Livelihoods in Darfur are intimately linked to the conflict, none more so than the livelihoods of the Northern Rizaygat—a group of Arabicspeaking, camel-herding nomads living in the Sudanese states of North, South, and West Darfur. They have achieved notoriety for their role in the Janjaweed—the pejorative name given to the loose groupings of armed Arab tribesmen, who, since 2003, have been integral players in Darfur’s conflict and instrumental to the Sudanese government’s counterinsurgency campaign. Little attention has been paid to exploring how the Northern Rizaygat’s lives and livelihoods have been affected by the conflict or to their livelihood goals and hopes for future peace and security. This lack of knowledge helps explain their relative exclusion from various forms of international action on Darfur—humanitarian programming, international peace processes, and international advocacy campaigns. Recognition of this exclusion prompted this research, the first field-based study since the conflict started that specifically focuses on pastoralists, and the Northern Rizaygat in particular. Apart from their politicized image, other reasons for their exclusion are that they are widely perceived by the international community as less vulnerable than other groups, they are hard to reach, they live in scattered rural communities, and they have been alienated by the pariah status attached to them. Our research uses a livelihoods lens to illustrate the processes that shaped the vulnerability of the Northern Rizaygat, and brought them to the point where they were willing to actively support the counterinsurgency against the Darfuri rebels who are contesting Khartoum’s control. These processes are deeply rooted in history, and embedded in complex interactions between people, the environment, and institutional and policy processes. Lessons learned from this very specific case have broader implications, not only for prospects of peace and recovery in Darfur, but also for policies around pastoralism, land tenure security, climate adaptation, natural resource management, and humanitarian intervention.