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Social and natural scientists are currently obsessed with globalization, but this has not been matched by an equal interest in the societal consequences of local environmental change. Attention has thus been withdrawn from community and locality and transferred to global processes, with an indifference to the reality of those at the receiving end of the social, economic and political problems that globalization create. Local reality is obscured and conditions are imposed that are often insensitive to or even distort local needs, resource management, and production systems. The case studies presented here illustrate how environmental degradation has contributed to the distortion of local institutions and economies, thus denying local communities the right to live in a productive and healthy environment. The contributors highlight the seriousness of the difficulties involved in conflating national policies and local reality, and imposing global policy instruments on local communities. Understandably, the case studies demonstrate that local communities resist putting their faith in environmental policies and plans imposed on them by global or national institutions that often deprive them of access to and control over their local environment.
The volume Environmental Change and African Societies contributes to current debates on global climate change from the perspectives of the social sciences and the humanities. It charts past and present environmental change in different African settings and also discusses policies and scenarios for the future. The first section, "Ideas", enquires into local perceptions of the environment, followed by contributions on historical cases of environmental change and state regulation. The section "Present" addresses decision-making and agenda-setting processes related to current representations and/or predicted effects of climate change. The section "Prospects" is concerned with contemporary African megatrends. The authors move across different scales of investigation, from locally-grounded ethnographic analyses to discussions on continental trends and international policy. Contributors are: Daniel Callo-Concha, Joy Clancy, Manfred Denich, Sara de Wit, Ton Dietz, Irit Eguavoen, Ben Fanstone, Ingo Haltermann, Laura Jeffrey, Emmanuel Kreike, Vimbai Kwashirai, James C. McCann, Bertrand F. Nero, Jonas Ø. Nielsen, Erick G. Tambo, Julia Tischler.
This book discusses the problems and challenges of environmental–ecological conditions in Africa, amidst the current craze of economic growth and ‘development’. Africa’s significant economic dynamics and growth trajectories are marked by neglect of the environment, reinforcing ecological crises. Unless environmental–ecological and population growth problems are addressed as an integral part of developmental strategies and growth models, the crises will accelerate and lead to huge costs in later years. Chapters examine multiple emerging tension points all across the continent, including the potential benefits and harm of growing urban-based ecotourism, the trajectory of labour-saving technologies and the problems facing agro-pastoralism. Although environmental management and sustainability features of African rural societies should not be idealized, functional 'traditional' economies, interests and management practices are often bypassed, seen by state elites as inefficient and inhibiting 'growth'. In many regions the seeds are now sown for lasting environmental crises that will affect local societies that have rarely been given opportunity to claim accountability from the state regimes and donors driving these changes.
The volume Environmental Change and African Societies contributes to current debates on global climate change from the perspectives of the social sciences and the humanities. It charts past and present environmental change in different African settings and also discusses policies and scenarios for the future. The first section, “Ideas”, enquires into local perceptions of the environment, followed by contributions on historical cases of environmental change and state regulation. The section “Present” addresses decision-making and agenda-setting processes related to current representations and/or predicted effects of climate change. The section “Prospects” is concerned with contemporary African megatrends. The authors move across different scales of investigation, from locally-grounded ethnographic analyses to discussions on continental trends and international policy. Contributors are: Daniel Callo-Concha, Joy Clancy, Manfred Denich, Sara de Wit, Ton Dietz, Irit Eguavoen, Ben Fanstone, Ingo Haltermann, Laura Jeffrey, Emmanuel Kreike, Vimbai Kwashirai, James C. McCann, Bertrand F. Nero, Jonas Ø. Nielsen, Erick G. Tambo, Julia Tischler.
Local Climate Change and Society examines how climate change has altered society's relationship with the environment and the resulting structural changes in local communities to adapt to and mitigate climate change. The book analyses the principles, practices and local responses to micro-level climate policies and interrogates the increasing role of local climate social movements induced by transnational corporations' activities both above and below the equator.
The Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA) is a network of social scientists in the sub-region established in 1980. Its main objectives are to encourage and promote interest; to engage in collaborative research; to facilitate scholarly exchange of ideas and publication between individuals and institutions engaged in the study and research in the social sciences. OSSREA also aims to promote the training of social scientists from the sub-region in the study of and research in the social sciences and to encourage establishment of institutions dedicated to this goal. In pursuance of and consistent with its objectives, OSSREA established a fund to provide research grants and training fellowships to social scientists from the sub-region. Every year OSSREA offers, on a competitive basis, two limited types of research grants: the first on topics related to the social sciences in general and the second on gender issues in particular. The grants assist the social scientists to conduct field research in an eastern or southern African country, society, institutions, sector, or problem area. The objectives of the social science competition are intended to encourage and promote upcoming scholars from the sub-region to conduct research in the social, economic, political or other problems. Moreover, it aims to strengthen and raise the capacity of faculty members and students in field research, and promote the subsequent availability of research fmdings for teaching as well as to inform individuals and institutions.
Based on case studies in Southern Africa, West Africa and East Africa, this book revisits some of the dilemmas and paradoxes associated with the development, management and utilisation of environmental resources, as well as lacklustre official handling of climate change-related challenges, in Sub-Saharan Africa. On the subject of natural resource exploitation, in particular, the book revisits scholarly debates and specific practices around compensation, benefit- and burden-sharing, local participation and space-place dynamics. It highlights fundamental ambiguities in the ways the dominant discourses and policy responses have been framed and mobilised, and examines epistemic and ideational incongruences that have hobbled and sometimes negated the effectiveness of otherwise well-intentioned interventions. On climate change, the book revisits debates around the vulnerability-assets nexus with regard to mitigation and adaptation, as well as the intersection of climate information and livelihoods in agro-based settings. The contradictions, gaps and limitations of climate change policies and strategies in different regions are re-examined based on new data. In the last few years, the Environment and Natural Resources Working Group of the South African Sociological Association (SASA) has intensified efforts to go beyond the annual SASA Congresses and the production of journal articles, in making the research agendas of its members more visible to the global scholarly and policy community. This book is one result of such efforts. It calls for a constant questioning of orthodoxies and the promotion of ethnographically sensitive and epistemologically nuanced scholarly and policy approaches to developmental challenges in Africa, especially in relation to environmental resources and environmental change.
Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Sustainable Urban Futures in Africa provides a variety of conventional and emerging theoretical frameworks to inform understandings and responses to critical urban development issues such as urbanisation, climate change, housing/slum, informality, urban sprawl, urban ecosystem services and urban poverty, among others, within the context of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in Africa. This book addresses topics including challenges to spatial urban development, how spatial planning is delivered, how different urbanisation variables influence the development of different forms of urban systems and settlements in Africa, how city authorities could use old and new methods of land administration to produce sustainable urban spaces in Africa, and the role of local activism is causing important changes in the built environment. Chapters are written by a diverse range of African scholars and practitioners in urban planning and policy design, environmental science and policy, sociology, agriculture, natural resources management, environmental law, and politics. Urban Africa has huge resource potential – both human and natural resources – that can stimulate sustainable development when effectively harnessed. Sustainable Urban Futures in Africa provides support for the SDGs in urban Africa and will be of interest to students and researchers, professionals and policymakers, and readers of urban studies, spatial planning, geography, governance, and other social sciences.