Joseph Oleshangay: Honoring nomadic, pastoral, and communal land relations

How is the Maasai community continually being displaced and disenfranchised in the name of “wildlife conservation”? What are some of the common propaganda used to justify their mass evictions? And how do the Maasai’s communal land relations, rooted in nomadism and pastoralism, ultimately challenge the laws of their nation-state — revealing the subjective ethics and worldviews that define legality? In this episode, we are honored to be joined by Joseph Oleshangay, a Maasai human rights lawyer who has litigated high-profile lawsuits against their government — notably, regarding forced evictions of the Maasai community in Ngorongoro District for tourism and trophy hunting. What can we learn from the Maasai’s ancestral lifeways that blur the lines between life and “wild” life — showing their food, medicine, culture, spirituality, stories, and music as inextricably woven into the plains and highlands where they call home? We invite you to… tune in and subscribe to Green Dreamer via any podcast app; subscribe to kaméa’s newsletters here; and support our show through a one-time donation or through joining our paid subscriptions on Patreon or Substack.