Elliot M. Fratkin (Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts)

Submitted:  Mon, 25 August 2003


Elliot M. Fratkin
Professor
Department of Anthropology
Smith College
Northampton, Massachusetts  01063 USA 

phone:  413-585-3338
fax:    413-585-3389
E-mail: efratkin@smith.edu



Professor Fratkin's research has focused on African pastoralist societies
including Ariaal, Samburu, and Maasai of Kenya, and he has written
numerous articles and books on pastoral society, ecology, traditional
medicine, indigenous peoples policies, and development policies in East
Africa. 

He has received research awards from the National Science Foundation,
Social Science Research Council, The National Geographic Society, and the
Smithsonian Institution, and was a U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Eritrea in
2002-2003.  In 2002 and 2003, Professor Fratkin served on the World Bank
Inspection Panel investigating complaints about the Chad-Cameroon Oil
Pipeline and Development Project.

He received his Ph.D. at the Catholic University of America, M. Phil.
degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and B.A.
from the University of Pennsylvania, all in anthropology.

Selected publications:

Books:

-- Surviving Drought and Development in Kenya's Arid Lands. (Westview 
Press, 1991)
-- Ariaal Pastoralists of Kenya. (Allyn and Bacon Publishers, 1998, 2003)
-- African Pastoralist Systems. (co-edited with Kathleen Galvin and Eric 
Abella Roth, Lynne Rienner Publishers 1994)
-- Cultural Anthropology (with Daniel G Bates) Allyn and Bacon 
Publishers). 

Articles:

-- "The Laibon as Sorcerer: A Samburu Laibon among the Ariaal Rendille (Africa 1991)
-- "Traditional Medicine and Concepts of Healing among Samburu Pastoralists of Kenya"
(Journal of Ethnobiology 1996)
-- "Pastoralism: Governance and Development Issues" (Annual Review of Anthropology 1997 )
-- "East African Pastoralism in Transition: Maasai, Boran, and Rendille Cases" 
(African Studies Review 2002)