DISSERTATION RESEARCH: The Dynamics of Livestock Trade in Northern Kenya: Trust and Social Relations in Market Networks

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0003912Little / MahmoudThis dissertation research examines social relations of livestock trade in northern Kenya. The project, by a cultural anthropologist from the University of Kentucky, explores how trust operates in the context of economic, environmental and other uncertainties. The role of differential information in trust relationships among traders of different ethnicity, in different types of market trade, and in different sorts of transactions will be studied. The study will focus on livestock markets and will collect both qualitative ethnographic (participant observation, in-depth interviews, case histories) and quantitative survey data of trader households to analyze the complex nature of trader relationships. Hypotheses relating differences in information, type of stock traded, ethnicity, and forms of relationship will be tested. The new data to be generated will advance the theory of personalized economic relationships, will increase our knowledge about this important region of the world, and will help train a young social scientist. The information will also be important for policy makers and planners of arid land and pastoral economic systems.