Remembering Lee Ann in South Africa: Meta-data and reflexive research practice

Lee Ann Fujii and I became fast friends, colleagues, and disciplinary comrades soon after we met at the 2004 Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research (IQMR). IQMR presentations and workshops sparked fourteen years of conversation about the discipline, our positionality with respect to the discipline and research participants, methodologies, the “field,” and much more. Lee Ann made me laugh and encouraged me to think harder as we talked over coffee and chocolate at home in Oakland, New York, Washington, DC, Indianapolis, and Toronto; met up at APSA annual meetings; and practiced yoga together

Recovery, Renewal, and Resiliency: Gulf Coast Small Businesses Two Years Later

Presents findings from a survey of small business owners about the state of the local economy immediately following and in the two years since Katrina made landfall

Politically Feasible Pro-poor Livestock Policies in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa States, India

The livestock sector has significant potential for improving the livelihoods of landless people and small and marginal farmers, who comprise the majority of India’s rural poor. However, resource and institutional constraints prevent poor producers from realizing the full potential of the animals they possess. Developing effective pro-poor livestock policies requires consideration of the political context and attention to the specific characteristics of poor livestock producers

Livestock Production and the Rural Poor in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa States, India

This paper analyzes the political economy of the livestock sector in two Indian states, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. The aim is to identify politically feasible interventions that could have broad positive effects on poor rural livestock producers in these states. To that end, the paper assesses the relationship between land, livestock, and poverty, describes the organization of the sector, and analyzes the political and bureaucratic interests shaping livestock policy

Lasting Legacies: Contemporary Struggles and Historical Dispossession in South Africa

Contemporary postapartheid South African land struggles are haunted by the long shadow of historical dispossession. While apartheid-era forced removals are justifiably infamous, these traumatic events were moments in the more extended, less frequently referenced, and more expansive process that fundamentally shaped the South African terrain well before 1948. The South African Republic\u27s mid-nineteenth-century assertion of ownership of all land north of the Vaal River and south of the Limpopo marked the start of a long process of racialized dispossession that rendered black people\u27s residence in putatively white areas highly contingent and insecure throughout the former Transvaal. This article analyzes the connections between past dispossession and contemporary rural land and natural resource struggles in the Limpopo and North West provinces, contending that addressing South Africa\u27s vexed present requires a fuller reckoning with its past

Livestock, Liberalization, and Democracy: Constraints and Opportunities for Rural Livestock Producers in Reforming Uganda

This paper explores the policy environment surrounding livestock policy improvements in Uganda, a country that has undergone substantial reforms in the last 15 years. It aims to identify opportunities for pro-poor interventions—reforms that would improve the livelihoods of poor rural livestock producers. Towards this end, the paper reviews challenges facing for livestock producers and analyzes the broad political economic context in which livestock sector dynamics are situated. The adoption and implementation of pro-poor livestock sector interventions are in some ways constrained and, in others, enabled by civil conflict in several parts of the country, the semi-authoritarian nature of the Museveni regime, and the reform alliance between the Ugandan national government and its international development partners. Ugandans face an uneasy trade-off between political stability and democracy that inhibits participation

The Wrong Complexion for Protection: How The Government Response to Disaster Endangers African-American Communities. By Robert D. Bullard and Beverly Wright. New York: New York University Press, 2012. 304p. $35.

Dr. Robin Turner\u27s review of, The Wrong Complexion for Protection: How The Government Response to Disaster Endangers African-American Communities. By Robert D. Bullard and Beverly Wright. New York: New York University Press, 2012. 304p. $35

Media Presentations as a Strategy for Teaching African Politics

Student media presentations can deepen students’ knowledge of African politics, build their critical thinking and communication skills, and highlight the relevance of course material. This article presents the media assignment I have used in two upper-level courses, African Politics and Politics of Gender and Sexuality in Africa, and three examples of student work

Communities, Wildlife Conservation, and Tourism-based Development: Can Community-based Nature Tourism Live Up to Its Promise?

This paper analyzes the opportunities and tensions generated by efforts to use conservationbased tourism as a catalyst for economic development. By exploring how historical legacies position actors and influence relationships between them, characterizing the nature tourism sector and its logic, and examining how liberalizing states are likely to engage with community-based tourism. I situate community-based nature tourism ventures in a broader political economic context. The paper draws from research on the Makuleke Region of Kruger National Park, South Africa to illustrate how these factors influence prospects for community benefit from protected area tourism. Like many other protected areas in Africa, contemporary dynamics in the Makuleke Region are a product of dispossession, forced removal, and conservation. The Makuleke, who consider the land their ancestral home, were forcibly removed in the late 1960s so that the land could be incorporated into Kruger National Park. They regained title in 1998, and have subsequently pursued economic development through conservation. While comanaging the Region with SANParks, the parastatal that manages all national protected areas, the Makuleke have sought to develop a tourism initiative that will produce economic self reliance and development. In adopting this strategy, the Makuleke are engaging with local, national, and international political economies over which community actors have limited room for maneuver. This case brings three factors to light. First, the legacy of fortress conservation may make it more difficult for community actors to engage with their partners on an equal basis. Second, sectoral attributes of tourism pose special challenges to community based natural resource management initiatives; it is not clear that tourism projects will produce substantial benefits. Third, the coincidence of the shift to community based natural resource management with liberalization and democratization has altered the landscape on which all conservation efforts are situated. The confluence of these factors has created an environment in which state protected areas, community controlled conservation areas, and private game parks are competing for domestic and international tourist revenue. While nature tourism ventures hold substantial economic promise for some communities, tourism is not a panacea. Actors engaged in community based natural resource management initiatives should carefully assess the risks, challenges, and opportunities posed by tourism ventures

Children\u27s Faith Formation As Mutually Transforming Opportunity: Leading Systemic Change

Training congregational leaders in the theological foundations and practical resources of children’s spiritual formation helps them lead congregations to value and nurture the entire communities’ spiritual formation. An exploration of the role and nature of children from both biblical and theological perspectives reveals they are welcomed and valued members of the faith community and the Kingdom of God. Attempts to welcome and value children in faith communities have focused on their acquisition of religious knowledge rather than their holistic formation. Learning to value their presence, worship, and holistic formation in community requires a shift in vision and methodology. Children’s sense of belonging in their faith community matters for their long-term faith efficacy and overall congregational health, and their presence benefits the whole church family. In intentionally integrated churches, the whole congregation invites children to grow and belong, while people from every generation are encouraged toward child-like wonder, authenticity, and flexibility when they involve children in communal activities like worship, prayer, service and celebration. Unfortunately, many church leaders are ill-equipped to value children’s presence in their broader community. In order for systemic change to take place in congregations, senior leadership and lay leaders- people outside of traditional children’s ministry- must share and adopt a vision for formation-focused children’s ministry as well as intergenerational ministry. A guided process to lead systemic change equips churches with a stronger and more thoughtful framework for understanding children’s spiritual formation, a clear vision for the role of children in the community, and a process that helps the congregation’s culture adapt to value children’s presence and participation in congregational life. By valuing children as full participants in the life of faith, the whole church family grows together in Christ