoral lifestyle and that the Maasai would eventually have to assimilate into the

modern economy.93 Having a modern education is essential in order for the Maasai to survive

once partially or fully integrated into a modern economy.

The Maasai are thus entangled in conflicting positions. They must become educated in

order to survive and advocate for the land needed to maintain their traditional practices, but

education has typically been structured in a way that prohibits or condemns those practices. This

contradiction highlights the way that modernization and development have hurt the Maasai’s

                                                                                                               90 McCabe, “Sustainability and livelihood diversification among the Maasai of Northern Tanzania.” (86) 91 Western and Manzolillo Nightingale, “Environmental Change and the Vulnerability of Pastoralists to Drought.” (28) 92 Summitt, “Cell-Phones and Spears.” (67) 93 Ibid. (67)

30  

traditional practices. It has forced change and left them with few solutions to avert complete

adaptation. In this way, the imposition of formal schooling serves as a representation of how

modernization has exerted power over the Maasai, leaving them with few options but to adapt to

the developing and globalizing world.

Conclusion

The Maasai are constantly contending with tugs and pulls from external influences,

forcing them to adapt their traditional practices and integrate into a developing, modernizing, and

globalizing world. All of these influences represent forms of power – pressures to conform and

abandon traditional practices, norms, and values that establish their social structure and their

ability to make a sustainable pastoral society work. The imposition of modern education is a

particularly poignant demonstration of this since it not only hinders the ability to provide

traditional forms of education, but it also shapes the knowledge and values of the social actors

that will constitute future Maasai generations.

Probably the most glaring example of how modern education embeds the Maasai in a

struggle for power is the fact that participating in formal education is enforced in both Kenya and

Tanzania, even though it interferes with traditional modes of education. Traditional education

was structured to produce individuals that could fill their respective roles in the Maasai society,

and thus was integral to reproducing social order. However, missionaries, colonists,

government officials, and non-governmental organizations all played a significant role in the

establishment of formal educational institutions, which prodded the Maasai into modern

schooling systems. Maasai students thus miss out on traditional styles of education, depriving

them of the lessons necessary to develop into appropriate social actors within Maasai society.

31  

Instead of learning these traditional lessons, Maasai students who participated in formal

schooling were exposed to Western-centric curriculums that were designed to mold students into

citizens who could participate in the national economy. As a result, Maasai values, customs, and

norms were undermined in modern schools, leading many students to condemn their own

culture. Additionally, pastoralism was depicted as inferior to agricultural practices and modern

jobs, and skill training that was highly irrelevant to the Maasai lifestyle was emphasized in

schools. After completing primary school, students would return home without the esteem for

their society or the skills to participate in it.

Despite these negative aspects of the imposition of modern education, the Maasai would

not be able to advocate for their rights and diversify their economy if they were unable to garner

some form of modern education. Due to increasing external pressures that are disrupting their

access to land, water, and sustenance, the Maasai must learn Kiswahili, mathematics, and politics

in order to express their wishes to appropriate authorities and understand when they are being

victimized. Furthermore, they must be knowledgeable on ways to diversify their economy in

order to contend with climate change and a reduction in livestock.

The imposition of education thus demonstrates how the Maasai are entangled within

multiple forms of power. While many students are required to attend modern schools and are

exposed to Western-centric curriculums, they complete their schooling in a more unstable

position than when they started, having missed out on traditional education and ending up

incapable of earning a job. This negatively affects the production of individual social actors that

would constitute the Maasai society. However, without formal education, the Maasai as a whole

would not be able to advocate for their rights or diversify their economy. This creates a catch-22

– a paradoxical situation that cannot be avoided. In either situation, the Maasai are unable to

32  

sustain a pastoral society because their social structure has been severely disrupted by external

forces.

Being in such a position implicates a lack of power and a shift in perceived national and

global positioning. As the Maasai are forced to adapt into inclusion in a modern economy, they

are not afforded the same opportunities as other citizens in their respective countries and often

constitute the poorest segment of the population. This points to their national marginalization – a

sphere of poverty in the national context. The way that this positions them in the global context,

however, is not as straightforward. The fact that individuals across the globe associate the

Maasai with cultural diversity points to the way that Maasai culture has been celebrated by

onlookers. These onlookers, however, are also the individuals associating the Maasai with

poverty, condemning traditional practices such as FGM and patriarchy, and rejoicing over the

establishment of schools with Western-centric curriculums. It remains to be determined whether

a global society actually advocates for the Maasai’s matriculation into the modern world order,

and I would suggest that this is an area that needs further research. Determining the effect of

external forces on the Maasai’s global positioning would help those in the Western world fill the

information gap, segmenting the value of indigeneity and modernization.

Intellectual Merit  

This paper illustrates how the Maasai’s situation is embedded within a web of external

factors – from political to economic to technological – and attempts to further the understanding

of challenges that the Maasai face due to the changes that have been imposed by these outside

forces. Furthermore, it highlights how the resulting adaptations have had widespread social,

environmental, and technological implications, as the Maasai have been forced to abandon

traditional sustainable practices in order to conform to a modern society. Finally, by connecting

33  

several ethnographic works depicting the Maasai’s encounters with modernization and

integrating them with theories on power, development, and globalization, this paper contributes

to literature that assesses the impacts of global change on specific localities. In an attempt to

move beyond this analysis into possibilities for change, I outline a suggestion for remodeling

Maasai education below.

Broader Impact

While the usurpation of power points to a bleak outlook for the Maasai, several

suggestions have been set forth, providing possibilities for restructuring education in a way that

would be more conducive to Maasai lifestyle. In particular, educational professionals have

alluded to Paulo Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed as a possible avenue for formatting the

structure of education. Friere’s work focused on how to overcome the power relationship of “the

colonizer” or the teacher and “the colonized” or the student. He believed that in making both

parties equally responsible for producing knowledge, this power relationship would be balanced,

and traditionally marginalized students would extract more from the education system.94 Based

on the conclusions drawn from this paper, I condone such a transition as a first step to the

process of reimagining the structure of modern education. In an effort to overcome the power

struggle that has constrained the Maasai, I offer several recommendations for modeling a

Frierian curriculum below.

The first requirement for setting up such a curriculum in the context of Maasai schools

would be to de-emphasize the significance of obedience training. Forcing students to fear their

teachers is one of the clearest indicators of the power relationship that characterizes modern

                                                                                                               94 Freire, Pedagogy of the oppressed.

34  

schools. Furthermore, there should be “at least a few teachers from within the marginalized

groups so that they can relate to the children and their families and help teachers from the

dominant group learn to empathize and shift their perspective.”95

There would also need to be considerations for incorporating aspects of traditional

Maasai education into the curriculum. This would involve restructuring, not only the content of

curriculums, but also the pedagogies. For instance, some schools have cited plans to bring elder

Maasai into the classroom to provide oral history lessons that draw out Maasai values.96

Additionally, forms of experiential learning that focus on pastoral practices and upkeep of the

boma should also be incorporated into these curriculums to provide students with the practical

skills needed to continue pastoral practices. Finally, special considerations should be made to

teach Maasai students about politics in a way that allows them to advocate for their rights. As an

article describing the challenges to empowering nomadic societies through education notes:

The content should be ‘transformative’; that is, not uncritically passing on knowledge,

but instead transforming the learner, raising his social conscience, and empowering him

to become an agent of change. For example, Maasai students would learn about creating

change within the Kenyan political and legal system, voting, protecting their land and

property, and becoming aware of social inequalities.97

Enacting such a shift necessitates considering several important questions. First, should

boys be separated from girls when learning skills related to Maasai culture, and how will that be

perceived in a national and global context? How will learning be measured? Will students be

                                                                                                               95 Phillips and Bhavnagri, “The Maasai’s education and empowerment.” (144) 96 Miller, Maasai Schools. 97 Phillips and Bhavnagri, “The Maasai’s education and empowerment.” (145)

35  

required to attend school year round, or will special considerations be made in order to allow

them to move with their families? Finally, should Maasai values be taught as superior to

Western values, and if not, how is that line determined? There are thus many considerations that

need to be put in place before enacting educational reform in either Tanzania or Kenya.

Despite the significance of these factors, a change to the current educational system is the

only way to move the Maasai out of a state of powerlessness and into to a state of inclusion.

Such a change would afford them the ability to produce individuals that could fill societal roles,

maintain the integrity of their social structure, and interact with the environment in a harmonious

way despite the increasingly drastic impacts of modernization. This allowance would reduce

their national marginalization and position them in a space of sovereignty in the global context.

Most importantly, the Maasai would gain the increasing freedom to orient their position in the

regional, national, and global order, having emancipated themselves from the forces of power

that dictated the formulation of their society’s most important assets – its social actors.

36  

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Appendix 1

This image depicts the regions of Kenya and Tanzania originally inhabited by the Maasai. Due

to the establishment of wildlife reserves, urban development, agricultural development, and

climate change, the portion of this land that is still available to the Maasai is constantly

declining. Many Maasai believe that education is necessary in order to be able to advocate for

land rights and maintain cultural identity.

Maasai Association. “The Maasai People.” Maasai Association: Preserving and Celebrating Maasai Cultural Heritage, n.d. http://www.maasai-association.org/maasai.html.

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Appendix 2

This image depicts a Maasai warrior, draped in traditional cloth, carrying a spear, and adorned

with jewelry. This is the type of image that many Western citizens associate with the Maasai.

Through it Western citizens associate the Maasai with diversity. Images like this highlight the

uniqueness of the Maasai’s garb, living landscape, and traditions and provide a space of lifestyle

contrast in the mental framework of Western individuals.

“Dance with the Maasai People.” Tourism on the Edge, August 10, 2012.

http://www.tourismontheedge.com/people/dance-with-the-maasai-people.html.

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Appendix 3

This image depicts a Maasai school in Kenya. The students are wearing traditional uniforms,

adopted from British colonial rule. Education is compulsory in both Kenya and Tanzania, but

many Maasai still do not attend school. These students are in the minority.

Lorring, Kelly. “Programs.” SIMOO, 2008. http://www.simookenya.org/programs.htm.