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21 – 30 of 473This paper analyzes changes in property rights, land uses, and culturally based notions of ownership that have emerged following privatization of communal land in a Samburu…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper analyzes changes in property rights, land uses, and culturally based notions of ownership that have emerged following privatization of communal land in a Samburu pastoralist community in Northern Kenya. The research challenges the strict dichotomy between private and collective rights often found in property rights literature, which does not match empirical findings of overlapping and contested rights.
Design/methodology/approach
Part of a long-term ethnographic project investigating the process of land privatization and its outcomes, this paper draws on in-depth interviews and participant observation conducted by the author in Samburu County in 2008, 2009, and 2010. Interviews focused on how land is being used post-privatization as well as emerging social norms regulating its use.
Findings
Privatization privileges male household heads with powers including rental, sale, and bequeathal of land. However, informal rights to land extend to women and other household members. Exercise of legal rights is frequently limited due to knowledge and resource gaps. New rules regulating land use have emerged, some represent sharp divergences from past practice while others support shared access to land. These changes challenge Samburu cultural notions of individuality, reciprocity, and shared responsibility.
Practical implications
This research illuminates complex changes following legal shifts in property rights and demonstrates the interactions between formal laws and informal social norms and cultural beliefs about land. The result is that privatization does not have easily predictable outcomes as some theories of property would suggest.
Originality/value
Empirical investigation of the effects of legal changes enables fuller understanding of the implications of policy changes that many governments are pursuing privatization with limited understanding of the likely effects.
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This paper considers whether the term patrimonialism can be applied to one racially bifurcated aspect of Australian history: the relations between ‘squatters’ and those with…
Abstract
This paper considers whether the term patrimonialism can be applied to one racially bifurcated aspect of Australian history: the relations between ‘squatters’ and those with competing civil and property claims. From the perspective of white settlers, the power of pastoralists who acquired use rights over vast stretches of land in late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries represented a challenge to rural settlement, economic development, the right to vote, workers’ rights and parliamentary democracy.
From the perspective of Aboriginal peoples who held traditional ownership of pastoral lands, squattocracy began with armed conflict and ended with practices aimed at detailed government of their everyday life. More generally, as white settlers consolidated property rights to land, they expropriated Indigenous peoples’ capacity to govern themselves.
The paper concludes that there have been two distinct histories of patrimonialism in Australia. The Australian colonies were among the pioneers of ‘universal’ male and later female franchise in the nineteenth century; Aborigines gained (de jure) full citizenship only in the late 1960s. While the squatter’s patrimonial rule over white settlers was short-lived, that over some groups of Aboriginal people persisted for more than a century.
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Nicola Jones, Yitagesu Gebeyehu and Joan Hamory-Hicks
There is a growing recognition that social norms play a key role in perpetuating gender- and age-based violence, and that tackling social norms must be an integral component of…
Abstract
There is a growing recognition that social norms play a key role in perpetuating gender- and age-based violence, and that tackling social norms must be an integral component of prevention and response interventions to ensure meaningful progress towards the ambitious targets of eliminating gender-based violence (Sustainable Development Goal [SDG] Target 5.2) and violence against children (SDG 16.2) by 2030. However, existing research often fails to adequately capture life-course and context-specific complexities. To explore these challenges, this chapter focuses on adolescents’ vulnerabilities to violence in Afar, one of the Ethiopia’s most disadvantaged regions. Drawing on findings from the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) mixed-methods 2018 baseline research, and using a socio-ecological framework, the chapter highlights that while the patterning of violence experienced by adolescent girls and boys is shifting across generations at the micro-level, gender- and age-related social norms remain deeply entrenched in both migrating and settled pastoralist communities. At the meso-level, institutional barriers to addressing adolescents’ experiences of violence include a lack of basic infrastructure, a dearth of confidential reporting spaces, limited adolescent- and gender-friendly personnel within the police and justice sectors, and poor coordination. At the macro-level, the chapter underscores the significant disconnect between Ethiopia’s progressive national policies and adolescents’ experiences of violence, reflected in the availability and quality of prevention and response services. The chapter concludes that to adequately tailor services to local realities and tackle adolescents’ specific vulnerabilities, a fine-grained analysis of the gendered and generational experiences of violence in its diverse forms is critical.
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Sahelian societies are overwhelmingly rural and dependent on agriculture and pastoralism. Farmer and herder lifestyles can complement each other, but climate change and population…
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DOI: 10.1108/OXAN-DB270010
ISSN: 2633-304X
Keywords
Geographic
Topical
Jonas Yawovi Dzinekou and Anne Christine Kabui
The learning outcomes of this paper are as follows: to uncover the social innovation in the peacebuilding model of the Children for Peace Initiative (CPI); to identify the key…
Abstract
Learning outcomes
The learning outcomes of this paper are as follows: to uncover the social innovation in the peacebuilding model of the Children for Peace Initiative (CPI); to identify the key success factors of the CPI model; to discuss the sustainability of the model of CPI-Kenya; and to apply the contact theory and personal transformation theory to CPI model.
Case overview/synopsis
The case is written to address the issue of intercommunity peacebuilding between the Pokot and Samburu. It focusses on social innovation in peacebuilding implemented in seven villages among the Pokot and Samburu. The activities revolve around the involvement of children as key actors in peacebuilding and the exchange of heifer between the communities to sustain the peace. The heifer is one of the sources of conflict. In this case, this powerful cultural symbol is used to create bonding and friendship between the conflicting communities. While there were many peacebuilding attempts in the pastoralist communities, CPI-Kenya introduced a model that focusses on building a new human relationship between the communities. It includes all the social groups of the communities, making it more successful and sustainable than other previous attempts.The two co-founders, Monica Kinyua and Hilary Bukuno, narrated the story of how the CPI-Kenya started, highlighting the uniqueness of their peace-building approach and the strategy they adopted to build a new relationship between the communities. They shared powerful stories of how CPI managed to bring a peaceful living between the Samburu and Pokot in Baragoi, particularly in Amaya and Longewan villages.In the beginning, the main challenge for the CPI-Kenya team was finding the right approach to implement their peace innovation by making children become the catalyst of peace in their communities. With children at the centre of the CPI model, the best approach was getting entry through schools. The school is an accepted social system that has over time gained trust from all parents who send their children there.The case provides the students with the element that is essential for social innovation in the community. The students can learn from the case the importance of collaboration for social initiative, community engagement and inclusive peacebuilding. It portrays a unique strategy in community leadership and management. Further, the students will learn one concrete application of the human contact theory and personal transformation theory. The case highlight how cultural symbols that are sources of conflict can be turned into the symbol of peace. Starting with one group of people in a community and growing into other groups in the same community through a ripple effect.
Complexity academic level
The case can be used for Master’s and Doctorate.
Supplementary materials
Teaching notes are available for educators only.
Subject code
CSS 11: Strategy.
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NIGERIA: Pastoralist conflicts will weigh on Buhari
Details
DOI: 10.1108/OXAN-ES235706
ISSN: 2633-304X
Keywords
Geographic
Topical
Asfaw Kumssa, John F. Jones and James Herbert Williams
Within the theoretical context of human security, this United Nations (UN) three‐year research project examines the causes and effects of conflicts in the arid and semi‐arid lands…
Abstract
Purpose
Within the theoretical context of human security, this United Nations (UN) three‐year research project examines the causes and effects of conflicts in the arid and semi‐arid lands of Northern Kenya. The purpose of this paper is to address the human security concerns arising out of conflict, displacement, migration and poverty. The people who live in the area are mainly nomadic pastoralists.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of previous empirical research and ongoing field studies are used to examine four problem areas: cattle rustling, proliferation of small arms, competition over scarce resources and conflict between refugees and local communities.
Findings
Seeking access to water and green pastures, the nomads generally follow their cattle across the region, and their movement is not confined to Kenya alone. They cross and re‐cross international boundaries to and from Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia and Uganda resulting in conflicts over water and pasture. Resource competition in a fragile economy has had grave consequences for the economic security of families and internally displaced people.
Originality/value
The North Rift and North Eastern regions of Kenya are the most underdeveloped area of the country and suffer from a high level of human insecurity, with more than three‐quarters of the population living below the poverty line. This UN project seeks an empirical understanding of the causes of conflict and ways to build the capacity of a vulnerable population to gain both freedom from fear and freedom from want.
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The main goal of this project is to study the wife‐battering in one of the traditional groups of semi‐nomadic herders of Eastern Africa, the Datoga of Northern Tanzania.
Abstract
Purpose
The main goal of this project is to study the wife‐battering in one of the traditional groups of semi‐nomadic herders of Eastern Africa, the Datoga of Northern Tanzania.
Design/methodology/approach
The study examines wife‐battering among the Datoga pastoralists of Tanzania. The interviews with 142 women provide the information on types and regularity of wife‐beating in the Datoga. Data were collected by means of interviews. Women were asked if they quarreled with husbands or had ever been beaten by them. If the answer was positive, a woman was asked for details of the physical violence and post‐conflict interactions between the spouses and with relatives from the wife's side.
Findings
According to these data, wife‐battering is a widespread practice among the traditionally‐living Datoga of Northern Tanzania – 47.19 percent of women in this study said that they had been beaten by husbands and of these, 14.79 percent stated that they had been injured by husbands. Aggression between spouses was highly asymmetrical; women were never trying to aggress back. The culture‐specific mechanisms of coping with wife‐battering were found to be still effective nowadays. The woman's father or brother is able to reprimand her husband for misbehavior and to demand a fine for the woman herself and for her relatives.
Research limitations/implications
Current research is limited by sample size, as well as due to the fact that interviews were mainly conducted with wives only.
Practical implications
Cultural mechanisms of control over wife‐battering should be taken into consideration by local officials, while developing violence‐reduction programs.
Social implications
While discussing wife‐battering issues, cultural norms and mechanisms of conflict resolution should be considered even though information has been collected in a modern, urban environment.
Originality/value
The severity and frequency of wife‐battering in Datoga is positively related to the number of co‐wives, as well as to the history of a woman's physical aggression. To social workers and governmental organizations dealing with conflicts between spouses in multiethnic communities, it should be important to take the cultural context and to look for traditional mechanisms of conflict resolution, if such mechanisms are available.
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The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the implications of policies, practices and new “non‐equilibrium” management approaches in mobile grassland management.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the implications of policies, practices and new “non‐equilibrium” management approaches in mobile grassland management.
Design/methodology/approach
The author takes an actor‐oriented perspective on the narrative of land‐use practices, notional sustainable stocking rates and the problematic of state policy interventions in local context. The paper is based on two years in the field on a bilateral aid‐funded grassland management project at Xing'an League, Inner Mongolia and follow‐up among selected informants.
Findings
The constitution of grasslands “degradation” is in fact contested by resource users. Most grassland scientists, Party and Government officials in China have tended to associate ethnic “minority” mobile pastoralists with destructive cultural practices that, they argue, have led to ecological decline on the steppes. This argument is integral to the “degradation narrative” that underpins the discourse on grassland science. The conventional bio‐ecology emphasis on species dominance (growth‐form), in fact says little about the extent of anthropogenic impacts on above‐ground biomass and whether these factors have been the cause of degradation. The paper suggests that greater consideration is given to specific changes in human activity, climatic and plant productivity over time and space, based on endogenous, flexible seasonal estimates.
Research limitations/implications
Although presenting challenges to conventional grassland science based on endogenous experiences and herder practices, it may have specific geopolitical limits to more general scaling‐up in different contexts.
Practical implications
The paper discusses new modalities of non‐equilibrium grassland management, inverting normative top‐down approaches to controlling environmental degradation, livestock distribution and stocking rates.
Social implications
The paper suggests rethinking the use of customary practices, vernacular knowledge and the social organisation of herders in the design of sustainable grassland management.
Originality/value
The paper may be valuable to practitioners, rural development planners, funders and researchers interested in the use of integrated, cross‐disciplinary, new ecological knowledge in grassland management.
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Habtamu Taddele Menghistu, Amanuel Zenebe Abraha, Girmay Tesfay and Gebrehiwot Tadesse Mawcha
The purpose of this systematic review was to assess the determinant factors of climate change adaptation (CCA) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this systematic review was to assess the determinant factors of climate change adaptation (CCA) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).
Design/methodology/approach
Studies that focused on determinant factors of CCA by crop–livestock farmers and pastoralists in SSA and written in English were reviewed from five major databases using the applications of Endnote and NVivo. The review process followed a sequence of steps to reach into the final selection.
Findings
A total of 3,028 papers were recovered from the databases and screened for duplicates (777) and publications before 2000 (218). The titles and abstracts of 2,033 papers were reviewed, and 1,903 of them were excluded owing to preliminary exclusion criteria. Finally, 130 papers were selected for full-text review and more detailed assessment, where 36 papers qualified for the final review. The most important determinant factors of CCA by pastoralists were household income, access to information, access to extension services, government support and access to market. In the case of agro-pastoralists, access to information, household income, age and land/livestock ownership were found as the major determinant factors. Household income, land ownership, access to information, farm size, household size and access to extension services were the determinant factors found for CCA by smallholder farmers.
Research limitations/implications
This systematic review identified the major determinant factors according to production systems and highlights the importance of considering specific factors in designing CCA strategies.
Originality/value
After clearly stating the research question, a literature search was conducted from the major databases for climate-related research, and a comprehensive search was performed by two independent researchers.
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