Tanzania
Tanzania
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The research considers Masai communities, primarily pastoralists, in Northern Tanzania which are heavily affected by climate change, land fragmentation and population growth. In particular, working together with communities and grassroot groups, the research focuses on the specific role of indigenous knowledge to elaborate strategies for the mitigation of food scarcity and deprivation.
2025 World Anthropological Union congress
2025 World Anthropological Union congress
18 November 2025
Angela Kronenburg García
On 5 November, I gave an online presentation at the 2025 World Anthropological Union congress held at Antigua, Guatemala.
My presentation was based on research conducted in Loita, Kenya, as part of a different project but also included some food insights from the FOCE work. In the presentation, I explained how the arrival and spread of Evangelical churches in Loita happened at the same time as a land demarcation process, and how this was (and is) profoundly changing Maasai culture. In Terrat, we also saw how Christianity is shaping and changing Maasai practices and social life. We noticed this, for example, in the songs with which we were received by the women at the cultural boma on the day that they showed us how to cook loshoro. But Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity is also having an impact on Maasai foodways, in Terrat as well as in Loita. This is most visible in the abstention from blood-based dishes – blood was once a symbolic and material pillar of the Maasai diet and pastoral identity, but its consumption is strongly discouraged by these new churches. Christianity has also introduced new temporal rhythms into Maasai food cultures, through fasting, feasts, and emerging moral discourses around food and consumption. We describe these and other changes in the research outputs that we are currently elaborating.
My presentation was part of a “pastoralism in transition” panel (I was one of the conveners) and focused on the intersection of religious and environmental change. There were presentations from China, Mongolia, Kenya, and the Andes along the Chile-Bolivia border. It was interesting to see how many of the broader processes and changes highlighted in the different presentations resonated deeply with what we saw and heard in Terrat. Some of these included climate change, the growing impact of mining activities, tourism development and land tenure changes. To me, this was a powerful reminder that pastoralists and agro-pastoralists all-over the world grapple with similar changes and challenges. Future research on foodways could explore this pastoral specificity further in a more comparative way.
Sharing food and conversation at Foce Tanzania meeting at UCRT, August 6 2025.
Dr. Ruth W John introduces the information session at UCRT, August 6 2025.
Glimpse of the brochure prepared at UCRT, August 6 2025.
Co-Creating Knowledge for Food Security: Tanzania Unit Meeting at UCRT
Co-Creating Knowledge for Food Security: Tanzania Unit Meeting at UCRT
August 13th, 2025
Ruth Wairimu John, Angela Kronenburg García, Chiara Rabbiosi
On August 6, 2025, the Tanzania Unit held a milestone meeting hosted by the Ujamaa Community Resource Team (UCRT) in Arusha. The meeting had two main aims: first, to report back on the progress of the research project, and second, to share ideas on alternative food networks while thinking together about the most important aspects to consider when developing future action plans to strengthen food security.
Participants included representatives from Terrat village and Maasai community members, UCRT officials, and a researcher from the Open University of Tanzania. Research findings were presented by Dr. Ruth W. John, who convened the meeting, and Dr. Angela Kronenburg García.
The session was an important opportunity to listen to local perspectives and to better understand the specificity of the Maasai community of Terrat and their foodways. Through open dialogue, participants helped clarify practices, concerns, and priorities, contributing to a process of co-producing knowledge. These contributions will inform both scientific publications, proposals for actions plans, and the project’s final gallery exhibition and visual representation of community spaces.
Most importantly, the discussions highlighted how research results can be made more sensitive to the realities of Terrat, Simanjiro district, while also pointing to ways to scale up findings to a broader social, political and ecological context.
A Maasai Ceremony Through the Lens of Milk
A Maasai Ceremony Through the Lens of Milk
Novembre 15th, 2024
Angela Kronenburg García
Tanzania is one of the study countries of the Food Communities (FOCE) project with a focus on Maasai pastoralists. However, because the land of the Maasai extends across the border into Kenya, we have decided to look at Maasai food dynamics in Kenya as well.
Earlier this month, I had the privilege of attending a Maasai ceremony in southern Kenya. The ceremony took place in Loita, an area located in the highlands west of the Great Rift Valley, next to the international boundary with Tanzania. Loita is home to a sub-group of the larger Maasai community called the Loita Maasai. This is a place that I know well, having conducted research there for the past two decades.
The ceremony marked the inauguration of the new Ilaiser clan chief of the Loita Maasai in Kenya. It was attended by over 3000 people, including local politicians, the media and a delegation of Loita Maasai from Tanzania. Although I was there as a friend, and having recently joined the FOCE team, I couldn’t help looking through the lens of “food” at what was happening around me. Here are some observations and thoughts on Loita Maasai food practices, with a special focus on milk.
Maasai as a food community. Early notes from Terrat village
Maasai as a food community. Early notes from Terrat village
September 13, 2024
Ruth John
The Maasai of the North of Tanzania face significant challenges in sustaining traditional food systems. Historically reliant on pastoralism and small-scale agriculture suited to semi-arid climates, they now confront disruptions due to the introduction of exogenous farming methods supported by the government and land fragmentation mainly due to wildlife conservation, tourism and mining, composing the main development interests of present-day Tanzania, a vibrant East African country. Analysing Maasai food communities as unique ecological and cultural identities may reveal the communal and convivial practices of production and sharing that intertwine people, animals, and environments. These practices could also contribute to developing new frameworks for understanding food security from a pluriversal perspective, which is open to diverse cosmologies for human-nature interaction, particularly indigenous ones.
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