Nomads showed eagerness for salaried work despite despising cultivation.

Evidence

Paradoxically, it was (and still is) precisely those clansmen of the nomadic areas who were least disposed to work on the land, because of their traditional contempt for cultivation, who were most anxious to obtain salaried employment. By contrast, the southern cultivating peoples, could, at this time certainly, satisfy most of their modest wants from the produce of their own fields and livestock without engaging in salaried employment except in time of scarcity and famine. — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 270

Categorization

• XREF: This inversion of expectations echoes the pastoralist-versus-farmer dichotomy that runs through the whole book, connecting back to Lewis’s earlier discussions of Somali pastoral values. — connects to: Somali nomads sought salaried work while cultivators shunned it; Somali nomads sought wage labour while riverine farmers avoided it
• SEED: A useful angle: why people eager for paid work resist the category of work their identity assigns them to — parallels modern gig-economy stigma.

Related

• Somali nomads sought salaried work while cultivators shunned it (similarity 0.95)
• Somali nomads sought wage labour while riverine farmers avoided it (similarity 0.90)
• Generous contracts failed to overcome cultivators’ reluctance to leave home for wage work. (similarity 0.84)
• Nomadism dominates Somali livelihood because the environment is harsh and arid (similarity 0.81)
• Somali pastoralists began adopting cultivation only within the past few generations (similarity 0.78)
• Harsh climate forces Somali pastoral nomads to move constantly for water and pasture (similarity 0.78)