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Full-Text Articles in Human Geography
Darfur: Rainfall And Conflict, Michael Kevane, Leslie C. Gray
Darfur: Rainfall And Conflict, Michael Kevane, Leslie C. Gray
Economics
Data on rainfall patterns only weakly corroborate the claim that climate change explains the Darfur conflict that began in 2003 and has claimed more than 200,000 lives and displaced more than two million persons. Rainfall in Darfur did not decline significantly in the years prior to the eruption of major conflict in 2003; rainfall exhibited a flat trend in the thirty-years preceding the conflict (1972-2002). The rainfall evidence suggests instead a break around 1971. Rainfall is basically stationary over the pre- and post-1971 sub-periods. The break is larger for the more northerly rainfall stations, and is less noticeable for En …
Land Tenure And Rental In Western Sudan, Michael Kevane, Leslie C. Gray
Land Tenure And Rental In Western Sudan, Michael Kevane, Leslie C. Gray
Economics
This paper reports on aspects of land tenure in western Sudan, especially the nature of tenure insecurity and the functioning of the land rental market. The active land rental market accounted for about one-third of cultivated land. Patterns of land rental transactions, and tests of the importance of insecurity in renting land, where the owner may not be able to reclaim land rented out, do not support the presumption that rental markets perform poorly. The role of the sheikh as administrator of village land, and the claims of large landowners to vast tracts, are, however, important political problems that must …
Diminished Access, Diverted Exclusion: Women And Land Tenure In Sub-Saharan Africa, Michael Kevane, Leslie C. Gray
Diminished Access, Diverted Exclusion: Women And Land Tenure In Sub-Saharan Africa, Michael Kevane, Leslie C. Gray
Economics
Increasing commercialization, population growth and concurrent increases in land value have affected women's land rights in Africa. Most of the literature concentrates on how these changes have led to an erosion of women's rights. This paper examines some of the processes by which women's rights to land are diminishing. First, we examine cases where rights previously utilized have become less important; that is, the incidence of exercising rights has decreased. Second, we investigate how women's rights to land decrease as the public meanings underlying the social interpretation and enforcement of rights are manipulated. Third, we examine women's diminishing access to …
Evolving Tenure Rights And Agricultural Intensification In Southwestern Burkina Faso, Michael Kevane, Leslie C. Gray
Evolving Tenure Rights And Agricultural Intensification In Southwestern Burkina Faso, Michael Kevane, Leslie C. Gray
Economics
Popular and official representations of the environment in Burkina Faso present soils as fragile and potentially subject to catastrophic collapse in fertility. In the cotton growing zone of southwestern Burkina Faso, researchers and policy makers attribute changes in land cover and land quality to population growth. This paper presents evidence questioning the dominant "population-degradation narrative" as applied to Burkina. We find that farmers are intensifying their production systems. While population has led to land scarcity, farmers are responding to both the resulting uncertainty in land rights and reductions in soil quality by intensifying the production process. Investments are used both …
A Woman's Field Is Made At Night: Gendered Land Rights And Norms In Burkina Faso, Michael Kevane, Leslie C. Gray
A Woman's Field Is Made At Night: Gendered Land Rights And Norms In Burkina Faso, Michael Kevane, Leslie C. Gray
Economics
Gendered social norms and institutions are important determinants of agricultural activities in southwestern Burkina Faso. This paper argues that gendered land tenure, in particular, has effects on equity and efficiency. The usual view of women as holders of secondary, or indirect, rights to land must be supplemented by a more nuanced understanding of tenure. Women's rights are in fact considerably more complex than the simple right to fields from their husbands. First, women's rights to property obtained from men may be coupled with other rights and obligations. In many ethnic groups, women have share rights to the harvest of their …
Local Politics In The Time Of Turabi's Revolution: Gender, Class And Ethnicity In Western Sudan, Michael Kevane, Leslie C. Gray
Local Politics In The Time Of Turabi's Revolution: Gender, Class And Ethnicity In Western Sudan, Michael Kevane, Leslie C. Gray
Economics
In one small village in western Sudan local political struggles over power and resources are enmeshed in discursive struggles over representations of gender, ethnicity, class and community. Analysis of two specific conflicts illustrates this point. In one conflict over control of a village grain co-operative some villagers sought to exclude women, West African immigrants and the poor from participating in political decision-making. In a second conflict over a roadside market these same villagers, empowered by the divisive rhetoric and policies of the National Islamic Front regime, again mobilised dominant representations of class, gender and ethnicity in an attempt to prevent …
For Whom Is The Rural Economy Resilient? Initial Effects Of Drought In Western Sudan, Leslie C. Gray, Michael Kevane
For Whom Is The Rural Economy Resilient? Initial Effects Of Drought In Western Sudan, Leslie C. Gray, Michael Kevane
Economics
This discussion piece addresses two recent debates: entitlement theory and the resilience of rural systems. The authors find that in western Sudan entitlement theory provides a specific and useful framework for understanding the nature of the crisis confronting the society. Arguments about the resilience of rural systems, however, need to be more closely examined and will depend on site-specific factors. The rural economy and society of western Sudan were not found to be resilient.