Development at the Margins: Missionaries, the State, and the Transformation of Marsabit, Kenya in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

This dissertation is a case study of Marsabit, Kenya and the history of pastoralists, administrators, missionaries, and others who resided on or near the mountain in the twentieth century. My research emphasizes the changing social and political role of Marsabit’s resources, the interplay between development policy and Christian missionary theory and practice, and the marginalization of pastoralists in post-colonial Kenya. The application of colonial development policy on Marsabit was inconsistent, but led to the gradual exclusion of pastoralists from the mountain’s resources in favor of environmental conservation and farming. In the 1970s and 1980s the consequences of this exclusion were heightened by drought and dramatic population growth. Additionally, evangelical missionaries from the Bible Churchman’s Missionary Society and the Africa Inland Mission (AIM) who were leery of “physical ministries” eventually justified and funded their work by using the language of development. Beginning in the 1970s, AIM missionaries increasingly relied on their technical expertise, access to wealth, and integration into the development bureaucracy to justify their work in Northern Kenya.