Alice J. Hovorka

The No. 1 Ladies' Poultry Farm: A feminist political ecology of urban agriculture in Botswana

The research draws on a feminist political ecology perspective to demonstrate that agrarian restructuring and rural–urban transformation in Botswana offers women opportunities to renegotiate their marginalised positionality within the commercial urban agricultural sector in Greater Gaborone. Men and women participate in equal numbers, and both perceive of this sector as offering them new and accessible avenues for economic and social advancement. Although there is continuity of womens social and economic disadvantage relative to men from rural to urban contexts, women are actively making claims on land and capitalising on their traditional roles and responsibilities associated with poultry production. This negotiation of continuity and change in gendered positionality reflects and indeed suggests positive changes for women in urban Botswana, pointing specifically to the transformatory potential of urban agriculture despite existing constraints at the sectoral level. The research highlights the ways in which women are (re)defining their constraints, and seeking out alternative opportunities for empowerment and action. To this end gender remains an integral part of and key element to understanding agrarian restructuring and rural–urban transformation in Botswana. El No. 1 Granja de Aves de Damas: Una Ecología Política Feminista de Agricultura Urbana en Botswana. Esta investigación usa una perspectiva de ecología política feminista para demostrar que la reestructuración agraria y la transformación rural–urbano en Botswana ofrecen mujeres oportunidades para renegociar sus posiciones marginales adentro del sector de agricultura comercial en la ciudad de Gabarone. Los hombres y las mujeres participan en cifras iguales, y los dos perciben que este sector les ofrece avenidas nuevas y accesibles para avanzar económicamente y socialmente. Aunque hay continuidad de la desventaja económica y social de mujeres relativa a hombres desde el contexto rural a urbano, mujeres están activamente haciendo derechos de terreno y capitalizando en sus roles y responsabilidades tradicionales asociados con la producción de aves. Esta negociación de continuidad y cambio en sus posiciones de género reflejan y por supuesto sugieren cambios positivos para las mujeres en Botswana, específicamente indicando la potencial de transformación de agricultura urbana a pesar de las limitaciones existente en el sector. Esta investigación subraya las maneras en que mujeres están redefiniendo sus limitaciones y buscan oportunidades alternativos para apoderadamente y acción. En esta vía, género se queda un elemento significado y un parte integral de entender la reestructuración agraria y la transformación rural–urbano en Botswana.

Activating the Classroom: Geographical Fieldwork as Pedagogical Practice.

Much geographical scholarship on teaching and learning details the intellectual, technical and personal benefits stemming from residential field course offerings, reflecting characteristics of constructivist active learning. With the sustainability of these offerings in question given logistical and political issues, there is greater demand for changes in field course delivery and structure. This paper seeks to expand the range of pedagogical tools, contexts and ways in which geographical field experience can take place. It does so by reconceptualizing ‘the field’ based on the idea of ‘everyday life’ as a meaningful entry point within a classroom context, and as a space of learning in which students construct knowledge for themselves. An empirical investigation of student learning experiences explores the possibility of re-creating the benefits of residential field course offerings in a classroom-based field course.

The (Re) Production of Gendered Positionality in Botswana's Commercial Urban Agriculture Sector

Abstract Urban agriculture is increasingly touted as a key element to achieving urban productivity and sustainability, particularly in the developing world. Understanding the role and potential of commercial urban agriculture in addressing food security and economic growth requires an assessment of the agricultural systems themselves, along with the net outcomes they generate. Limitations of past research on urban agriculture make these assessments difficult. Specifically, studies tend to aggregate data such that they mask differential experiences of men and women farmers and fail to explain adequately the influence of location and human-environment relations on production systems. Peoples ability to create productive and sustainable urban agricultural systems is premised on who they are, where they are located, and how they interact with the environment in that location. This article presents an empirical investigation of the effects of gender on commercial urban agriculture in Greater Gaborone, Botswana. It employs a conceptual framework that bridges sociospatial and human-environment traditions in geography, and highlights gendered environments to facilitate this convergence. The investigation reveals that gender clearly influences the quantity and type of foodstuffs produced for the urban market. Gender matters because men and women enter into agricultural production, and participate within this urban economic sector, on unequal terms based on socioeconomic status, location, and interactions with the environment. If urban agriculture is to contribute to food security and economic growth, as well as urban sustainability more generally, gender relations of power, as produced and reproduced through sociospatial and human-environment relations, must inform understanding of this phenomenon.

Urban Agriculture: Addressing Practical and Strategic Gender Needs

This paper considers the role of urban agriculture in addressing the practical and strategic needs of African women, and assesses the gender implications of embracing urban agriculture as a development intervention strategy. Empirical evidence from Botswana and Zimbabwe points to the multi-faceted role of urban agriculture whereby some women use this activity to support their households on a daily basis, and others use it as an avenue for social and economic empowerment over the longer term. In order to benefit rather than burden women, the promotion and support of urban agriculture must take on an emancipatory agenda, which supports individual, practical and strategic goals, and ultimately challenges the structural conditions that give rise to womens involvement in the activity in the first place.

The Gender, Place and Culture Jan Monk Distinguished Annual Lecture: Feminism and animals: exploring interspecies relations through intersectionality, performativity and standpoint

This article explores the ways and extent to which feminism helps investigate interspecies relations and the lives of animals in academic scholarship. It argues that animals need feminism. Indeed feminists are well suited and positioned to take on questions of and issues related to animal lives through key theoretical ideas and methodological approaches, namely intersectionality, performativity and standpoint. Extending such ideas and approaches to animal subjects fills gaps in animal studies literature and generates invaluable insights on the fundamental workings of power in society and the implications for both humans and animals. The article also argues that feminism should embrace animals and animal scholarship. Doing so generates new insights on societal relations of power and extends existing feminist boundaries regarding whose knowledge counts and how it is counted. Ultimately, an enhanced feminism–animal dialogue generates geographical knowledge that is comprehensive and reflective of the interrelatedness of all beings that shape individual, institutional and ideological realms.

Using physical and emotional parameters to assess donkey welfare in Botswana.

Introduction Working donkeys in Maun, Botswana contribute to peoples livelihoods substantially through the provision of transport, ploughing and income generating activities. However, working donkeys suffer from various welfare issues that were investigated in this study to provide preliminary insights on their health and well-being. Materials and methods An assessment protocol involving direct observations of the donkeys was developed and operationalised to assess physical and emotional welfare. Physical welfare parameters such as body condition score, abnormal limbs, impeded gait, eye abnormalities, sore and scar locations, hoof and coat condition were recorded. Emotional welfare parameters such as eyes, tail movement, ear position, neck position, posture and vocalisation were recorded. In addition, donkey-owner interactions were recorded and scored, as well as the donkey’s response to environmental factors. A total cross-section of 100 donkeys sub-stratified by roles of riding, cart pulling and resting were randomly selected in eight villages and three urban wards and assessed during the period of May to August 2012. Results The findings reveals that the 100 adult working donkeys assessed were physically afflicted by poor BCSs of two (66 per cent), long and cracked hooves (50 per cent), sores on at least two locations on their body (53 per cent), scars on at least two locations on their body (86 per cent), and poor coat conditions (58 per cent). Emotionally, donkeys displayed unresponsiveness (35 per cent), avoidance (31 per cent), disinterest in hand sniffing (59 per cent), dull facial expression (33 per cent), tail stillness (89 per cent), neck stiffness and/or raised head (13 per cent) or head hanging low (32 per cent visibly withdrawn), and tense ears pointing back or to the side (69 per cent). By contrast, the remaining donkeys (31 per cent) exhibited a happy demeanour of curiosity, interest, alert facial expression, tail swishing, relaxed ears pointed to the side or forward and neck relaxed and/or level. Conclusions This study offers preliminary findings from an investigation into the welfare of working donkeys in Greater Maun, Botswana, and provides baseline research to inform future research and strategies to enhance donkey well-being.

A Capstone Course of "Geographic Ideas".

Abstract Through an instructional approach, this article offers a template for a classroom-based geography capstone course grounded in pedagogical elements of synthesis and reflection, as based on exploration of ten key geographic ideas. It provides insights into course goals, structure, and components for instructors who may wish to implement it in geography or in other disciplines, and it situates the template in the general structure of capstone courses detailed in social science literature. The article contributes to geography instruction with a focus on classroom-based capstone courses as an application of teaching and learning undergraduate geography.

Civil society organisations and the national HIV/AIDS response in Botswana

This paper provides preliminary empirical evidence regarding the perceived role and actual experiences of HIV/AIDS intervention-focused civil society organisations (CSOs) in Botswanas national response. Key informants see the national response as government-centred and the role of CSOs within interventions as negligible. Despite secondary evidence that indicates a fairly robust and diverse civil society community, interviews with CSO personnel revealed that the roles and experiences of grassroots organisations are currently hampered by spatial, institutional and socio-cultural dynamics of intervention operationalisation. This raises questions about the extent to which this scenario may create or exacerbate obstacles regarding the efficiency and effectiveness of the national HIV/AIDS response in Botswana.

Animal geographies I Globalizing and decolonizing

Globalizing animal geographies scholarship illuminates the complexity of human-animal relations and the variety of topical realms and contexts in which interspecies encounters take place. This report highlights the multitude of ways in which humans think about, place and interact with animals around the world, as well as the range of circumstances, experiences and lives of animals themselves. Decolonizing animal geographies raises questions regarding sub-disciplinary tendencies, practices and assumptions, and encourages alternative paths for knowledge construction. This report argues for investigating further the implications of colonial, racial and cultural dynamics for human-animal relations, and embracing subaltern perspectives – both human and nonhuman – to ensure a diverse global community of animal geographies.

HIV/AIDS messages in Malawi and their implications for effective responses.

This paper explores the nature of HIV/AIDS education and information networks in Malawi, with a focus on Dedza district. We consider the role of institutional and personal actors involved in Malawis recently instated and decentralised behaviour-change intervention strategy, as well as the form and function of interpersonal social networks that mediate this information. The research reveals that the organisational capacity of actors and the conflicting messages regarding promotion of condom use may prevent Malawi from achieving a coordinated and effective decentralised response to the HIV epidemic. The research shows that individuals draw on complex interpersonal social networks, often processing mixed messages regarding HIV prevention strategies and receiving negative messages regarding condom use. The paper discusses the implications of such inconsistencies and conflicts with actors, interpersonal social networks and the nature of the messages themselves for HIV/AIDS education in Malawi.