| 1. |
- Börjeson, Lowe
(författare)
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Boserup Backwards? Agricultural intensification as ‘its own driving force’ in the Mbulu Highlands, Tanzania
- 2007
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Ingår i: Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography. - 0435-3684. ; 89B:3, s. 249-267
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Why do farmers intensify their agricultural practices? Recent revisions of African environmental historiographies have greatly enriched our understanding of human–environmental interactions. To simply point at poor farming practices as the main cause of deforestation, desertification and other processes of land degradation is, for example, no longer possible. The contemporary analytical focus is instead on the complex and often unpredictable set of causal relations between societal, ecological and climatic factors.In the literature on agricultural intensification, conventionally defined driving forces, such as population pressure and market demand, remain important explanatory factors despite a growing body of research that suggests more dynamic scenarios of agricultural development and landscape change. This article reports on a case where the common-sense logic of population pressure theory has dominated the historical narrative of a local process of agricultural intensification among an agro-pastoral people in north-central Tanzania. By way of a ‘detailed participatory landscape analyses’ a more complex and dynamic historical process of intensification is suggested, in which the landscape and the process of agricultural intensification itself are in focus.It is concluded that the accumulation of landesque capital has been incremental in character, and that the process of agricultural intensification in the study area has largely been its own driving force based on self-reinforcing processes of change, and not a consequence of land scarcity and population pressure. This result demonstrates the possibility and usefulness of reversing the Boserupian argument in analyses of agricultural intensification.
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| 2. |
- Börjeson, Lowe, et al.
(författare)
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Northeast Tanzania's Disappearing Rangelands : Historical Perspectives on Recent Land Use Change
- 2008
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Ingår i: International Journal of African Historical Studies. - 0361-7882 .- 2326-3016. ; 41:3, s. 523-556
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The article focuses on the historical perspectives on the land use change of rangelands in the northeastern part of Tanzania. It traces the influence of colonial policies and precolonial political economic connection on the rapid land cover transformation on the Maasai Plains. Specifically, the authors present a historical narratives of landscape changes in the northeastern part of the country, focusing on land cover and land use change. It cites several areas in the northeast that were affected by landscape change and how these areas were agriculturally converted. Furthermore, the impact on the alterations in landscape that rooted in the colonial and precolonial history in the region is considered.
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| 3. |
- Börjeson, Lowe, 1968-
(författare)
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Using a historical map as a baseline in a land-cover change study of northeast Tanzania
- 2009
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Ingår i: African Journal of Ecology. - Chichester : Wiley-Blackwell. - 0141-6707 .- 1365-2028. ; 47:s1, s. 185-191
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Vegetation data in an early 20th century map from northern Tanzania are presented and discussed for its potential of expanding the analytical time-frame in studies of land-use and land-cover change. The starting point is that much research on land-use and land-cover change suffers from a time-frame bias, caused by limitations in remote sensing data. At the same time, the use of historical maps as a complementary data-set is rather insignificant. Can information in historical maps be used to extend the baseline in land-use and land-cover change studies? The historical context of the vegetation data is evaluated, and as an illustration of its potential for interdisciplinary research on land-cover and ecosystems change, a section of the map is juxtaposed with a recent pollen record specifically addressing the impact of a 'large infrequent disturbance' (LID) event at the end of the 19th century. It is concluded that the vegetation data in the map are not likely to be reflecting an extreme situation due to the LID event. Finally, the historical vegetation data were visually compared with a national 1995 land-cover data set, illustrating the possibility of using the map data as a baseline in land-cover change studies.
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| 4. |
- Holmgren, Karin, et al.
(författare)
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The vulnerable continent (PLATINA) : Historical perspectives on Africa´s climate, environment and societies
- 2009
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Ingår i: Meeting global challenges in research cooperation. - Uppsala : Uppsala University. - 9789197574198 ; , s. 585-596
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Our research, based on studies of different climate archives from Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa, contributes information on changes in climate and vegetation over the past 24000 years. This time perspective, reaching beyond the information available from instrumental records is needed for a better understanding of regional global climate dynamics and issues surrounding environmental change, throughout Africa, and is a prerequisite for increasing climate forecasting capabilities for the region. We argue that African people have vast experience from living in a variable climate and research on past interactions between climate and societies demonstrate the significance of lessons learnt for present situations. Our findings, underline the complex interactions between climate/environment and societies that may lead to different developments in time and space. Considering the so called vulnerable continent, extended investigations of how African communities cope with and adapt to climatically driven changes is needed to increase the capability to realise the potential as well as the limitations, of modern African communities to adapt to future climate change.
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| 5. |
- Widgren, Mats, 1948-, et al.
(författare)
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Introduction: Historical and Regional Perspectives on Landscape Transformations in Northeastern Tanzania, 1850-2000
- 2008
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Ingår i: International Journal of African Historical Studies. - Boston : African Studies Centre. - 0361-7882 .- 2326-3016. ; 41:3, s. 369-382
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The article focuses on the historical and regional views on landscape shift in northeastern Tanzania from 1850-2000. It highlights several perspectives on the impact of landscape transformation towards the social relation in the northeastern part of the country. Specifically, it discusses how regional historical method to land cover changes offers an analytical field to bridge social gap. It primarily considers the perspectives of a group of scholars, centering on their views on human-environmental relationships and political economy. In addition, it explores the history and spatial interactions in the region, regarding as well the economic determinants of land use.
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