NEXUS BETWEEN INDIGENOUS DWELLINGS AND ECO-TOURISM: Case of Pastoral Communities Along National Parks

Abstract

This thesis traces the Maasai’s building culture as heritage and the effect of environmental conservation on the contested fragile natural environment in which the Maasai have coexisted with wildlife for centuries. Specifically, the study examines how the existence of the Maasai in Ngorongoro Conservation Area has remained contentious for the past three decades with environmental conservation and community development being major forces. While accentuating the ways in which Maasai indigenous dwellings seamlessly conform to the natural environment and adapt to foreign dwellings, the study argues that the changes in Maasai dwelling practices result from the deployment of their tangible and intangible cultural knowledge into their dwelling practices. Using a case study design, the study explored Maasai settlements, cultural villages (Kanjiros), hotel facilities, and campsites in Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) and some homesteads in the catchment zones. This multidisciplinary approach benefited from a theoretical framework built on the pillars of vernacular architecture, anthropology, eco-tourism, and sustainable development where the interrelated key concepts are knitted together to form a theoretical lens to explore the phenomenon. Such matrix allowed the Maasai to generate house forms responsive to their unique socio-cultural context, resonate with nomadic livelihood, seemingly adaptable to diverse climatic conditions while protecting the natural environment. Moreover, the study analysed the Maasai building culture pertaining to the prevailing socio-economic, political, and environmental dynamics taking place within or on areas surrounding Ngorongoro. This study found that the Maasai building culture is consciously grounded in nature conservation. Indeed, the Maasai vernacular architecture exhibits inert sustainability values such as rotational patterns in land use and spatial utility, minimal footprint, total biodegradation, recycling, and exploitation of short cycle regenerative materials. Overall, the study found that the Maasai building culture fosters inclusive conservation and the Maasai homestead has the potential of portraying land use patterns, cultural aesthetics, the extent of cultural performance as depicted in Kanjiro, as well as the pace at which their building culture transforms.