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| 2. |
- Alarcon Ferrari, Cristian, et al.
(författare)
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Citizen Science as Democratic Innovation That Renews Environmental Monitoring and Assessment for the Sustainable Development Goals in Rural Areas
- 2021
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Ingår i: Sustainability. - : MDPI. - 2071-1050. ; 13:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This commentary focuses on analyzing the potential of citizen science to address legitimacy issues in the knowledge base used to guide transformative governance in the context of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (henceforth SDGs). The commentary develops two interrelated arguments for better understanding the limits of what we term “traditional” Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (EMA) as well as the potential of citizen science (CS) for strengthening the legitimacy of EMA in the local implementation of SDGs. We start by arguing that there is an urgent need for a profound renewal of traditional EMA to better implement the SDGs. Then, we present CS as a democratic innovation that provides a path to EMA renewal that incorporates, develops, and extends the role of CS in data production and use by EMA. The commentary substantiates such arguments based on current approaches to CS and traditional EMA. From this starting point, we theorize the potential of CS as a democratic innovation that can repurpose EMA as a tool for the implementation of the SDGs. With a focus on the implementation of SDG15 (Life on Land) in local contexts, the commentary presents CS as a democratic innovation for legitimate transformative governance that can affect socio-ecological transitions. We see this approach as especially appropriate to analyze the implementation of SDGs in rural settings where a specific resource nexus can create conflict-laden contexts with much potential for a renewed EMA to support transformative governance towards Agenda 2030.
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| 3. |
- Bergman Lodin, Johanna, et al.
(författare)
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Gender dynamics in cassava leaves value chains: The case of Tanzania
- 2016
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Ingår i: Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security (Agri-Gender). - 2413-922X. ; 1, s. 84-109
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There is growing recognition of the importance of African leafy vegetables for achieving healthy diets, particularly amongst low-income households. In Tanzania, cassava leaves are an important vegetable, yet little is known about how their markets are organized and who benefits from participation and how. This study examines the structure of and gender dynamics in the cassava leaves value chain in Mkuranga District, Tanzania. Data was collected through structured and semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and observations. The findings show that the value chain is in its formative stage, yet, two thirds of the sampled farmers market cassava leaves. While the value chain is dominated by women, participation at different nodes is highly gendered, and so is the distribution of benefits. Private and public institutions urgently need to increase their support to the value chain, given the importance of the leaves in enhancing diets and as a source of income for women. Finally, future research on cassava should consider both tubers and leaves to understand the trade-offs and synergies between them.
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| 4. |
- Boonstra, Wiebren, et al.
(författare)
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Fisheries, well-being and collective action : The art of coping with complex crises
- 2009
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Ingår i: Utsikt mot utveckling. - 1403-1264. ; 32, s. 345-354
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper is a first attempt to explore the complex inter-linkages between social, environmental, health-and-wellbeing crises in small-scale fisheries and their consequences for the sustainability of rural livelihoods. For this purpose it outlines the concept of complex crises through a description of small-scale fishing in Lake Chilwa, Malawi. The paper also discusses how complexity as concept features in ecological, social, health-and well-being studies. It will argue that existing literature across scientific disciplines fails to relate the origin, nature and effects of complex crises with the robustness and diversity of livelihood strategies of lower-level social collectivities, such as communities and households. The preliminary conclusion of this paper uses this blind spot to draft a research agenda, pushed by the question whether people are ‘coping’, ‘adapting to’ or ‘struggling’ with complex crises, and how this affects poverty alleviation and livelihood security
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| 5. |
- Chiwona-Karltun, Linley
(författare)
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A reason to be bitter : cassava classification from the farmers' perspective
- 2001
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Ethnographers report from both South America and Africa that cassava farmers classify cultivars as belonging to either of two groups, "bitter" or "sweet", and that farmers prefer to grow "bitter" cultivars as the staple crop. It remains contentious if the two groups and whether bitterness in taste reflects the content of cyanogenic glucosides in cassava roots. This is of importance since dietary cyanogen exposure may have adverse health effects. These studies aimed at elucidating the social and biological role of cyanogenesis in a cassava dominated farming and food system in Malawi, where small-scale farmers utilise the soaking method for processing roots from "bitter" cultivars. In 1994 and 1995 a qualitative interview survey in 13 communities in Nkhata-Bay district, in Malawi showed that social factors were the main reasons for farmers preferring "bitter" cassava. The need to process the roots dictates rigorous planning and bitterness confers protection from theft and vermin. In 1996, determination of urinary linamarin (the cyanogenic glucoside in cassava) and thiocyanate (the main cyanide metabolite) as biomarkers of dietary cyanogen exposure, was conducted on 176 women farmers. The low urinary levels found indicated that dietary cyanogen exposure was negligible inspite of frequent consumption of food made from soaked roots from "bitter" cassava cultivars. In 1996 two roots from 246 plants of the 10 most grown cultivars, about 24 plants from each cultivar were harvested. Farmers' scoring of bitter taste of the root tip was a good predictor of cyanogenic glucoside levels (r = 0.65). Mean cyanogenic glucoside level in 132 roots from "cool" cultivars was 29 mg HCN eq kg-1 fresh weight (Cl 25-33, range 1 - 123), and in 360 roots from "bitter" cultivars 153 mg (Cl 143 - 163, range 22 - 661). Farmers' distinction of "bitter" and "cool" cultivars predicts glucoside levels (r = 0.56). Taste scoring for bitterness by the taste panel was strongly correlated (r = 0.87) with cyanogenic glucoside levels suggesting that cyanogenic glucosides convey the bitter taste in cassava. DNA fingerprinting using SSR-markers showed that farmers had a high ability to distingush plants with specific genotypes as belonging to named cultivars. Their distinction of "bitter" and "cool" cultivars with high and low levels of cyanogenic glucosides appears to have influenced the genetic pool of cassava in this area since the genotypes of the two groups separated into two clusters in principle component analysis. Single women's food security was particularly compromised if they did not opt to grow the "bitter" cassava cultivars. Processing bitter roots was not a problem per se, rather the need for mechanised mills was perceived as the rate-limiting factor. Farmers' ethnoclassification and experience enables them to have more benefits than disadvanatges from cyanogenesis. These findings have implications for cassava breeding and extension programmes.
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| 6. |
- Gaddefors, Johan, et al.
(författare)
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Rural entrepreneurship and the context: navigating contextual barriers through women's groups
- 2022
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Ingår i: International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship. - 1756-6266. ; 14, s. 213-234
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose This study aims to examine how women's groups help women to navigate context-related barriers to their engagement in rural entrepreneurship. The paper combines the contextualisation of entrepreneurship framework and the feminist separatist theory to describe how women's groups in patriarchal rural communities enable women to circumvent context-related barriers and actively engage in rural entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach Based on a case study of 12 women's groups engaged in paddy farming, rice processing and marketing in rural Tanzania, this study draws on semi-structured interviews with 46 women, four focus group discussions, four in-depth key informant interviews and non-participant observation. Findings Rural women face unique context-related challenges that hinder them from effectively participating in rural entrepreneurship. Specifically, limited access to farmlands and profitable markets, lack of business networks, limited time, poverty and insufficient financial resources constrain women's engagement in entrepreneurship. To overcome these contextual barriers, rural women have organised themselves into groups to gain access to business services, business-related training, grants and business networks. Research limitations/implications This study contributes to the existing literature on contextualising entrepreneurship by focussing on how rural contexts may constrain women's entrepreneurial engagement while showing how women respond to contextual barriers that enable them to participate in rural entrepreneurship. Practical implications This study shows that women with low education can pursue rural entrepreneurship if they are supported through training and access to networks. This will support the performance of these groups of women. Originality/value This study offers new insights into the role of women's groups in navigating gender-related constraints that hinder women from participating in rural entrepreneurship within the patriarchal context of low-income countries. Thus, new perceptions for the gender and rural entrepreneurship theory and the policy implications thereof are proffered.
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| 7. |
- Gonda, Noemi, et al.
(författare)
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Critical Reflexivity in Political Ecology Research: How can the Covid-19 Pandemic Transform us Into Better Researchers?
- 2021
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Human Dynamics. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2673-2726. ; 3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- It is not just the world but our ways of producing knowledge that are in crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed our interconnected vulnerabilities in ways never seen before while underscoring the need for emancipation in particular from the hegemonic knowledge politics that underpin “business-as-usual” academic research that have both contributed to and failed to address the systemic challenges laid bare by the pandemic. Political ecologists tasked with knowledge generation on vulnerabilities and their underlying power processes are particularly well placed to envision such emancipatory processes. While pausing physically due to travel restrictions, as researchers in political ecology and rural development at the same university department, we want to make a stop to radically rethink our intellectual engagements. In this article, we aim to uncover “sanitized” aspects of research encounters, and theorize on the basis of anecdotes, feelings and informal discussions—“data” that is often left behind in fieldwork notes and personal diaries of researchers—, the ways in which our own research practices hamper or can be conducive to emancipation in times of multiple interconnected health, political, social, and environmental crises. We do so through affective autoethnography and resonances on our research encounters during the pandemic: with people living in Swedish Sapmi, with African students in our own “Global North” university department and with research partners in Nepal. We use a threefold focus on interconnectedness, uncertainty and challenging hegemonic knowledge politics as our analytical framework. We argue that acknowledging the roles of emotions and affect can 1) help embrace interconnectedness in research encounters; 2) enable us to work with uncertainty rather than “hard facts” in knowledge production processes; and 3) contribute to challenging hegemonic knowledge production. Opening up for emotions in research helps us to embrace the relational character of vulnerability as a pathway to democratizing power relations and to move away from its oppressive and colonial modes still present in universities and research centers. Our aim is to contribute to envisioning post-Covid-19 political ecology and rural development research that is critically reflexive and that contributes to the emergence of a new ethics of producing knowledge.Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it. (Roy, 2020)
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| 8. |
- Grant, Marcus, et al.
(författare)
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Research for City Practice
- 2017
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Ingår i: Cities and Health. - : Informa UK Limited. - 2374-8834 .- 2374-8842. ; 1:2, s. 108-119
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- CITY KNOW-HOW: Human health and planetary health are both influenced by city lifestyles, city leadership, and city development. For both, worrying trends are leading to increasing concern. It is imperative that both become core foci in urban policy. Changing the trajectory will require concerted action. The journal Cities & Health journal is dedicated to supporting the flow of knowledge, in all directions to help make this happen. We want to support communication between researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, communities and decision-makers in cities. This is the purpose of this City Know-how section of the journal. ‘Research for city practice’ disseminates lessons from research, explaining the key messages for city leaders, communities and the professions involved in city policy and practice. ‘City shorts’ provide glimpses of what is being attempted or achieved. ‘Case studies’ are where you will find evaluations of interventions and ‘Commentary and debate’ helps extend the conversations we are having and develop much needed new thinking. Join in these conversations. In service to strengthening the community of interest, we would like to include many and varied voices, including those from younger practitioners and researchers, connected with supporting health and health equity in everyday urban lives.
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| 9. |
- Haggblade, Steven, et al.
(författare)
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Cassava Commercialization in Southeastern Africa
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Agribusiness in Developing and Emerging Economies. - : Emerald. - 2044-0839 .- 2044-0847. ; 2:1, s. 4-40
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose – Cassava production surged noticeably in Southeastern Africa beginning in the 1990s. The purpose of this paper is to examine the commercial responses and food security consequences of cassava production growth in the region. Design/methodology/approach – The paper incorporates a mix of quantitative analysis, based primarily on original analysis of national farm household survey data, together with key informant interviews with value chain participants in the three neighboring countries of Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. Findings – In the cassava production zones, cassava's high productivity translates into per kilogram carbohydrate costs 60 per cent to 70 per cent of the cost of cereals such as maize and wheat, thereby opening up a range of profitable opportunities for commercialization of cassava-based foods, feeds and industrial products. Despite this potential, cassava commercialization in Southeastern Africa remains in its formative stages, with only 10 per cent to 30 per cent of production currently marketed. Unlike West Africa, where cassava commercialization has centered on marketing prepared cassava-based convenience foods, the emerging cassava markets in Southeastern Africa have centered on fresh cassava, low value-added cassava flour, and experiments in industrial processing of cassava-based starches, biofuels and feeds. Strategic investment in a set of key public goods (breeding, training in food sciences and food safety, and research on in-ground cassava storage) can help to shape this transition in ways that benefit both commercial interests and the food security of vulnerable households. Originality/value – The paper compares cassava commercialization across differing agro-climatic zones, policy environments and food staple zones.
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| 10. |
- Hopkins, Richard, et al.
(författare)
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Assessing and managing intensification in smallholder dairy systems for food and nutrition security in Sub-Saharan Africa
- 2016
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Ingår i: Regional Environmental Change. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1436-3798 .- 1436-378X. ; 16, s. 2257-2267
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Smallholder farmers play an important part in the dairy value chain in Sub-Saharan Africa. Three technological approaches have been used to improve productivity. These are through, applying agricultural ecological processes (ecological intensification), utilising modern livestock breeding (genetic intensification), and socio-economic intensification. Ecological intensification includes continuous housing of cows applying a cut-and-carry feeding system, introduction of purpose-bred forages and pastures, and the introduction of agro-forestry within the dairy systems. Genetic intensification strategies include: importation of dairy breeds such as Holstein-Friesian (HF) and cross-breeding of the indigenous breeds with HF. Training and capacity-building activities to create sustainable livelihoods have been initiated for farming and technological practices of animal husbandry, but also to enhance appropriate leadership and corporative-building skills that would create and support an enabling environment for sustainability. These improvements and initiatives in the service delivery have been championed by national governments, development partner institutions, or non-governmental organisations through different programmes. Challenges of intensification include matching management to genetic potential of imported and cross-bred improved dairy breeds, ensuring low post-harvest losses, proper utilisation, and reducing environmental impact. Using examples from Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia, this paper reviews the management and assessment approaches used in fostering smallholder dairy development strategies and dairy's contribution to sustainable livelihoods in the face of intensification.
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