Politics, Class, and Gender in African Resource Management: The Case of Rural Kenya

This analysis addresses the relationship between class and gender at the local level. It examines resource conflicts as they interact with both class and gender within Katheka Sublocation, a community in Machakos District, Kenya. It is based on data collected during July and August 1987 as part of a research project with Kenya\u27s National environment Secretariat. The purpose of the project was to explore the effectiveness of community institutions in local resource management. Conflict over resource access and use in this community exacerbates and distorts cleavages along gender lines. These cleavages are deeply embedded in the patterns of male-female relations and are reflected in the customary division of labor within the household. Access to the resources of Katheka has, however, moved beyond the village community itself, involving urban elites who, as builders and contractors, are removing sand from the rivers and streams of Katheka. A class conflict has evolved between the poor villagers of Katheka and the urban elites of Nairobi. -from Autho

Class, Ethnicity, and the Kenyan State: Community Mobilization in the Context of Global Politics

Perhaps there is no region where questions concerning the potential for community mobilization are more urgent than Sub-Saharan Africa. Some observers have suggested that the marginalization of Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1980s has been relentless and that Africa\u27s real hope may lie with the mobilization of rural communities in grass-roots efforts. Given Africa\u27s position as the world\u27s poorest continent; given evidence that its linkages with the rest of the world in terms of trade, aid and investment are increasingly problematic; and given evidence of widespread decay of infrastructure, opportunities and need for community mobilization are apparent. Understanding that potential and how to achieve it is critical in Africa today. Ethnicity remains the most compelling basis for community mobilization, as well as the energizing force, which the state fears the most, given its own dependence on problematic, multi-ethnic coalitions while flying to build a strong, multi-ethnic nation. Today, in Kenya, the paradigm relevant to an analysis of community mobilization is beginning to shift

Structural Change, Power Politics, and Community Organizations in Africa: Challenging the Patterns, Puzzles and Paradoxes

This paper explores two phenomena shaping processes of local institutional and organizational change in rural Africa. The first is the complexity of institutional layering and dissonance in which local organizations and institutions in rural Africa coexist. The second is the paradox often found in state local relations in Africa. Central governments encourage local communities to take on responsibilities which the center cannot manage. Should significant organizational strength emerge at the local level, however, central powers often move expeditiously to destroy it. Illustrative material comes primarily from Kenya and Zimbabwe and selectively from several other countries. We ask what new structures are emerging and what old ones are being adapted to new functions. We argue that local organizations are critical for addressing ecological decline and restoring the productivity and sustainability of rural Africa. Both localities and national governments have much to gain if the capacities of local organizations can become, themselves, a valued resource in the resource-scarce setting comprising much of rural Africa. © 1994

Social Capital and AIDS-Resilient Communities: Strengthening the AIDS Response

This article argues that an effective AIDS response must expand the biomedical and individual behaviour frames to include structural interventions that create circumstances that enable behavioural change and strengthen communities\u27 own efforts to address prevention and treatment. How can the emergence of AIDS-resilient communities be supported? The article underscores the importance of cultural and sociological variables in shaping effective responses to HIV and AIDS; social, political and environmental circumstances can facilitate or impede behavioural choices and can strengthen or remove barriers to HIV-resilient actions. A \u27social capital lens\u27 brings into sharp relief how culture, context, power relations, the distribution of social and natural resources, vulnerability and marginalisation all play a role in shaping options, behaviour and practices. Using this lens will give us a better understanding of the complex networks of factors influencing human behaviours and social practices and allows us to better support the emergence of AIDS-resilient communities and health-enabling environments. © 2011 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

Sustainable Investments: Women\u27s Contributions to Natural Resource Management Projects in Africa

Can prospects for improving livelihood security and building sustainable environments in Africa be increased if women have greater influence in decisions about how to manage resources? Anecdotal evidence suggests that this question should be answered in the affirmative, yet few development agencies perform systematic evaluations with gender disaggregated data despite nearly two decades of development literature describing the pitfalls of failing to do so. This paper explores this question through analysis of cases from Kenya, Nigeria, Malawi, The Gambia, and Rwanda gleaned from a literature search of more than 50 natural resource management projects across Africa. It highlights enabling conditions which facilitate effective involvement of both men and women in natural resource management, and develops indicators to clarify progress in terms of impact, process, and sustainability

Land, Livestock, and Livelihoods: Changing Dynamics of Gender, Caste, and Ethnicity in a Nepalese Village

Over the past 10 years, Ghusel VDC, Lalitpur District has moved from primarily subsistence agriculture into the wider cash economy aided by the Small Farmers\u27 Development Program (SFDP), which provides credit to farmers mainly for the purchase of buffalo for milk production, and by the National Dairy Corporation, which supports local dairy cooperatives. Analysis reveals that buffalo-keeping and milk sales are increasing the well-being of many households, while at the same time creating new inequalities in gender roles and responsibilities, greater inequities between Brahmin and Tamang residents in Ghusel, and placing pressures on the ecosystem for increased supplies of fodder and fuelwood. Evidence suggests that there is critical, need for attention to the social, and particularly gender-based, implications of maintaining livestock for milk sales and to the ecological underpinnings of this livelihood system. © 1994 Plenum Publishing Corporation

Research Frontiers at the Nexus of Gender, Environment, and Development: Linking Household, Community, and Ecosystem

The growing linkages among poverty, resource decline, and ecological degradation constitute a formidable challenge to development policy and practice. Poverty forces families to cultivate increasingly fragile, marginally productive lands, addressing short-term needs for survival while putting off concerns about tomorrow. Conceptualizing gender is essential in order to disaggregate and interpret information about the function of households and community organizations in natural resource management. The chapter identifies issues which are relevant to increasing our understanding of gender as a key variable affecting institutional responses to sustainable natural resource management. Cultural ecology and institutional analysis both provide frameworks for investigating multiple uses and multiple users of resources, which are central to understanding the role of gender in resource management. Sara Berry has explored relationships between social institutions, informal networks, and access to resources. A feminist political ecology could simply add gender to class and ethnicity as axes of power in the investigation of the political dimensions of resource use, allocation, and management

Essential Connections: Linking Gender to Effective Natural Resource Management and Sustainable Development

The gender variable is central to positioning both men and women vis-a-vis institutions that determine access to land, to other resources, and to the wider economy. Analysts must conceptualize gender for the purpose of desegregating and interpreting information about the functioning of individuals, households and community organizations in managing their natural resources. This paper situates such analysis in the literature from political and cultural ecology and from institutional and community organization. It identifies issues and themes relevant to understanding the role of gender in managing natural resources and argues that a new integrative approach must emerge to conceptualize the ecological and organization complexity. It also argues that attention to gender is central to increasing the equity and effectiveness of local-level management of natural resources. -from Author