John G. Galaty
Mcgill University  

Introduction: The major challenges to pastoralism are not the demands of modernity, which most pastoralists are fully willing to embrace, nor the cultural lure of education – since the educated pastoralist is not an oxymoron but an increasing reality. Pastoralism is most critically challenged by the appropriation of rangelands by a variety of actors who use political means to achieve what would normally be socially and economically impossible. “Land grabbing”, which has become an idiom of African politics as salient as the “politics of the belly”, is not limited to the semi-arid and arid lands but is especially compelling in dryland locales because of the scale with which it is pursued. Within the large setting of African modernity and political economic change, this paper will examine how moments of vulnerability provided by transitions in land tenure – most importantly the assertion of rights over land by the state and the privatization process – has enabled the opportunistic seizure of pastoral lands by a variety of actors, including the politically well-positioned, entrepreneurs, commercial farmers, speculators, conservationists, tour operators, miners, and so on.