Events Calendar

Curtis Hall Multipurpose Room (474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA) Free Event
Free Event

Animal Matters: Subsistence and Persistence: Constructing Pasture in Koobi Fora, Kenya

Thursday, October 26, 2023 | 12:00-1:00pm ET

Speaker: Ben Davies, PhD, lecturer in the Tufts Environmental Studies program. Tufts University

THIS IS AN IN-PERSON EVENT, ZOOM REGISTRATION IS ONLY REQUIRED IF YOU WANT TO RECEIVE A LINK TO JOIN REMOTELY.

Location: Curtis Hall Multipurpose Room (474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA)
Online Viewer Livestream Registration – Oct. 26

Mobile pastoralism – in which communities raise livestock herds by moving between shared grazing areas – is a common subsistence livelihood in arid and semi-arid lands. Recent studies have emphasized the disruptive and creative role of mobile pastoralism in the maintenance of grassy ecosystems and their biodiversity. This talk will introduce an interdisciplinary study investigating these effects among Daasanach pastoralist communities in northern Kenya. In particular, it will consider how Daasanach herding shapes the character of the ecosystems used for pasture and contributes to the long-term persistence of pastoralism in this environment.

This event is co-sponsored by Tufts University's Environmental Studies Program at the School of Arts & Sciences and by the Center for Animals and Public Policy (CAPP) at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine.

Ben Davies is a lecturer in the Tufts Environmental Studies program. His research is centered on understanding complexity in the coupling of human and natural systems, past and present. Ben received a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Auckland and undertook postdoctoral research at the University of Utah and Yale University. He contributes to several interdisciplinary projects, including modeling long-term cultural and biological regionalization in Malawi; studying mobility and resilience of pastoralist communities in northern Kenya; understanding the impacts of fire use by early human ancestors; and building serious games that help communities plan for climate change adaptation. His research has been supported by grants from the New Zealand MBIE, British Museum, and the National Science Foundation.

This lecture is part of the Hoch Cunningham Environmental Lecture Series and of CAPP's Animal Matters Seminar Series; to explore and register for other lectures in these series, visit these websites:

https://as.tufts.edu/environmentalstudies/news-events/hoch-cunningham-lecture-series

https://vet.tufts.edu/center-animals-and-public-policy

Event Details