Anthropological Reconsideration of the Dogma of "Competition over Scarce Resource" among the Pastoral Societies in East Africa.

东非游牧社会之间的冲突日益增多。大众媒体和学者倾向于解释说，在半干旱地区，相互竞争的牧民争夺牲畜、绿色牧场和水等稀缺资源。然而，这种冲突和“争夺稀缺资源”的教条似乎是由族裔政治精英煽动的。为了重新审视“稀缺资源竞争”的教条，本研究阐明了民族主义在东非游牧社会盛行之前，游牧社会之间生态资源共享制度的复杂性。结果，不同民族的人共存和发展共享制度变得明显。例如，拥有水井的养牛牧民允许骆驼牧民使用他们的水资源，以换取他们的劳动力。养牛牧民和骆驼牧民也根据牲畜的需要在空间上进行隔离。这种隔离减少了对生态资源如绿色草地的竞争。

There are increasing the conflicts among the pastoral societies in East Africa. The mass media as well as scholar tend to explain that rival pastoralists compete for the scarce resources such as livestock, green pasture and water in the semi-arid region. However, such conflict and the dogma of "competition over scarce resource" seem to be instigated by the ethnic political elite. In order to reconsider the dogma of "competition over scarce resource," this study clarifies the complex aspects of sharing system of the ecological resources among the pastoral societies before the nationalism prevailed among pastoral societies in East Africa. As a result, it became clear that the different ethnic people coexisted and developed sharing system. For example, the cattle pastoralist who owned water well allowed the camel pastoralist to access their water resources in exchange of their labor force. The cattle pastoralist and camel pastoralist also segregated themselves spatially according to the need of livestock. This segregation decreased the competition over the ecological resource such as green pasture.