Maasailand Semester is a 12-credit program offered to undergraduate and graduate students of Prescott College during spring semester.
The program is a unique experiment, now it its 15th year, into how a university program might offer deep and genuine support to an Indigenous community’s struggle for justice. The course is taught by Meitamei Olol Dapash and Mary Poole, and various other American and Kenyan faculty, and structured differently every year in response to particular needs of the Maasai community for research and education. The program offers cultural immersion
Students support community priorities through their work:
2005: Students studied the political economy of tourism and human wildlife conflict, and then conducted research into the impact of the tourist industry on Maasai communities surrounding both the Maasai Mara Game Reserve and Amboseli National Park .
- Research was conducted by interviewing lodge managers and employees, tourists, Maasai leadership, tour operators, and undertaking a literature review of related work. The class presented its findings to the Narok County Council, Kenyan Wildlife Services Community Partnership program and the country’s Public Prosecutor. Two additional articles were written for publication in East African newspapers. The first an expose on the exploitative practices of tour operators in Maasailand, and the second on positive efforts by Maasai leadership to manage the Maasai Mara Game Reserve.
2006: At the request of Maasai leadership in Amboseli, students researched the history of the government’s assumption of the Amboseli National Park, traditionally part of Maasailand, in the wake of renewed administrative interest in handing the park back to the management of Maasai communities.
- Research largely based on interviews and archival research. A final paper was presented to members of parliament and the Kaijiado County Council, and contributed to the furthering park management agreement.
2007: Students wrote biographies and children’s books, telling the life stories of two Maasai activists/community leaders, for publication and distribution to Maasai primary and secondary schools.
- We are currently seeking funding to publish and bind copies of these texts for wider distribution.
2008: Students conducted historical research into the history of a 30,000 acre piece of Maasailand, in an area known as Mau Narok, to inform the efforts of the Maasai community to recover the land. Students presented the research in August, 2008, and several days later 700 Maasai community members organized a protest on the land. The research formed the basis of a law suit filed in Kenyan court in December, 2009, to recover the land, paid for through fundraising efforts by students.
2010: Students conducted further research to support the ongoing Mau Narok suit including research on successful Indigenous land rights in other former colonies. They researched two additional potential Maasai land rights cases, in Kinangop and Magadi, and developed a library and archive focused on land rights. This work was presented in Narok on August 7, 2010, to the Mau Narok legal team, Letengule and Associates, Nairobi, community members from Mau Narok, and Maasai leadership.
2011: Students continued further research into the Mau Narok land rights case and supported the community’s activism with presentations on media coverage of the case, context for specific government initiatives, and the impact of Kenya’s new constitution on civil rights of Maasai people involved in the movement for land rights at Mau Narok.
2013: Students provided information about global social movements to Maasai land rights activists, university students and religious leaders, focusing especially on the U.S. Civil Rights Movement and Indigenous land rights in North America.
2014:
2015: ??The class lived in a Maasai community for several weeks to research the need for water through interviews to support and inform plans for a Rotary water project. Report here:
2016: The class participated in the launch of the Maasai Field Guide Training Program and studied ecology and wildlife with Maasai students, and helped to organize a community graduation ceremony for Maaai students that also saw the official launch of the Mara Guides Association.
2017: Prescott College students were joined by students of ASU’s Global Resolve program to collaborate on a study of global development challenges and community based strategies.
2018:
2019: Spring semester class and summer…