Resources

This article describes an action research project that explored the diagnosis of land use changes and problem prioritisation with local stakeholders and the design and testing of technical and organisational innovations in Vietnam. The research looks at the Mountain Agrarian Systems Programme, established in 1998, and aims to understand factors related to designing sustainable cropping systems and develop new tools to facilitate decision-making processes for rural development and natural resource management. The authors argue that it is important to understand the underlying social organisation of the community as well as its historical evolution and response to policy and institutional changes. The article presents methods to facilitate such a collective learning process that encourages changes in the spatial management of livestock systems and supports transformations in social organisation. The article focuses on a case study in Phieng Lieng Village to demonstrate how an effective mechanism for dialogue between researchers and local stakeholders can be a facilitative process. ôThe role of the researcher as facilitator is to find a context where individual behaviour will be compatible with the common good. It will then become possible to use the mediation tools developed to create sustainable collective management of natural resourcesö

This article looks at the phenomenon of water-logging, its causes and effects, of the government projects in the south-west coastal region of Bangladesh, and the peopleÆs initiatives to solve the problems. The article begins by looking at the historical background of water-logging and river management, the effects of water-logging, and then peopleÆs initiatives to address the issue. The author describes practical examples and lessons learnt from some of these approaches, such as Tidal River Management (TRM). The article concludes by looking at ways forward, and suggests that there is still a long way to go in advocacy for and development of a sustainable drainage plan of the Khulna-Jessore Drainage Rehabilitation Project (KJDRP). The two overall conclusions are that the widespread application of the objective, technological knowledge of æthe WestÆ has not been fruitful in all cases and that development processes must ensure the involvement of the people.

This book is a collection of writings about gender in Africa. The collection aims to serve both as a general introduction to the field and to highlight some of the main themes in the literature. The collection brings together early feminist scholarship with new and unpublished work, spanning the continent and representing the diversity of scholarship on gender in sub-Saharan Africa. The book is grouped into five key areas: contested representations: ægenderÆ in Africa; reconfiguring identities: femininities and masculinities; livelihoods and lifeways; transforming traditions: gender, religion and culture; and gender and governance.