Inclusive leadership, social connectedness and resilience among Maasai communities in Northern Tanzania
Maasai pastoralist communities in northern Tanzania are navigating interconnected social, environmental, and institutional changes, including climate variability, changing land governance, conservation pressures, and livelihood transformation. Research highlights how Maasai communities actively negotiate changing governance arrangements to sustain their livelihoods (Mhina et al., 2025). However, questions remain about how leadership practices shape participation, social connectedness and community resilience, particularly where opportunities for influence differ across gender, age, disability and socio-economic position.
This PhD research examines how Indigenous leadership practices enable, constrain or reshape participation, social connectedness and resilience among Maasai communities in Longido and Monduli Districts in Arusha region, northern Tanzania. It draws on Indigenous relationality, intersectionality and the capabilities approach to explore how authority, social relationships and unequal opportunities for participation influence community responses to socio-ecological change (Crenshaw, 1989; Smith, 2021).
The study pays particular attention to Osotua, a Maasai concept of need-based reciprocity, care, and mutual obligation, through which support is offered according to need rather than expectations of equivalent repayment (Wijngaarden & Ole Murero, 2023). The study examines how these relational values intersect with leadership practices, social inequalities, and community resilience, without assuming reciprocal relationships necessarily benefit everyone equally.
Adopting a participatory qualitative co-production approach informed by Indigenous methodologies, decolonial principles, and relational research ethics (Kara, 2018), the research will use interviews, focus groups, storytelling, participatory mapping, photovoice, and community dialogues. Participants will contribute to interpreting findings and exploring the co-production of culturally grounded principles of inclusive leadership. The research aims to advance understanding of the relationships between Indigenous leadership, social connectedness, and differentiated experiences of resilience. It may also inform culturally responsive approaches to community development that recognise Maasai knowledge, strengthen meaningful participation, and address inequalities in decision-making.
Selected References
Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), 139–167.
Kara, H. (2018). Euro-Western research and ethics. In Research Ethics in the Real World (pp. 33–42). Policy Press. https://doi.org/10.51952/9781447344780.ch003
Benedict Mhina, E., Treue, T., Kicheleri, R. P., & Abdallah, J. M. (2025). When the state arrived in Maasailand and the Maasai became citizens, farmers, and conservationists to remain pastoralists. Pastoralism : Research, Policy and Practice, 15, 15192. https://doi.org/10.3389/past.2025.15192
Smith, L. T. (2021). Decolonizing methodologies : research and indigenous peoples (Third edition). Zed.
Wijngaarden, V., & Ole Murero, P. N. (2023). Osotua and decolonizing the academe: implications of a Maasai concept. Curriculum Perspectives, 43(Suppl 1), 33–46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41297-023-00190-2
Supervisors
- Prof. Elsbeth Robson (Director of Studies)
- Dr Ifeoma Onyeka (Supervisor)
- Dr Alim Abubakre (Supervisor)
- Dr Rob Macmillan (Academic Advisor)
