AnthroNow 5-2 AnthroNow - CCAFS: CGIAR research ......my experience coordinating the creation of a participatory documentary film with a group of Kenyan Maasai pastoralists raised

media

Shooting Climate Changein the Maasai Mara

Aesthetics and Expectations inParticipatory Filmmaking with

Kenyan Pastoralists

Joana Roque de Pinho

When you arrived, I heard about the

school of video, so I decided to join you.

Before, sometimes I went to the center

[town] and watched the TVs, but I never

managed to know how to shoot on my

own. That’s why I decided that I’d better

not just watch what people have shot, but

also learn how to shoot.

When Noolarami enole Kapirontoi, amother of three who had never attendedschool, approached me with an interest inproducing TV shows, I was surprised. Myparticipatory filmmaking project aimed toresearch and provide a platform for Maasaipastoralists’ perspectives on climate change.One idea behind visual Participatory ActionResearch (PAR) methods, such as participa-tory video, is to break down the traditionalhierarchy between researchers and inform-ants by offering the latter, usually from mar-ginalized communities, the photographic orvideo skills to portray their realities in theirown terms. Yet this 28-year-old Maasai pas-toralist yearned primarily for training in filmproduction. I later realized that climatechange is not exactly what motivated local

community members to join the participa-tory video project: like Noola rami, the otherproject participants came to us looking foran educational opportunity.

Another facet of participatory visual re-search is its privileging of the process overthe product—a locally produced documen-tary, in our case. It is the process that poten-tially creates the conditions for critical con-sciousness and empowerment that can leadto community transformative action. Whathappens, then, when local filmmakers them-selves view the quality of their product ascentral to their efforts? And how do you ne-gotiate divergent expectations among partic-ipants, researchers, and community mem-bers? These are some of the questions thatmy experience coordinating the creation ofa participatory documentary film with agroup of Kenyan Maasai pastoralists raised.

My participatory project started under theauspices of a more traditional academic ini-tiative. Colorado State University sponsoreda project fostering dialogue about climatechange and adaptation among scientists,Kenyan pastoralists, and representatives ofKenyan civil society. I was invited to pro-duce and direct a (forthcoming) documen-tary about climate change in the Kenyan drylands. The collaborative premise of ColoradoState’s project, however, inspired me to pro-pose adding a participatory visual compo-nent to our initiative, aimed at more deeplyengaging a pastoralist community in the pro-duction and communication of their knowl-edge about and experiences with climatechange. A documentary film created by thepastoralists themselves might further facili-tate the sharing of local knowledge acrossEast African pastoralist communities and

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with outside policy-makers. We would teachvideo production to local community mem-bers and encourage filmmaking on the topicof climate change and adaptation. The re-sulting rich visual and narrative data wouldcomplement the CSU project’s data from fo-cus-group interviews and collaborativeworkshops. Moreover, drawing on the phi-losophy of Participatory Action Research, Ienvisioned that the collective effort and ex-perience of local pastoralists researchingand creating their own documentary—inother words, the filmmaking process—would inspire critical reflection and discus-sion. This process is key in creating bases forcommunity problem solving. Here the mainproblem the Maasai participants mighttackle was how to remain pastoralists underchanging environmental and socioeconomicconditions.

Armed with such noble intentions andambitious goals, I found myself in Mpuaai,a small Maasai community in Narok Dis-trict, Kenya. It was September 2011, usuallya dry month, and it was raining—a lot. Lo-cal pastoralists considered this unseasonalrain a “little help from Enkai [God],” a reliefafter the brutal failure of the April–May longrains which had sent cattle and herders outin search of distant pastures (see photoabove). Ironically, the land was now greenbut largely devoid of cows. In this area,right on the outskirts of the world famousMaasai Mara National Reserve, Maasai pas-toralists have faced new challenges. In addi-tion to increasingly frequent droughts andother extreme climatic events, pastoralistsconfront restricted access to pastures result-ing from the creation of wildlife conserva-tion areas and land privatization. I hoped to

Joana Roque de Pinho Shooting Climate Change 75

Heavy, unseasonable rains in September: “Just a little help from Enaki [God].”


document visually how people on a locallevel were coping with and adapting to in-creasing climatic variability under thoseshifting conditions—with the collaborationof local filmmakers we were going to train.

The “Mpuaai School of Video”

My partner in the documentary project wasNicolas Tapia, an American professional cin-ematographer and the documentary’s direc-tor of photography. Little did he know thathe was also going to be a video productionteacher. On arrival at Mpuaai, we were wel-comed by two brothers, Sasine and Stanleyole Neboo, who had been recommended ascook and research assistant respectively.Their seriousness and enthusiasm made mehire them on the spot. Exhausted after a longday traveling, I explained to them our ambi-tion to conduct interviews, shoot a docu-mentary film, and do this project called“participatory video,” whereby local peoplewould become filmmakers for positive so-cial change in their community—no less.

The next morning, a couple of young menwere at our door enquiring about the“school to learn how to use the cameras.”Word of our arrival had spread fast and theseyoung pastoralists were eager to start. Withlittle time to think, Nic and I debated withthem how to best introduce the participatoryvideo project in the community, recruit par-ticipants, and teach the video productioncourse. Nic and I spent the remainder of theday presenting ourselves in the neighboringenkangitie (settlements), drinking sweetmilky tea, and explaining our dual objec-tives to the local elders, who were surpris-

ingly welcoming. Despite my familiaritywith Maasai culture and language, afteryears of work in other parts of Maasailand, Ihad been apprehensive about conductingthis project in a limited time frame, in acommunity where I had never worked.

Nic and I structured a tight course sched-ule to accommodate the prospective partici-pants’ busy days. The living room of ourrented house welcomed about twenty peo-ple the next day, mostly men in their twen-ties and thirties. Their Maasai beaded dressostentatiously revealed their part-time occu-pation as “cultural boma” dancers (i.e., vil-lages where tourists attend Maasai danceperformances and buy local crafts). Slightlymore intriguing was the presence of fouryoung traditionally dressed women. I strivedto recruit women to the project, and I wasimpressed to find so many of them (com-pared to previous experiences in Maasai -land). Introductions made it clear that moststudents were relatives from nearby settle-ments. As I explained the participatoryvideo project, they were receptive to theidea of using video to tell stories about theirlives, and any story, really—as long as theylearned how to shoot, as I would later dis-cover.

Using hands-on group games in and outof the “classroom,” we spent a couple ofhours a day over the following two weeksco-teaching and co-learning basic conceptsand techniques of video making and dis-cussing the ethics of camera use. Armedwith two simple digital cameras, micro-phones, monopods, and tripods, the Maasai“video students” experimented with shottypes and sequences, conducted interviews,and saved and edited footage (see photo).



One initial challenge Stanley and I facedwas to translate Nic’s technical terms. Spon-taneously, an idiosyncratic vocabularyemerged from students who spoke English:cameras had “eyes,” “ears,” and “SIMcards” (like cell phones); filmmakers were“shooters” who shot various “images”(footage), including “passport shots”(medium shots) and “close shots” (close-ups). Flexibility drove our approach toteaching video, and we let class dynamicsunfold organically: every other day broughtnew faces to the classroom. Dropouts werereplaced by newcomers who were broughtup to speed by their colleagues without dis-rupting the course flow.

After focusing our efforts on video tech-niques, we were finally ready to pursue ourinterest in climate change narratives. How-

ever, when I introduced the broad questionof local perceptions of climate change in aninitial group-wide discussion, the filmmak-ers steered the discussion in other directions.They expressed concern with river pollution,fences, the problematic sharing of grazingareas by wildlife and cattle, and other com-munity issues separate from climate change.Improvising a storyboard on the wall, thefilmmakers then delineated these stories andallocated filming tasks among themselves.(See photo on next page.) With each squareof the storyboard holding a distinct narrativeof change in the community (rather than in-dividual shots), the storyboard started toconvey a bigger, more complex story thanclimate change alone.

As the Maasai filmmakers went aboutshooting their videos and regularly saved


Video training is a collaborative effort.



The storyboard helped define narratives and allocate shooting tasks.


their files on my laptop, they progressivelycreated a rough draft of their documentary.As a group, we decided to invite the wholecommunity and representatives of local or-ganizations to a public screening of thefilmmakers’ work, and thereby thank theMpuaai community for their support. Thenearby evangelical church hosted thescreening. As fate would have it, the unsea-sonal heavy rains transformed the surround-ing plains into a gigantic swamp, and only asmall motivated group managed to come tothe screening. The church’s sound systemwas no match for the roar of heavy rain onthe zinc roof. Still, after the videos werescreened, the sense of pride among the film-makers and fellow community memberswas palpable, and we celebrated our ac-complishments with sodas and goat meatsandwiches.

Group Dynamics andEmpowerment

In the course of their daily practice, studentsfreely divided themselves in small groups toshoot outside. At the end of each day, weprojected their footage onto the living-roomwall for group feedback and discussion. No-ticeably, patterns emerged related to whogot to shoot and to speak into the camera.Not unexpectedly, the female students’ rolein both aspects was almost nonexistent. Asthe students staged and filmed (with a largedose of humor) male activities such as a lionhunt, fire starting, the theft of a sheep, andslaughtering a goat, the women seemed tobe, at the most, passive extras in these male“action movies.” By the end of the course,

invoking busy schedules, the women haddropped out, with the exception, however,of Noolarami, who was still assiduously at-tending class. So, one day, on impulse, as Isaw Noolarami walk back to her home, I puta camera and a monopod in her hands andasked her to please go shoot something, jok-ingly acting as a teacher assigning home-work. Half an hour later, Noolarami handedthe equipment back. I was a little discour-aged that she had returned the equipment sosoon, but didn’t give the incident a secondthought. Later, when saving her footage,Noolarami pleasantly surprised me with twonicely framed interviews of elderly womenanswering her questions about positivechanges in the community over the years.We saw clear advantages to Noola rami’s “in-sider” footage: the grandmothers looked andsounded remarkably more relaxed in thoseinterviews than in comparable footage Nicand I had shot for our documentary.

Other budding filmmakers such as Sa-sine, our dedicated and talented cook,chose to work individually. I had invitedhim to join the training, but had assumedthat his cooking job would preclude his par-ticipation. Sasine had never attendedschool—his father sent his younger brotherStanley instead. Sasine, however, was hun-gry to learn filmmaking even while in thekitchen. Anytime a group was not using acamera, he would seize it and discreetlydrift away. As his footage trickled in, itquickly appeared that Sasine was the best“shooter.” (See photo on next page.) With asteady hand, he had an excellent eye forcomposition and carefully selected his sub-ject matter. He shot and interviewed peopleengaged in unusual activities, for instance,



an elder praising his water-carting donkey,or a woman struggling to build a house be-cause of the drought-related shortage offresh cow dung. Sasine later explained that“I knew that the only way I would knowhow to use a camera was to practice a lot.So whenever I’m free, I use my time toshoot, to make myself perfect.” Both Sasineand Noolarami, through their perseveranceand talent, proved that formal education isnot a prerequisite for mastering a digital vi-sual medium. In the words of Noolarami: “Iwas very interested in learning a new thing,as I wish I’d gone to school, but haven’t. […] I realized that nothing is difficult, it’s onlythat you’ve not practiced.”

Feelings of pride and empowermentshine through Noolarami’s and Sasine’swords as they recount their involvement in

the project. Yet their experiences also showan aspect to be aware of: as democratic andinclusive as participatory filmmaking strivesto be, individual within-group participationcan be suppressed by gender dynamics(e.g., Noolarami) or can express itself differ-ently from the majority (e.g., Sasine workingon his own). In this case, flexibility and a lit-tle intervention ensured that motivated, butinitially excluded participants, had achance to practice and contribute theirvoices on issues close to their hearts.

The Importance of Lovely Filmmaking

Our last day in the Mara, after the commu-nity screening, the filmmakers worked late


Sasine the lone shooter.


into the night to edit their documentary. Toomuch cell phone charging by the filmmak-ers made our solar powered battery lose itsjuice. So, working by candlelight on a lap-top with a dying battery, the final editingprocess involved one filmmaker writingdown group decisions about sequences andtimings. Nic and I later used this as a guideto make the final, internet-friendlier, edits totheir documentary.

The narrative in their Maasai Voices onClimate Change (and other changes, too)participatory documentary (10 minutes) isin line with the larger Colorado State Uni-versity Pastoralist Transformations project’sfindings: climate change is not perceivedlocally in isolation from other socioeco-nomic changes that exacerbate and are ex-acerbated by climatic variability. The docu-mentary opens with an elder talking abouthow seasons have changed and that rainfallis no longer predictable. But it also portraysa diverse array of deep environmental andsocioeconomic transformations on theland, such as the consequences of unregu-lated tourism and land tenure changes. It isclear that for Maasai pastoralists, climatechange (perceived as increased variabilityin rainfall frequency and intensity), whilecritical for their livelihoods, is one amongother crucial and immediate issues, such asthe fences that crisscross the landscape andrestrict grazing, and environmental degra-dation.

When I reflect on the lessons I learned inthe course of this participatory video proj-ect, I realize that the production of beauti-fully crafted movies was everybody’s prior-ity. That included me, and I progressivelyfocused less on the data collection and em-

powerment sides of the project. This, ofcourse, runs counter to what ParticipatoryAction Research advocates, namely that theprocess, rather than the product; is whatmatters; that participatory filmmaking en-tails sacrificing aesthetics and artistry; andthat it is in the process that lies the potentialfoundations for community action. Our im-plicit attention to the quality of the productresulted from a combination of circum-stances, such as my insecurity about myshallow filmmaking experience, having aprofessional filmmaker as a project partner,and above all, the visible keenness of our“video students” “to learn how to use cam-eras.” Their eagerness is all the more under-standable as Maasai pastoralists have beenfeatured in countless coffee table books,films, and advertisements portraying them inhighly stereotypical ways. And while someare quite aware of the power of their image,and others have used cameras loaned bytourists and researchers, being behind thecamera is still perceived as an attribute oftourists. As they explained, this was theirfirst opportunity to learn video. Naturally,they wanted to do a good job at it.

The filmmakers’ concern with aestheticsmanifested from the beginning. For in-stance, the female filmmakers wanted thefirst videos where they appear deleted be-cause they were disappointed that theywere not dressed beautifully enough.Daniel ole Mpatiany, recognized as thegroup’s best director, expressed how muchhe enjoyed shooting and watching his danc-ing mates: handsome and “smart” withmatched beaded necklaces and clothes.Otumoi ole Keeko explained how he ap-plied his new skills for a beautiful result:



Today we interviewed the old man in the

village. I enjoyed it so much. I zoomed to

be closer, I zoomed to be far. I tried to use

this skill that I now have to make the video

as lovely as I can.

The pride of mastering a new skill toachieve a pleasant product is also evident inBenson ole Kirrokor’s recollection of his fa-vorite sequence:

The video I like the most is the one I shot

early in the morning at the river. I took a

long shot of the river, and also a close

[shot] of the water, and then an extremely

close shot of the water. I enjoyed it be-

cause I am the one who did it and I used

all the concepts required to make a movie.

The creative details of the filmmakers’ di-recting and editing also reveal the impor-tance they attached to making a good film.For instance, several actors metaphoricallyillustrate their hopes and intended strategiesfor a “sustainable cow future” by lifting up asick cow. As Noah talks about river pollu-tion, Daniel crouches behind him and dra-matically throws water to the air. He ex-plained that he intended to draw attention towater as the subject (prompting a colleagueto suggest that a close-up of the water wouldalso suit that purpose). Concerned that theylacked decent wildlife footage, the filmmak-ers asked Karim Kara, a Kenyan filmmakerwho was giving us a hand, for some lionfootage to illustrate their human-wildlifeconflict story (in consultation with the film-makers, we later removed that shot so theirfilm would qualify as fully participatory).

Building upon and going beyond ourguidelines, the Maasai filmmakers embracedtheir new ability to tell stories through videoin ways they found aesthetically enjoyable.Did our attention to aesthetics, however,negatively affect the potential for empower-ment and community action that the partici-patory video making process is known to fa-cilitate? I would argue that this is not thecase. The Maasai filmmakers’ focus on thequality of the product, their documentary,did not detract from the process. Both areimportant and complementary, and theirboundaries are not that easily distinguish-able. Insofar as the filmmakers and theircommunity value and see aesthetic merits intheir film, resulting from their efforts anddedication, I believe this also contributes tothe sense of community self-esteem and em-powerment that Participatory Action Re-search methods strive to encourage.

Some aspects of Maasai Voices could bedeemed bad filmmaking. Actors walk in andout of the frame while energetically and dis-tractingly moving a stick in their hands. In-terviewers punctuate interviewees’ speechwith frequent and loud interjections. Per-haps disconcerting to Western viewers,these characteristics, however, reflect Maa-sai communication style and rhythm, i.e.,the way elders stand up and talk in meetings


Did our attention to aesthetics,

however, negatively affect the

potential for empowerment and

community action?


(enkigwena), moving their stick for empha-sis, and how two people “eat (share) thenews” (ainosaki ilomon). I would argue thatsuch characteristics should not be “cor-rected” in the name of good filmmaking.They reflect the expression of local partici-pants’ perspectives and knowledge in waysthat Maasai viewers can relate to and also,potentially, facilitate their communicationacross other East African pastoralist commu-nities.

Jobs, Facebook, and Other Expectations

The participatory documentary’s focus onclimate was dictated by the Colorado StateUniversity project’s goals of exploring andsharing local knowledge of climatic vari-ability in the Kenyan dry lands. The film-makers and their interviewees, however,told a more intricate story of negative andpositive transformations in their livelihoodsand their present and future adaptation tothese. They see formal education as key inthe adaptation process. Noolarami, again:

I wish for my children and grandchildren to

be educated so they come to know about

the challenges and changes that are going

on. I’d like them to work hard so they come

not to be dependent, to give them some-

thing else. I wish to see my children as

drivers, as constructors, doing other

[things], not just depending [on cows]. So I

wish my children to learn to get alterna-

tives; as well, to have few cows, but not to

remain completely without cows.

Somewhat ironically, then, the video stu-dents’ desire to diversify their livelihood op-tions so as to navigate current environmen-tal and socioeconomic changes is whatdrew so many young people from this com-munity to our “video school”:

It’s of great benefit to me because I might

have wanted to study that course but I

have never had the chance to go to school.

Now I’m able to study for free and close to

home. (Nickson ole Kirrokor)

Before the training, I didn’t know how to

operate a camera. But now I know much

about cameras. It’s a new thing in my life

and I see it as a big step. […] Maybe some-

day […] I can get someone to employ me

for this skill and I can make a living from

it. (Kuntayo ole Kirrokor)

This expectation of employment, espe-cially in tourism, was heightened by theirvideo production course certificates, whichwe provided at their request. (See photo onnext page.) These introduced additional lay-ers of expectations, perhaps not so easilyfulfilled:

After the training, I’ll get a certificate and

then I’ll use it to get a job, and it will benefit

me and my family. (Nickson ole Kirrokor)

[Video] is very much helpful to me as it’s

something I learned and one day, you

might find that someone is asking for a

person who knows how to shoot, and I am

proud to say that I know. (Noolarami enole

Kapirontoi)



The filmmakers, illustrating how partici-patory visual research can lead to commu-nity action, devised other beneficial uses fortheir new skill. Foremost is their goal of us-ing footage of community problems to con-nect with policy-makers and claim financialcompensation based on evidence:

If something happens, we’re going to use

our camera and we record [what hap-

pened] and then it makes a reference for

the future. […] If a lion attacks your cow,

you can use your camera to record that in-

formation and you can take that video to

the relevant authorities and ask to be paid

(Kuntayo ole Kirrokor)

They also see video as a helpful tool forrecording changes in the community andfor educating the community—a key goal ofParticipatory Action Research:

The movie we are making is very impor-

tant for us and the community. It gives a

comparison between the past and the

present. Long ago, you could see that the

Talek River was really a river. Now, it’s not

a river anymore. (Sasine ole Neboo)

The filmmakers’ and their community’sability to take advantage of and developtheir new skill, of course, depends on theiraccess to the technology. Thus, the two


Noolarami and her video production course certificate.


cameras and other gear stayed with them.All filmmakers officially agreed that thiscommunal property would under no cir-cumstance be sold. Control over the equip-ment, though, became a contentious issue—surprisingly, not among the filmmak-ers, but with other community members.Months after my depar-ture, I received an emailfrom a politically influen-tial community member.He suggested that Sasine,of all people, had sold thecameras. An email from Stanley later clari-fied that Sasine was holding on to the cam-eras to prevent a certain person from appro-priating them. While the details are notclear on either side, this episode illustrateshow cameras are desirable for the powerand prestige their control bestows on who“keeps” and uses them. Local leaders mightthink of themselves as more appropriateowners of the cameras in virtue of their po-sition and formal education. And becausecameras can be used as tools of politicalpressure, as some of the Maasai filmmakersexplained, they may be perceived as threat-ening by local leaders. Cameras are neverneutral.

Recent news of the Mpuaai filmmakers isthat after having waited for the results of thepresidential elections (March 2013), theyregistered their group as an official Kenyanself-help association with a view to markettheir collective work and skills. They have“partnered” with a local NGO to store theirnew videos in its computers (“when themanager is not looking”). Maasai Voices onClimate Change (and other changes, too)was officially selected to screen at an inter-

national film festival in the Netherlands, arather edgy “art event for independentartists exhibiting unconventional audiovi-sual art from all over the world.” And Stan-ley (“I know all about Facebook”) has prom-ised to create a Face book page for theMaasai Filmmakers Association. Stay tuned.

Note

All photos are by the author.

Acknowledgments

The Pastoralist Transformations to Resilient Fu-tures: Understanding Climate from the GroundUp (PTRF) project was funded by the Livestockand Climate Change Collaborative Research Sup-port Program (LCC-CRSP). The filmmaking com-ponent of the PTRF project and the Maasai Voiceson Climate Change (and other changes, too) par-ticipatory video project received additional sup-port from the LCC-CRSP and the CGIAR ResearchProgram on Climate Change, Agriculture andFood Security (CCAFS). The writing of this articlewas supported by a Fundação para a Ciência e aTecnologia postdoctoral grant (SFRH/BPD/43242/2008). I am grateful to the Mpuaai communityand the Bashir family in Nairobi for their hospital-ity and friendship; Karim Kara for his help in thefield, Clement Lenashuru for translation verifica-tion and Katherine McCaffrey for insightful com-ments to earlier drafts.

The Maasai filmmakers of Mpuaai are Stanleyole Neboo, Noah Meoli ole Kaai, Sasine ole Ne-boo, Noolarami enole Kapirontoi, Kuntayo oleKirrokor, Debra Seenoi Kaigil, Moses Simel oleRarin, Alex K. ole Koshal, Otumoi ole Keeko,Daniel P. ole Mpatiany, Nickson ole Kirrokor,Benson Molonko ole Kirrokor, Denis Sasine ole


Cameras are never neutral.


Lenjir, Sabaya ole Mpatiany, Emily Soipanoienole Kapirontoi and Miton ole Kirrokor. Theycan be contacted through Stanley ole Neboo:[email protected].

Suggestions for Further Reading

Flores, Carlos Y. 2004. “Indigenous Video, Devel-opment and Shared Anthropology: A Collabora-tive Experience with Maya Q’eqchi’ Filmmakersin Postwar Guatemala.” Visual Anthropology Re-view 20, 31−44.

Goldman, M. J. 2011. “Chapter Eleven. Keepingthe Rhythm, Encouraging Dialogue, and Renego-tiating Environmental Truths: Writing in the OralTradition of a Maasai Enkiguena.” In B. Caminero-Santangelo and G. Myers, eds. Environment at theMargins. Columbus: Ohio University Press.

Gubrium, Aline, and Krista Harper. 2009. “Visu-alizing Change: Participatory Digital Technolo-gies in Research and Action.” Practicing Anthro-pology 31(4):2–3.

Lunch, Nick, and Chris Lunch. 2006. Insightsinto Participatory Video: A Handbook for theField: Insightshare.

Nakamura, Karen. 2008. “A Case against GivingInformants Cameras and Coming Back WeeksLater.” Anthropology News, February: 20.

Turner, Terence. 1991. “The Social Dynamics ofVideo Media in an Indigenous Society: The Cul-tural Meaning and the Personal Politics of Video-making in Kayapo Communities.” Visual Anthro-pology Review 7(2):68–76.

Wiesner, Peter K. 1992. “Media for the People:The Canadian Experiments with Film and Videoin Community Development.” American Reviewof Canadian Studies: 65–99.

Project Video Products

Maasai Voices on Climate Change (and otherchanges, too). http://www.imdb.com/video/wab/vi3403654681/

http://ccafs.cgiar.org/node/1733

http://ccafs.cgiar.org/node/1743

Noolarami on her filmmaking experience:http://ccafs.cgiar.org/node/1746

Trailer for Of God, Rain and Motorbikes: Changein the East African Dry Lands: https://vimeo.com/65117460.

Joana Roque de Pinho is a postdoctoral re-

searcher in ecological anthropology at Centro de

Administração e Políticas Públicas at the Instituto

Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas (Univer-

sidade Técnica de Lisboa, Portugal). After a Ph.D.

focusing on Maasai-wildlife relationships in the

Amboseli Ecosystem, Kenya, her current research

focuses on conservation politics and the roots of

conflicts over natural resources within a national

park in Guinea-Bissau. She is also currently en-

gaged with ethnographic filmmaking and partici-

patory visual research. A forthcoming documen-

tary, entitled Of God, Rain and Motorbikes:

Change in the East African Drylands, explores

the livelihood options that pastoralists in the

Maasai Mara are currently experimenting with.

In a recently funded project, Joana will collabo-

rate with local photographers from farming com-

munities in Guinea-Bissau to investigate local

adaptive strategies to climate change within a

national park.



Documents

AnthroNow 5-2 AnthroNow - CCAFS: CGIAR research ......my experience coordinating the creation of a participatory documentary film with a group of Kenyan Maasai pastoralists raised