College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Department of Community Sustainability

I am a DPhil candidate at the Oxford Department of International Development.  My research investigates the problematic and challenging concept of resilience. It aims at increasing the understanding of Turkana food serenity, livelihood change and individual and collective identity in the midst of complex emergencies. Complex emergencies are here defined as those situations when multiple shocks are not an exception but the rule, being protracted or repeated over long periods of time. I want to use resilience to talk about people based on the empirical observation that people continue to live and trade despite the many challenges crises bring. That is, resilience is made manifest in the everyday practices ordinary people use to negotiate complex challenges such as droughts, disease, conflicts and daily struggles. This study is conducted from the empirical and grounded perspective of local households and communities and from the institutional perspective of development and humanitarian organisations working in the territory, with the hope to help international and local agencies in more sustainable and effective programming.