gabriella santiniresearchteachinginformationIn 2023, I arrived in Kenya during a period of severe drought to begin my doctoral research. Rain was on everyone's mind.

I spent time in Narok and Kajiado counties, living amongst Maasai pastoralists. I paid particular attention to the ways in which Maasai relate to and imagine their environment. These regions —conservation hotspots with a complex history of colonial land dispossession — provided a unique lens through which to examine how both historical forces and present realities shape people's connections to land and wildlife.

I employed participatory and multimodal approaches to explore these entanglements and imaginings. Multimedia technologies were used as research tools and to generate outputs alongside a written thesis. 

El Nino came the following year, bringing a much welcomed downpour on Kenya's lands as I ended my fieldwork.













I brought an old camcorder and shotgun microphone with me to the field alongside the standard notebook. The aim was to experiment working with film, photography, sound, and digital media to cultivate an attunement to different modes of embodiement, imagination, and ways of telling stories. It was also an attempt to do ecology otherwise by experimenting with ways to break away from conventional ideas about the living world. 

I discovered that these tools provided a great way to make the research participatory. 
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Together with Maasai youths, we made audio-visual notes, including film recordings of dance and sound clips of signing. We captured more-than-human life, too. Youths were invited to engage their senses in the documentation of the environment. These data create digital storytelling of the Maasai lifeworld. 

Some of the audio recordings were used to conduct observational studies of lions’ responses to anthropogenic sounds. 




In August 2023, I had to opportunity to join the Enkipaata — a pivotal rite of passage ceremony for Maasai boys. Enkipaata occurs approximately once every decade to mark the formation of a new age-set and initiate boys into the first stages of moranhood (warriorhood).

On the eve of August 24, the boys were getting ready to spend a night in the bush and mark their transition to warriorhood. They have been waiting for this moment all of their childhood. Tonight, they are a step closer to becoming Morans -- great Maasai Warriors. This cold night prepares them for what is to come: manhood and a life a herding livestock in the unforgiving savannah. While life in the rangeland is changing rapidly, practices like Enkipaata creates continuity between the past, the present and the future. A night spent in the desert connects these boys to their ancestors who have done this for generations, and to the next generation of Maasai boys who will have to do this too someday.




While ceremonies celebrating boyhood and manhood persist today, adapting to modern contexts, there are no longer equivalent ceremonial events marking the transition from girlhood to womanhood. 

Traditionally, Empikas was a ceremony organized to celebrate Maasai girls’ transition to womanhood, after having undergone circumcision. Due to the ban on FGM in Kenya, empikas is no longer practiced. 

As the sole rite of passage for Maasai girls, its absence has left a void in marking their transition to a new life stage.

The girls and young women in the village decided to re-imagine what empikas can be; a celebration of girlhood and womanhood. This re-imagination offered a space for young women to negotiate between the old an the new.


publications


Santini, G. (Forthcoming). “The Future of Lion Conservation: From Conflict to Co-adaptation?” Oryx.
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Santini, G. (2024). “Thoughts on Doing Multispecies Ethnography in Kenya's Maasailand.” Anthways, 4. DOI:10.5281/zenodo.13982297


Santini, G. (2024). “Maasai Mara's indigenous forest is disappearing, with drastic consequences.” The Conversation. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/maasai- maras-indigenous-forest-is-disappearing-with-drastic-consequences-238478


Santini, G. (2023). “Review of Kanogo, Tabitha, Wangari Maathai.” H-Environment, H-Net Reviews. June, 2023.


Santini, G. (2023). “Re-inventing Empikas - a photo essay.” Anthropolitan. Retrieved from https://anthropolitan.org/2023/12/22/re-inventing-empikas-a-photo-essay/
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Santini, G. (2023). “The Tale of the Travelling Sneaker: From Western Rejects to Nairobi Mtumba Hustle.” Anthropolitan. Retrieved from https://anthropolitan.org/2023/02/16/the-tale-of-the-travelling-sneaker-from-western-rejects-to-nairobis-mtumba-hustle/