Media Perceptions and Portrayals of Pastoralists in Kenya, India and China

Abstract

Resilient food systems require policies that let people use their own adaptive capacity. Pastoralists use mobility to take advantage of pasture and water that are patchily distributed in space and time. Pastoralism can therefore strengthen food security, livelihoods and economic prosperity. However, policy makers, donors and the public rarely acknowledge these benefits. This is partly because development and media narratives paint pastoralism as something bad that must change. This paper explores how the media portrays pastoralism in Kenya, China and India. In Kenya, pastoralists feature mostly in ‘bad news’ stories of conflict and drought. They appear vulnerable and lacking in agency. Stories rarely mention the benefits that pastoralists bring. In China, the media presented pastoralists as the cause of environmental degradation and as (generally happy) beneficiaries of government investment and settlement projects. In India, newspapers portrayed pastoralists with more pity, as vulnerable people whose livelihoods were at risk. Overall coverage of pastoralism in India was rare, however. Journalists surveyed there said pastoralists are “invisible” to editors. In each country, important topics such as climate change, the economic value of pastoralism and the links between mobility and resilience, were under-reported. Most articles about pastoralists failed to quote these people. Improved media coverage of pastoralism is part of the institutional capacity that is needed to support resilient food systems. Improved eco-literacy among journalists and editors can help strengthen the resilience of vulnerable communities and national food systems alike, and will become more important as climate change takes hold.

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