Intersectional subjectivities, embodied experiences, and everyday responses among the Maasai pastoralists amidst environmental changes: insights from the Mara in Kenya

<p dir="ltr">The Arid and Semi-Lands, home to pastoralists, undergo tremendous social, economic, and environmental changes. Top-down win-win responses to these changes have been critiqued for ignoring local realities and power relations, reinforcing inequalities and vulnerabilities. Pastoralist communities like the Maasai are often portrayed in simplistic and homogenous ways, with their diversity and differentiated dynamic experiences being less understood. My study aims to examine the multifaceted ways intersectional subjectivities are shaped and shape experiences and responses to environmental changes within the Maasai community in the Mara region. I drew from feminist political ecology (FPE) concepts and used qualitative methods with ethnographic observations at the core. I emphasise the political nature of subjectivities constitution and mobilisation, which advances our understanding of how power operates to create social differences, embodied experiences, and responses to environmental changes. I connect scales from the body to the global intimate and foreground everyday local realities of the most marginalised in the community. I argue that the experiences and responses within the Maasai community reinforce traditional norms while simultaneously subverting some old practices. My findings reveal environmental changes - land-use change to conservancies and intensifying climate variability in the region - undermine local livelihoods, compromise traditional responses, and reconfigure subjectivities and gender relations. I assert that intersectional subjectivities in the Mara are shaped by symbolic, practical, and caring practices of more than human others, with a notable coexistence of progressive practices alongside harmful ones. The polygamous nature of households facilitates the weaponisation of livestock as punishment and reward tools. However, women navigate these obstacles through collaborative efforts, collective subjectivities, and the establishment of alternative households. Portraits of embodied experience depict the limits of care, drudgery in mobility, and increased conformity and resistance to traditional norms, emphasising their intimate nature. Everyday adaptations are characterised by complex social networks where fairness and exploitation co-exist. Evolving along gendered, generational, and wealth lines, these responses embrace the commercialisation of traditional knowledge among poorer individuals. My interdisciplinary and multi-scalar research contributes significantly to understanding how global environmental discourses (mis)align with local gendered realities.</p>