61 research outputs found
Conflict and Livelihood Decisions in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh
__Abstract__
We analyse rural household livelihood and child school enrolment
decisions
in the post-conflict setting of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region of
Bangladesh. What makes this paper innovative is the use of current subjective perceptions
regarding the possibility of violence in the future and past actual experiences
of violence in explaining household economic decision-making. Preferences
are endogenous in line with behavioural economics. Regression results show that
heightened subjective perceptions of future violence and past actual experiences
of conflict influence current consumption and child enrolment and could encourage
risky mixed crop cultivation. The trauma emanating from past experiences
combined with current high perceptions of risk of violence may induce bolder
and riskier behaviour in line with prospect theories of risk. Furthermore, a postconflic
Non-L\'evy mobility patterns of Mexican Me'Phaa peasants searching for fuelwood
We measured mobility patterns that describe walking trajectories of
individual Me'Phaa peasants searching and collecting fuelwood in the forests of
"La Monta\~na de Guerrero" in Mexico. These one-day excursions typically follow
a mixed pattern of nearly-constant steps when individuals displace from their
homes towards potential collecting sites and a mixed pattern of steps of
different lengths when actually searching for fallen wood in the forest.
Displacements in the searching phase seem not to be compatible with L\'evy
flights described by power-laws with optimal scaling exponents. These findings
however can be interpreted in the light of deterministic searching on heavily
degraded landscapes where the interaction of the individuals with their scarce
environment produces alternative searching strategies than the expected L\'evy
flights. These results have important implications for future management and
restoration of degraded forests and the improvement of the ecological services
they may provide to their inhabitants.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures. First version submitted to Human Ecology. The
final publication will be available at http://www.springerlink.co
Dynamic political contexts and power asymmetries: the cases of the Blue Nile and the Yarmouk Rivers
This paper explores the evolving patterns of hydropolitical relations in the dynamic contexts of Yarmouk and Blue Nile Rivers in comparison. The analysis aims at shedding light over the complex implications that recent political and social changes have aroused for the water disputes between Jordan and Syria on the one hand, and Ethiopia and Egypt on the other. In both basins, cooperative efforts toward the integrated management of transboundary waters have been only partially effective and largely undermined by the perpetuation of unilateral actions by riparian states. In the case studies, the lack of a basin-wide vision over the control and use of shared waters has resulted in disputes among the basin states and ultimately in an unsustainable, unfair, and unwise utilization of the resources. This paper argues that a substantive and effective integration of national water policies is unlikely to occur, unless power asymmetries are properly addressed in order to overcome the likelihood of hegemonic regimes
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