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Full-Text Articles in Rural Sociology
Land Rights Among Subsistence Farmers: An Examination Of Madagascar’S Land Reform And Prevailing Systems Of Land Tenure In Betafo, Taylor Crowl
Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection
In Madagascar, legal systems of land tenure have been inaccessible for the vast majority of the rural population. This has stranded millions of subsistence farmers in a sense of insecurity, as they lack legal rights for the property that they have farmed for generations. Madagascar’s land reform, launched in 2005, attempted to change these exclusionary tenure practices. This reform —known as the Plan National Foncier—created land certificates and local land offices in an attempt to make legal land tenure financially, geographically, and logistically accessible to the local population. This study discusses the successes, failures, and unforeseen consequences of Madagascar’s land …
The Sociology Of The Home An Autoethnography That Explores House Building In Rural Sandanezwe, Oliver Hayward
The Sociology Of The Home An Autoethnography That Explores House Building In Rural Sandanezwe, Oliver Hayward
Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection
This project took me to Sandanezwe, KwaZulu-Natal, a rural village outside of Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, where a community member, Mpume Khanyezi, had originally asked me to design and build a new home for her family. I intended to engage in a heuristic inquiry so that I could complete a daily practice of letting go of my own opinions and immersing myself in the community in order to better act as a scribe for the mother and analyze the community objectively. I attempted to gather qualitative data through interviews, active participation, direct observations with village members and building parties. Ultimately, my …