Suchergebnisse

"The African Studies series, founded in 1968, is a prestigious series of monographs, general surveys, and textbooks on Africa covering history, political science, anthropology, economics, and ecological and environmental issues. The series seeks to publish work by senior scholars as well as the best new research"--

A research focus on hazards, risk perception and risk minimizing strategies is relatively new in the social and environmental sciences. This volume by a prominent scholar of East African societies is a powerful example of this growing interest. Earlier theory and research tended to describe social and economic systems in some form of equilibrium. However recent thinking in human ecology, evolutionary biology, not to mention in economic and political theory has come to assign to ""risk"" a prominent role in predictive modeling of behavior. It turns out that risk minimalization is central to the

Over the last two decades many sub-Saharan African countries have devolved rights and obligations in rural natural resource management from state to local communities in an effort to foster social-ecological sustainability and economic development at the same time. Often these governmental projects were launched in settings in which traditional commons, informed by both the demands of traditional subsistence-orientated agrarian systems and the tenure policies of colonial and postcolonial states were well established, and in which power struggles between rivaling traditional authorities, between seniors and juniors, and between state agents and local communities were pertinent. These moves were also embedded in (partially contradictory) discourses on decentralization, political participation, economic empowerment, and neo-liberally inspired commoditization of natural resources. In the process of devolvement rights and obligations were handed over to communities which were formalized in the process: formal membership, social and spatial boundaries, elected leadership, established models of governance, and accountability both to the wider community and to state bureaucracy. New commons1 were established around specified resources: pastures, water, forests, game. In the process these resources were (partially) commoditized: game owned by the community could be sold as trophies for hunting, lands could be rented out to private investors, and water had to be paid for. This contribution is intended to shed light on the process of establishing new commons - in the local context named conservancies - of game management in north-western Namibia. Game on communal lands had been state-owned and state-controlled in the colonial past. This did not preclude poaching but certainly inhibited significant degrees of commoditization. The new commons of game management are meant to do exactly this, in two steps: first specific rights (in this case management rights and transfer rights) are devolved to a well-defined community; then this community (or its committee) decides how to put the newly gained rights to good use and transfers such rights to private investors, tourism entrepreneurs and commercial hunters. While the first step is informed by discourses on participation and co-management, the second step is market-oriented and seeks so-called public-private partnerships.

Examination of a recent dispute over a dam project in northwestern Namibia illustrates the use of invented tradition & ethnicity to legitimize contemporary political positions. How both proponents & opponents of the dam appealed to so-called traditional leaders to support their claims is discussed, arguing that the tribal divisions represented in the conflict were developed during the early colonial period (1860-1900) & adapted under subsequent German & South African control. It is asserted that Namibian elites received their legitimacy not from tradition, but directly from the administrative & military structures of colonial powers. Differences between involved tribal groups are related to their economic strategies & success, not to actual ethnic differences. 1 Map, 24 References. Adapted from the source document.

An increasing number of poor Southern Africans live in poverty-stricken urban slums or shantytowns. Focusing on four shantytowns in the northern Namibian town of Oshakati, this book analyses the coping strategies of the poorest sections of such populations. The study is based on fieldwork conducted intermittently during a period of ten years. It combines theories of political, economic and cultural structuration, and of the material and cultural basis for social relations of inclusion and exclusion as practise. The poorest shanty dwellers are marginalised or excluded from vital urban and rural

An increasing number of poor Southern Africans live in poverty-stricken urban slums or shantytowns. Focusing on four shantytowns in the northern Namibian town of Oshakati, this book analyses the coping strategies of the poorest sections of such populations. The study is based on fieldwork conducted intermittently during a period of 10 years. It combines theories of political, economic and cultural structuration, and of the material and cultural basis for social relations of inclusion and exclusion as practise. The poorest shanty dwellers are marginalised or excluded from vital urban and rural relationships and forced into social relations of poverty amongst themselves. Having experienced long-term processes of impoverishment, the very poorest and most destitute in the shantytowns tend to give up improving their lives and act in ways that further undermine their position.

Landscape studies provide a crucial perspective into the interaction between humans and their environment, shedding insight on social, cultural, and economic topics. The research explores both the way that natural processes have affected the development of culture and society, as well as the ways that natural landscapes themselves are the product of historical and cultural processes. Most previous studies of the landscape selectively focused on either the natural sciences or the social sciences, but the research presented in African Landscapes bridges that gap. This work is unique in its interdisciplinary scope. Over the past twelve years, the contributors to this volume have participated in the collaborative research center ACACIA (Arid Climate Adaptation and Cultural Innovation in Africa), which deals with the relationship between cultural processes and ecological dynamics in Africa's arid areas. The case studies presented here come from mainly Sahara/Sahel and southwestern Africa, and are all linked to broader discussions on the concept of landscape, and themes of cultural, anthropological, geographical, botanical, sociological, and archaeological interest. The contributions in this work are enhanced by full color photographs that put the discussion in context visually.

Landscape studies provide a crucial perspective into the interaction between humans and their environment, shedding insight on social, cultural, and economic topics. The research explores both the way that natural processes have affected the development of culture and society, as well as the ways that natural landscapes themselves are the product of historical and cultural processes. Most previous studies of the landscape selectively focused on either the natural sciences or the social sciences, but the research presented in African Landscapes bridges that gap. This work is unique in its interdisciplinary scope. Over the past twelve years, the contributors to this volume have participated in the collaborative research center ACACIA (Arid Climate Adaptation and Cultural Innovation in Africa), which deals with the relationship between cultural processes and ecological dynamics in Africa's arid areas. The case studies presented here come from mainly Sahara/Sahel and southwestern Africa, and are all linked to broader discussions on the concept of landscape, and themes of cultural, anthropological, geographical, botanical, sociological, and archaeological interest. The contributions in this work are enhanced by full color photographs that put the discussion in context visually.

Throughout the past 120 years, hunting has linked the semi-arid Kaokoveld (northwestern Namibia) to global trade networks simultaneously embedding it within global aspirations to preserve African fauna untrammelled. The hunting of elephants for ivory, of endemic species for scientific inventories, of large game for the leisurely hunt, and clandestine poaching by South African officials and military, as well as contemporary forms of legalised hunting for trophies and saleable game meat, have continuously connected local pastoral communities, the environment, the state, and external globally operating actors. Flows of trophies, commodities, services, knowledge, and weapons between hunters, carriers and scouts, scientists and translators, intermediary traders and operators, state officials, and experts of international organisations have contributed not only to the dynamic development of a specific local-global interface, but also to the continuous re-shaping of biocultural frontiers between game species and humans. These flows have been strongly driven by the shifting tides of commodification of game, its state-enforced de-commodification, and its recent recommodification. This paper first addresses the elephant hunts of the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries, and the hunting for scientific purposes in the first half of the twentieth century. It then proceeds to look at 'subsistence' hunting, and leisure hunting by colonial officials, and finally deals with modern trophy-hunting in the context of community-based natural resource management.