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
Table of Contents ABSTRACT 3 INTRODUCTION 4 SHIFTING POWER RELATIONS – A CENTURY OF CHANGE FOR THE MAASAI 5 SOCIETAL ORGANIZATION AND VALUES PROGRESSION INTO A MODERN SOCIETY 6 8 POWER INITIATES – COMPULSORY EDUCATION 12 TRADITIONAL EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES OF THE MAASAI HISTORICAL SETTINGS PRODDING MODERN EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS LOGISTICAL IMPLICATIONS OF COMPULSORY EDUCATION 12 14 17 POWER GAINS STRENGTH – WESTERN-CENTRIC CURRICULUMS 18 UNDERMINING TRADITIONAL MAASAI VALUES CONDEMNATION OF PASTORALISM IN FAVOR OF MODERN JOBS 19 22 POWER COMES FULL CIRCLE – THE NEED FOR FORMAL EDUCATION 26 CONCLUSION 30 INTELLECTUAL MERIT BROADER IMPACT 32 33 REFERENCES 36 APPENDIX 1 38 APPENDIX 2 39 APPENDIX 3 40 2 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.
3 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)
4 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
5 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)
6 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)
7 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)
8 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)
9 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)
10 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.
11 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)
12 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)
13 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)
14 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)
15 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)
16 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)
17 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)
18 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)
19 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)
20 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.
21 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)
22 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 selfreliant, 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)
23 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)
24 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)
25 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)
26 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)
27 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 nonequilibrium 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)
28 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)
29 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.
30 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
31 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
32 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.
33 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)
34 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.
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37 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.
38 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.
39 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.
40