Bounding the Commons: Land Demarcation in Northeastern Nicaragua

In north-eastern Nicaragua, territorial titling of communal lands conflates particular notions of ethnicity with proprietary conceptions of space to generate new forms of conflict within and between indigenous and black communities, and with mestizo migrants. Notions of rights between competing groups, or within conflicting normative frameworks, become increasingly polemic during demarcation. While analysis of three land titling case studies demonstrates that results are socially contingent and place based, trends include: (a) power disparities; (b) tension between 'traditional' and 'modern' patterns of land tenure and resource rights; and (c) contradictions fed by international conservation agendas and neoliberal economic reforms. Combining critical actor-based analysis with practical policy critique our work illuminates how contestations over the bounding of communal territories contribute to social injustice.     

Traditional health practitioners' practices and the sustainability of extinction-prone traditional medicinal plants

ABSTRACT

For centuries, traditional health practitioners (THPs) have used their indigenous knowledge (IK) in conserving medicinal plants and environments in order to maintain sustainability. Medicinal plants have played an important role in the healthcare system of Africa. With the rapid environmental, social, economic and political changes occurring in many areas inhabited by rural people, the danger exists that the loss of biodiversity from habitat destruction and unsustainable harvesting practices will cause some species to become extinct, threatening the availability of medicinal plants on a regional level. This article presents the findings of research conducted to investigate the sustainability of the harvesting practices of THPs, with specific reference to extinction-prone traditional medicinal plants in the study areas of the Limpopo province, South Africa. The main aim of the study was to determine the natural habitat of extinction-prone traditional medicinal plants, combining the insight of THPs with the ultimate goal of guiding research for the conservation, propagation and cultivation of traditional medicinal plants. The study adopted a qualitative research approach and data were collected using in-depth interviews. The findings indicate that the THPs’ practices are shaped by historical processes and local cultural values, social norms and their management strategies, which are influenced by a broad range of factors.     

HEARTED EFFORTS BY THE MOGOGELO COMMUNITY TO PROTECT TRADITIONAL SITES BY MEANS OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION FORUMS: A REVIEW REPORT

ABSTRACT

Traditional values, especially those regarding ancestral graves, crafts, beliefs, songs, dances and languages, are part of Africa's oldest heritage. These existed prior to knowledge of sustainable development or any legal framework to enforce conservation. Development was, in the past, community-centred without constraints to these antiquities. Current legislation acknowledges the necessity of stakeholders’ consent, that is, the consent of community residents. This was the case with the development of a photovoltaic solar energy project in the Mogogelo community in the North West province in South Africa, where environmental practitioners were required as legislated to conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). Among these specialist studies was the Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA). This article is based on the interest shown by the community and the standoff that arose over the allocation of the project site and the conservation of traditional values. Using a public participation process as a social forum, this report highlights the degree of traditional knowledge and legislative awareness within the community about its right to protect heritage resources.     

The clash of ideologies: Notions of multiparty (liberal) democracy versus African systems

In South Africa traditional leaders, aka (also known as) chiefs or collaborators, had hoped that the new liberation political environment would retain and safeguard their deeply embedded cultural practices and values, which had existed for centuries, but had been partly violated during the colonial era. However, the new liberation era brought with it notions of liberal democracy—characterised by concepts of meritorious selections, based on democratic “elections”, a practice that further marginalised and frustrated hereditary cultural norms and practices, upon which the pillars and identities of each ethnic group or community were based. In discussing the complex and interlocking interests, epochs of colonial and postcolonial experience, the introduction of “foreign” meritorious notions that dispensed with the craved hereditary positions, the chiefs, traditional leaders and former collaborators appear to have been forced to abandon the liberation project and take up the issue of their survival as custodians of customs and chiefdoms; even against the messaging coming from the new political classes. Inevitably, this has created new tensions in the political governance of urban and rural communities, by elected officials who have either failed or succeeded to coopt traditional leaders. This article argues for a balance between democracy and traditional leadership that can inform modern electoral processes and modernise the cultural practices and eliminate unnecessary conflict and tensions.     

The development path of rooibos tea – a review of patterns and lessons learnt for the commercialisation of other indigenous teas in South Africa

ABSTRACT

The commercial value of indigenous South African animal and plant resources can add significantly to the nation's socioeconomic development and contribute towards the achievement of the goals of the African Renaissance. However, very few of the country's many indigenous plants have been successfully commercialised. This article reviews the development phases of one success story: rooibos tea. Its development trajectory offers a useful lesson in the commercialisation of other South African indigenous animal and plant resources. Constraints that hindered the effective commercialisation of the beverage are highlighted, notably the initial over-reliance on a local market and the lack of coordinated broad marketing and quality assurance. These constraints were compounded by international trade restrictions imposed on South Africa prior to the 1994 transition to democracy. While the world moved forward, the rooibos tea sector lagged behind in the development of niche markets. It was only in the late 1990s when a seemingly perfect match between the health-giving properties of rooibos and consumer needs was achieved, thus creating a vibrant niche market for the tea. Since then, production and sales of rooibos tea have increased markedly. Adherence to national and international codes of good manufacturing practice, together with the recognition of the importance of fair trade principles regarding the participation of small-scale cooperatives, are becoming increasingly important parameters for product acceptance.     

Analysis of the relevance of traditional leaders and the evolution of traditional leadership in Zimbabwe: A case study of amaNdebele

Abstract

This article analyses the Ndebele institution of traditional leadership in contemporary Zimbabwe. It traces the pre-colonial Ndebele traditional leadership in order to establish the changes that have occurred as well as their causes. The article highlights the importance of indigenous knowledge systems (IKS), especially in leadership which is highly controversial in Africa. Traditional leadership is the indigenous way of leadership which can, in a good way, influence contemporary governance for the benefit of the people. The article takes an Afrocentric approach with a clear understanding of the dynamism in culture. It then proceeds to reveal the problems (and their causes) within the traditional leadership institution in contemporary Zimbabwe. Finally, the article recommends solutions to the problems.     

Dueños,Duendes, Bichos: Non‐Human Agents and the Politics of Place‐Making in a Bolivian Guaraní Community

The article looks at the interactions between the inhabitants of a community of Guaraní people in the Bolivian eastern lowlands and spirit entities found in the forest that forms part of the community's lands. Understanding these interactions as a form of intra‐communal politics, the article engages with the issue of landownership as an ongoing process of negotiation between two different sets of owners. This presents a vision of the political relations between people and spirit beings that is opposed to the currently dominant ontological vision which would put these distinct entities into defined (apolitical) places within a unified cosmovision.     

Resource Sovereignties in Bolivia: Re‐Conceptualising the Relationship between Indigenous Identities and the Environment during the TIPNIS Conflict

This paper examines the active re‐construction of indigenous identities within the Plurinational State of Bolivia through the case study of a resource conflict that arose with the government's announcement of its intention to build a road through a national park and indigenous territory, the Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure (TIPNIS; Indigenous Territory and Isiboro Sécure National Park). Ethnographic fieldwork shows that both the state and the lowland indigenous movement have fashioned essentialised understandings of an indigenous identity linked to the environment in order to legitimise competing resource sovereignty claims.     

Forward to democracy or back to authoritarianism? The attitudinal bases of mass support for the Russian election protests of 2011–2012

Two UK-based political scientists present the results of an original survey they conducted in Russia soon after the presidential elections of 2012. The survey examines the interaction between mass attitudes toward the causal triggers of protest during the 2011–2012 electoral cycle and underlying political attitudes regarding the preferred alternatives to a hybrid regime (both more democratic and more authoritarian). They find that supporters of the protests were not stronger advocates of a democratic transition; on the contrary, they were more likely to support authoritarian leadership and ethno-nationalism. This finding leads to a discussion of whether one of the major constraints on elite-mass mobilization in Russia is the authoritarian direction such mobilization might entail.     

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the questions of identity,territory and political destiny of the indigenous Nuba of the Sudan

ABSTRACT

The Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005 was successful in ending the longest war in contemporary Africa. However, its implementation has been below the expectations of several communities, particularly in the war-torn regions of the Nuba Mountains, the Southern Blue Nile and the Abyei Area, widely referred to as ‘contested’, ‘marginalised’, ‘transitional’ areas or ‘border territories’. While many interwoven causes were behind the eruption of the protracted civil wars in the Sudan (Elnur 2009; Johnson 2006; Khalid 1987), the political question of sub-national identities and their intrinsic link with specific territories (Murphy 1991; William and Smith 1993) is hypothesised here as a prime factor in extending the civil war into these three areas. Taking the Nuba and their claimed territory of the Nuba Mountains as an example, this article will, first, trace the political striving of the Nuba people and their shift from peaceful political movement to armed struggle; second, it will examine their political status during the peace negotiation process; and third, it will analyse their political responses to the outcome of the CPA and its impact on their future political choices in view of the April 2010 election results, and the projected right to self-determination for the people of Southern Sudan, to be exercised through the referenda in 2011.     

Place and Policy Preferences – Spatial Divides in Attitudes towards Social Policies in Germany

The rise of the knowledge economy has led to a bifurcation between prosperous, often urban, areas and “left-behind” regions. While the literature has started to analyse the political implications of these developments for electoral behaviour and socio-cultural attitudes, the structuring of social policy preferences by place remains unclear. Distinguishing between an economic (booming-declining) and a geographic (urban–rural) dimension, I argue that differences in material self-interest and ideological predispositions explain spatial divides in support for different types of social policies. Combining original survey data on voters' preferences with municipal-level data in Germany, I show that general support for social policy is higher in declining than in booming regions. However, social investments (e.g., active labour market policies) are preferred over consumption policies (e.g., unemployment benefits) in booming and, to a smaller degree, in urban than in declining and rural regions. These findings contribute to a bigger discussion on compensating “left-behind” regions.     

Lessons from Ugandan indigenous knowledge systems regarding the management of HIV and AIDS

Abstract

Health is one of the major challenges facing Africa today. Solutions need to come from within and outside Africa, drawing from Africa's indigenous knowledge systems. This article describes the life cycles of malaria, tuberculosis and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and presents some strategies for the control and prevention of these diseases that are lessons and experiences from African countries.     

Acts of collusion: myth,media, and the populist imagination in the 2016 United States presidential election

ABSTRACT

This article considers the hypothesis that the 2016 nomination of Hillary Clinton appeared rigged because the Democratic Party persuaded itself that the next step in guaranteeing Obama’s legacy and advancing democratic progress would be the election of the first woman president. Democracy finds logical steps in politics suspicious (even dangerous); consequently, the constructed stability and order begin to falter or appear compromised. In this context, populist figures like Trump may gain political legitimacy by claiming to be outsiders speaking with the voice of the people. Populism, founded on a mythical notion of sovereignty, promises direct access to the democratic experience through four interconnected mythologies (unity, conspiracy, the golden age, and the savior), as evident in the 2016 election. The democratic struggle accordingly extended to Trump’s attacks on the media (as “fake news”) and to the Mueller investigation of collusion between the Trump campaign and foreign actors representing the Russian government.     

Salafi pluralism in national contexts: the secular state,nation and militant Islamism in Kosovo,Albania, and Macedonia

ABSTRACT

This article explores the question of how Albanian Salafi Muslims have engaged with and provided religious interpretations to issues peculiar to Albanians’ historical and sociopolitical context, as well as considering the ethnic group’s recent engagement in Middle Eastern conflicts. Utilizing Salafism’s doctrinal concepts of takfir (excommunication of another Muslim) and al-wala’ wa-l-bara’ (loyalty and disavowal) as guiding analytical tools, the article investigates Albanian Salafi Muslims’ position and discourse on the following three Albanian-specific issues: (i) engagement with the secular state by voting for their representatives (leaders); (ii) the question of nation and nationalism; and (iii) the question of militant Islamism related more recently to the Syrian conflict. Though there are different nuances among Albanian Salafi Muslims, the article shows the sharper distinctions and divergences that exist between the mainstream and rejectionist Salafis when considering the ways they have engaged with the three issues under analysis. Also, despite the general agreement in literature about Salafism’s globalized acculturalization impact on localized Islam(s), the analysis deduces Salafism’s ‘re-culturalized’ and ‘re-nationalized’ face in the Albanian-specific context, something prevalent among the mainstream Salafi Muslims of this ethnic group in the Balkans.     

A critical understanding of good governance and leadership concepts written in the context of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the challenges to contextual discourse on Africa's development paradigms1

ABSTRACT

Good governance is a value-laden concept that is characteristically nebulous; it can mean different things to different people, depending on the context in which it is used. The same applies to leadership. Concepts, as Pauw (1999a, 465) puts it, are ‘tools of thinking’ and contexts are ‘the environments or frameworks in which they [concepts] operate’. Lucidity in the meanings of concepts is fundamentally important for shaping debate and enriching discourses. To maintain their power, concepts must be used in their proper contexts. This necessitates an understanding of the art of contextual discourse. Good governance is used in NEPAD as a principle and emphasised as a sine qua non for sustainable development in Africa. On the other hand, NEPAD premises Africa's re-birth or Renaissance on good governance and leadership, with a vision and commitment to repositioning the continent in global power balances. In this article good governance and leadership are considered as concepts. NEPAD is a textual context within which the two key concepts are used and should, consequently, be engaged. The article attempts a critical review of African scholarship engagement with good governance and leadership within the NEPAD context to determine the extent to which contextual discourse is practised. It further grapples with the immediate historical background to scholarship on Africa's development between the 1960s and early 1990s. The exercise reveals that much of the accumulated body of African scholarship and scholarship on Africa's development reviewed does not suffciently contextualise discourse on good governance and leadership within NEPAD, and its key assessment and monitoring device, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), and offers an alternative framework.     

What harm? Kenyan and Ugandan perspectives on khat

What harm does khat actually do to users and the communitiesin which they live? In this article, the health-related, social,economic, and religious arguments of Kenyans and Ugandans forand against khat consumption are reported. The medical evidencefor harm from khat is far from compelling, and the East Africandebate on khat is informed by local political discourses thatoften are closely connected to issues of ethnicity and the controlof resources. As a result, the harm attributed to khat consumptionis contested. The objective of most local efforts to curb theuse of khat in East African towns is the reduction of socialand economic ills. Yet, eliminating khat consumption would notreverse the problems that it is identified as causing. ^1. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. ^2. See, for example, Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich, Drugs and Narcoticsin History (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995); JohnGoodman, Paul E. Lovejoy, and Andrew Sheratt, Consuming Habits:Drugs in history and anthropology (Routledge, London and NewYork, 1995). ^3. Daniel M. Varisco, ‘The elixir of life or the devil’scud? The debate over qat (Catha edulis) in Yemeni culture’,in Ross Coomber and Nigel South (eds), Drug Use and CulturalContexts: ‘Beyond the west’ (Free Association Books,London, 2004), pp. 101–118. ^4. Ezekiel Gebissa, Leaf of Allah: Khat and agricultural transformationin Harerge, Ethiopia 1875–1991 (James Currey, Oxford,2004). ^5. UNODCCP, The Drug Nexus in Africa (UN Office for Drug Control& Crime Prevention Monographs, Vienna, 1999); H.M. Adamand R. Ford (eds), Mending the Rips in the Sky: Options forSomali communities in the 21^st century (Red Sea Press, Lawrencevilleand Asmara, 1997). ^6. Neil Carrier, ‘Miraa is cool: the cultural importanceof miraa (khat) for Tigania and Igembe youth in Kenya’,Journal of African Cultural Studies, forthcoming. ^7. ESRC Award (RES-143-25-0046): ‘The Khat Nexus: trans-nationalconsumption in a global economy’. ^8. The British colonial authorities attempted to ban khat in Kenyabetween 1945 and 1956 but found regulation unworkable. ^9. Paul Goldsmith, Symbiosis and Transformation in Kenya’sMeru District (University of Florida, unpublished PhD thesis,1994). ^10. Neil Carrier, The Social Life of Miraa: Farming, trade and consumptionof a plant stimulant in Kenya (University of St Andrews, unpublishedPhD thesis, 2003). ^11. M. Ahmed and M. Garret, Proceedings of a Seminar on Khat andHealth (Tower Hamlets Health Strategy Group, London, 1994);H.A. Utteh, ‘The plight of Somali refugees in Europe,with particular reference to Germany (1993)’, in Adamand Ford, Mending Rips, pp. 449–59. ^12. Mark Horton and John Middleton, The Swahili: The social landscapeof a mercantile society (Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 2000). ^13. Interview with Imam Mahmoud Abdulkadr of Lamu. ^14. Goldsmith, Symbiosis and Transformation. ^15. Interview with Imam Mahmoud Abdulkadr. ^16. Thanks to Imam Mahmoud Abdulkadr and committee members for providingcopies of campaign correspondence. Photocopies of correspondencein the possession of the author. ^17. Undated leaflet, issued by Nairobi office of UNODC, is entitledKHAT: (Catha edulis). ^18. UNODC, KHAT: (Catha edulis). ^19. See, for example, John Kennedy, The Flower of Paradise: Theinstitutionalized use of the drug qat in North Yemen (ReidelPublishing Company, Dordrecht, 1987). ^20. M. Dhadphale and O.E. Omolo, ‘Psychiatric morbidity amongkhat chewers’, East African Medical Journal 65, 6 (1988),pp. 355–9. ^21. M. Kithure, ‘Price of miraa. Your brain or the twig’.The Daily Nation, Nairobi, 17 May 2001. ^22. Goldsmith, Symbiosis and Transformation; Carrier, The SocialLife of Miraa. ^23. W.J. Eggling, The Indigenous Trees of the Uganda Protectorate(The Government of the Uganda Protectorate, London, 1951), p.79. ^24. Carrier, ‘Miraa is cool’. ^25. New Vision published articles on khat on 20 January 1994, 25May 1994, 26 May 1994, and 19 December 1994. Reviewed by SaidiFamau. ^26. 30 May 1998, New Vision. ^27. A.O. Ihunwo, F.I.B. Kayanja, and U.B. Amadi-Ihunwo, ‘Useand perception of the psychostimulant, khat (Catha edulis) amongthree occupational groups in south western Uganda’, EastAfrican Medical Journal 81, 9 (2004), pp. 468–73. ^28. The interviewers, Musa Almass and Mzee Hasan, were trained bySusan Beckerleg. The results were analysed using SPSS12. ^29. There is little research on the effects of khat on libido, potency,and fertility. However, Hakim found a weak association betweenkhat use and abnormal seminal fluid analysis profiles. See.L.Y. Hakim, ‘Influence of khat on seminal fluid amongpresumed infertile couples’, East African Medical Journal79, 1 (2002), pp. 22–28. ^30. Kennedy, The Flower of Paradise. ^31. See Gebissa for an account of the spread of Ethiopia khat linkedto the introduction of modern transportation in the Horn ofAfrica. See also Carrier, ‘The need for speed’,Africa, forthcoming. ^32. Kennedy, The Flower of Paradise, p. 237. ^33. Varisco, ‘The elixir of life’, p. 108. ^34. Kennedy, The Flower of Paradise, p. 194. ^35. Kennedy, The Flower of Paradise. ^36. See Goldsmith, Symbiosis and Transformation; Carrier, The SocialLife of Miraa. ^37. Kennedy, The Flower of Paradise, p. 193. ^38. Gebissa, Leaf of Allah, p. 18. ^39. Varisco, ‘The elixir of life’, p. 104. ^40. Kennedy, The Flower of Paradise, p. 232. ^41. Kennedy, The Flower of Paradise. ^42. Varisco, ‘The elixir of life’, pp. 111–12. ^43. Kennedy, The Flower of Paradise, p. 108. ^44. Gebissa, Leaf of Allah, p. 3. ^45. A. Almeddom and S. Abraham, ‘Women, moral virtue and Tchat-chewing’,in M. MacDonald (ed.), Gender, Drink and Drugs. (Berg, Oxford,1994), pp. 249–58. ^46. Gebissa, Leaf of Allah, p. 11. ^47. Almeddom and Abraham. ‘Women, moral virtue and Tchat-chewing’,pp. 249–50. ^48. Ihunwo, et al., ‘Use and perception of the psychostimulant,khat’, p. 472.