| | Focusing on the Kaputiei, one section of the Maasai, pastoralists who straddled the Kenya-Tanzania border, this case study examines first the relations of production in pastoral societies. It suggests the notion of a 'cattle complex' must be understood not as an 'explanation' but as an ideology rooted in a social structure based on an age-class system. It locates the economic backwardness of such areas, and the observed conservatism of their people in their incorporation as peripheries of the colonial-capitalist system, and argues that this process has in fact been accompanied by an actual deterioration in the forces of production. It finally charts how new processes of class formation have evolved on the base preferred by the indigenous structure, as a result of ranching schemes and other inappropriate 'development' strategies that government has pursued among the Maasai |
