Echoes of colonial disruption: historicizing vulnerability, raiding, and violence in Northwestern Kenya

• The British conquest of the Turkana in the 1910s devastated the pastoral economy. • Colonial livestock theft and border enforcement made the Turkana vulnerable to environmental fluctuations. • In the colonial era, ecological conditions became the primary driver of conflict between the Turkana and neighboring groups. • The droughts in 1928 and 1933 mark the beginning of new conflict dynamics in Turkana. • The vulnerability and insecurity experienced in contemporary Turkana are legacies of colonial policies.