Farming the 'long-necked thing’: moving from cows to camels

A move from cattle herding to camel keeping among Kenyan farmers is more than an economic transition, it represents a fundamental shift in age-old customs. Some observe a taboo that forbids them from saying the word camel, which they describe as 'the long-necked thing' - Elizabeth Watson It's a long and bone-shaking drive from Nairobi to the Marsabit County of northern Kenya. It's an arid landscape, prone to drought, with dusty lowlands leading up to forested volcanic highlands. The thousands of people who make a living from the land here - among them the Boran and Gabra - are pastoralists. For as long as anyone can remember, they have moved with their livestock, following the rain to find grazing. In 2012 Dr Elizabeth Watson, a human geographer who specialises in eastern Africa, spent a month carrying out fieldwork in Marsabit. It wasn't her first trip to the region: she trained as an anthropologist and an earlier study of the relationship between landscape and ritual had brought her into with the Boran and neighbouring groups.