Researchers considering children’s traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) highlighted the importance of examining children’s daily activities as empirical contexts for its acquisition. Many of them evaluated children’s TEK acquisition linearly as gain or loss, and paid less attention to the adaptive nature of this knowledge system and the social relationships arising from its acquisition processes. This study approaches children’s TEK acquisition considering these abovementioned aspects. I utilize pastoral Maasai girls’ firewood collection as a case study, and analyze the personal, interpersonal and cultural institutional aspects of girls’ Ethnobotanical knowledge (EK) acquisition within this chore. Participant observation and unstructured interviews were used for data collection. I joined 12 girls (6 to 15 years old) on day trips for firewood collection, and documented their participation and performance during this chore. I observed interactions among girls and between girls and women concerning this activity, and investigated girls’ perceptions of local wood species via their descriptions. I also informally interviewed 15 women, between 20 and 80 years old on their evaluation of the wood species to be used as firewood. Current diet change and gender-age roles in chore participation in Maasai society require females to continually participate in firewood collection. Within this social context, girls intensively participated in day trips of firewood collection during the long-term vacation in the dry season. They collected a sizable amount from 24 plant species, and generated EK through personal sensual experiences, such as fragrance, hardness, and heaviness of different wood species. They acquired local taxonomy and terminology of different wood species, and learned others preferences for wood species used as fuel through interpersonal communication. These personal and interpersonal aspects, together with current diet change and division of labor within gender-age roles in Maasai society, provide EK with multi-dimensional meanings in current subsistence strategies. Results of this study show that girls acquired EK with multi-dimensional meanings through daily firewood collection, which cannot be only evaluated in a linear manner. Future studies focused on children’s TEK acquisition should consider the personal, interpersonal, and cultural institutional aspects of this adaptive knowledge system and children’s roles within it.

Pastoralists in East Africa are well known for their abilities in effective livestock and natural resource management in the dynamic arid and semi-arid ecosystem in which they live. Their ethnobiological knowledge, manifest in their skills of managing livestock and natural resources, is generated from the daily experiences of individuals in different landscapes. Since the early twentieth century, the pastoralist Maasai have gradually experienced land fragmentation and lifestyle changes. However, how Maasai children learn ethnobiological knowledge and how their learning processes are related to the local accessibility of their land remain largely unknown. Focusing on eleven children's daily activities during long school vacations in a Maasai village, where lands are still communally owned, this paper aims to understand the children's ethnobiological knowledge learning and its relation to access to land in current social contexts. The children independently undertake work, such as livestock herdin...

Health benefits of physical activity are well known, yet available physical activity data is limited from children living in African and Asian countries. The purpose of the cross-sectional study was to evaluate and compare physical activity and sedentary behavior patterns, particularly hourly variations, among children in Kenya and Japan. Participants included 298 primary school students (122 Kenyan, 176 Japanese) aged 9–12 years. Physical activity and sedentary behavior were measured with accelerometers. Domain-specific physical activity, screen time, and proportion of children using active transport to school were measured by questionnaire. A two-way ANOVA (countries × time) was used to examine the differences in the activity patterns between Kenyan and Japanese children. The results from the present study demonstrated that Kenyan children spent more time in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity compared to Japanese children (p < 0.05) with the greatest differences found for weekday evenings (for boys and girls) and weekend afternoons (for girls). This suggests that these were ‘critical periods’ to differentiate the physical activity levels between Kenyan and Japanese children. However, a higher proportion of the children from Japan used active transport to school and spent less time in television viewing and computer gaming. The results suggest that both countries have successes and challenges that can aid in developing effective and country-specific intervention strategies for promoting physical activity.

Children’s physical activity (CPA) in low- and middle-income regions has received increasing attention, but research is still very limited. This study explores the CPA in contemporary pastoralist Maasai society in rural Kenya by considering its sociocultural dimensions. The physical activity of 25 children (15 girls and 10 boys) was documented with mixed methods, including an epidemiological assessment of the CPA and semi-structured interviews with the targeted children regarding their daily activities. These methods were integrated with the ethnographic data on children’s socialization in the same area. Results showed a very high level of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) of these children with significant gender differences especially outside school. Children reported their continued social participation in local gender–age labor divisions outside of school. As their activities outside school strongly contributed to their empirical learning of local knowledge and skills, a high MVPA plays an active role in enhancing the children’s ability to access and manage livestock and different natural resources. Findings from this study first show that the CPA is not merely physical, but also has significant sociocultural meanings in the process of in situ learning of local wisdom. We call more attention to children’s social roles in future investigations of CPA among less examined populations.

Savoir ethnobiologique engendré durant les « jeux de conduite de troupeau » dans la société Maasai pastoraliste (sud Kenya). Cet article explore la production du savoir ethnobiologique relatif au bétail par les enfants Maasai du sud du Kenya, à travers des jeux de conduite de troupeau. Dans la communauté Maasai qui continue à utiliser et à gérer collectivement les terres, les enfants prennent part activement aux tâches quotidiennes liées au bétail, lesquelles servent de cadre à la production du savoir ethnobiologique. Pendant le jeu, les enfants mettent en pratique et communiquent leurs compétences relatives au bétail, tout en les ajustant aux conditions sociales et environnementales actuelles, et en mettant en scène les relations sociales qu’ils découvrent au fil de leurs tâches quotidiennes. L’étude met en lumière la pertinence du jeu dans la construction du savoir ethnobiologique dans des contextes sociaux pastoraux durant les jeux de bétail. Ce faisant, les enfants contribuent à l’enrichissement des relations homme-bétail-environnement dans la société Maasai actuelle. This paper explores the generation of livestock-related ethnobiological knowledge of Maasai children in Southern Kenya during their herding games. In the Maasai community where lands are still used and managed communally, children still take active roles in livestock-related daily chores, through which they generate ethnobiological knowledge. During the game, children continue the practice and the communication of livestock-related skills, together with interpretations of current social and natural conditions, and the social relations they had experienced during daily chores. This study highlights the significance of ethnobiological knowledge generation in pastoral social contexts during herding games, through which children enrich the human-livestock-biota relations in current Maasai society. Conocimiento etnobiológico generado durante los “juegos de conducta de rebaño” en la sociedad pastoral Maasai (sur de Kenia). Este artículo explora la producción de conocimientos etnobiológicos relacionados con el ganado por parte de los niños Maasai en el sur de Kenia, a través de juegos de pastoreo. En las comunidades Maasai que continúan utilizando y gestionando sus tierras colectivamente, los niños participan activamente en las tareas diarias relacionadas con el ganado, que proporcionan un marco para la producción de conocimiento etnobiológico. Durante el juego, los niños siguen practicando la comunición y las habilidades ganaderas, mientras interpretan las condiciones sociales y ambientales actuales, y retratan las relaciones sociales que descubren a medida que desarrollan su vida cotidiana. El estudio destaca la relevancia del juego en la construcción del saber etnobiológico en un contexto social pastoral durante los juegos de conducta de rebaño. Al hacerlo, los niños contribuyen al enriquecimiento de las relaciones hombre–ganado–medio ambiente en la sociedad Maasai actual.

Studies focused on jumping performance in humans have so far investigated either its biological or sociocultural significance, with very little attentions paid to the inseparable relations of these two aspects in daily life of people. Integrating both ethnographic and biomechanical methods, this research investigated the biosocial features of the jump performance of Maasai youth in its most well observed context, the wedding ceremony. Ethnographic data were used to explain the social status of participants, the physical movements and singing tempo of performers, and their interactions. Biomechanical methods were applied to assess the heights and frequencies of identified repetitive double-legged vertical jumps (n = 160, from 15 male youths). All youth performers followed a certain posture pattern, paying specific attention to their final landing. Large variations exist in their jumping heights [coefficient of variation (CV) = 0.237]; however, the frequency in jump repetitions were maintained with the least variations (CV = 0.084). Cheering interactions were confirmed, but with no significant difference in height between the cheered and non-cheered groups. These results indicate that the Maasai youths did not compete for jump height during local ceremonies. Rather, they emphasized the rhythmical retention of jumps, corresponding to other youth mates who were singing alongside. In the broader context of human behaviors, the analysis addresses the diverse meanings of motor performances in different daily contexts that reject the generalized sports regime of “higher/faster-the-better”.