Omo-Turkana Research Network

I obtained a Ph.D. in ethnology from the University of Paris Nanterre with a dissertation on the implications of ritual and musical performance in the construction of male authority and power among the Samburu of northern Kenya. As a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan, I studied the contemporary transformations of pastoral societies’ institutional systems. Currently, my research focuses on the role of cell phones and communication infrastructure in the fabrication of power relations among semi-nomad and transhumant communities in northern Kenya. The diffusion of these new digital technologies in rural and semi-desert regions also opens new perspectives for the study of political interactions between nomadic pastoralists and the national government in Kenya.