Drylands, seen from the outside world, fall in the imaginary of the remote, the deserted, the unproductive; a powerful imaginary rooted in romantic narratives, as well as in political and economic interests. In this article, we review different waves of rural politics and development in the East African drylands, with a particular focus on Kenya's arid and semi-arid lands, in the context of climate change. We question the re-awakening of international and national attention paid to the drylands under the all-embracing framework of ‘resilience building’. Unfortunately, tensions between climate change policies and local knowledge and practices remain. We show how such renewed attention retains old myths about drylands and leaves little space to the agency of pastoral communities that live in these territories, and what are the implications of mislead development efforts. On the contrary, we suggest learning from pastoral practices to unravel theoretical and policy alternatives.