Deborah Sporton

Identities and Belonging: A Study of Somali Refugee and Asylum Seekers Living in the UK and Denmark

Drawing on empirical research with young refugees and asylum seekers (aged 11–18) now living in Sheffield, UK, and Aarhus, Denmark, respectively, this paper explores some of the relationships between identity, belonging, and place. We begin by reflecting on the young peoples sense of identity as Somali in the context of periods of forced and voluntary mobility. We then consider what it means to be Muslim in the context of the different communities of practice in Aarhus and Sheffield. Finally, we consider the extent to which the interviewees self-identify as Danish or British. In reflecting on these different dimensions of identification and belonging, we conclude by highlighting the importance of being ‘in place’ for attachment and security, and identify implications of the findings for integration and cohesion policies.

'How Other People See You, It's Like Nothing That's Inside': The Impact of Processes of Disidentification and Disavowal on Young People's Subjectivities

In this article we draw on research with young (aged 11 to 18 years old) Somali refugees and asylum seekers currently living in the UK, to explore their narratives of identity in the context of complex histories of mobility. We focus on how processes of disidentification or disavowal impact on young peoples subjectivities and are lived out in particular spaces. Specifically, we examine the young peoples experiences of having their claims to be British denied, of disidentifying as black, and as having to negotiate the complex ambiguities of being positioned as Somali in the UK but British in Somalia. In the conclusion we reflect on the importance of the young peoples emotional investment in the subject position Muslim as an explanation for why they prioritize their faith above their racial, gender or ethno-national identities in their narratives of the self.

The environmental impact of livestock ranches in the Kalahari, Botswana: natural resource use, ecological change and human response in a dynamic dryland system

This paper examines the ways in which a policy aiming to improve both use of an extensive dryland natural resource, and the well-being of rural peoples in Botswana, has impacted on the environment and upon indigenous land-use activities. The impacts of the Tribal Grazing Land Policy (TGLP) have been spatially and temporally variable. Previous assertions about its contribution to desertification may have been overstated, although environmental changes have certainly resulted from policy impacts. Effects upon traditional indigenous population coping strategies for environmental variability are considered both in terms of subsistence activities and the ability to respond to drought events. It is concluded that the policy has not met its environmental, pastoral production or societal objectives, largely because it was founded on unestablished assumptions. Large-scale environmental degradation and desertification, however, cannot yet be attributed to the TGLP, but it can be contended that the policy has reduced both environmental and societal resilience to natural environmental variability. Copyright

‘Where is the life in farming?’: The viability of smallholder farming on the margins of the Kalahari, Southern Africa

Abstract This paper investigates the ways in which national and regional policies relate to farming activities and concerns amongst the rural population in an area of southern Africa. The struggle to make a living through farming was a common theme to emerge from research about changing livelihoods in response to both variability in the environment and changes in policy. This local discourse echoed regional debates about land and agrarian reform in post-apartheid South Africa and the uncertain future of mixed farming in Botswana. It also raised broader questions about the viability of the future of small–medium-scale farming systems in rural areas in Africa, especially those within dynamic dryland environments such as the Kalahari. This paper looks specifically at the links between poverty and asset holding and aims to identify the ways in which people are or are not able to utilise or mobilise these assets in times of need. We argue that this can vary significantly between seemingly similar settlements, and similar households and that understanding this complexity is the key to recognising how future interventions many impact upon people’s lives. Too often, in the quest to produce understandings of poverty and livelihoods, the complexity, incongruity and reality of day-to-day practices are overlooked. Thus we seek to draw out the interactions between policy and natural resource use, and the capital asset changes involved in these interactions, which influence the sustainability of livelihoods and the differing levels of poverty and vulnerability.

Understanding the dynamics of social and environmental variability: The impacts of structural land use change on the environment and peoples of the Kalahari, Botswana

Abstract Environmental degradation and change associated with development have both social and physical dimensions, but research frequently takes either an environmental or a social perspective, without fully investigating variability in both. This paper outlines a project that attempts to combine detailed analysis of both social and physical components of a major environmental issue in central southern Africa. It explains the operation of a project that is investigating the impacts of concomitant structural land use and environmental change in the Kalahari of Botswana. Social and ecological dimensions of the issue are being investigated simultaneously, which enables better attribution of the causation of change in a spatially variable environment. This avoids the problems of using generalized data for one of the components while the other is researched in detail. It is concluded that it is especially important to do this for issues in situations where either the physical environment displays high temporal variability (as in drylands), or where social changes and policy developments are rapid. This ensures that interpretations of the nature and impact of the environmental issue and its outcomes are made with both social and environmental components subject to the same ‘time-bounded’ controls. Even when such an approach is taken, the rapid dynamics of the issue mean considerable care is needed if it is attempted to extrapolate specific findings to the status of general explanations.

Soil degradation assessment in mixed farming systems of southern Africa: use of nutrient balance studies for participatory degradation monitoring

Soil degradation assessments for mixed farming systems of the Molopo Basin (North West Province, South Africa and Southern District, Botswana) are provided from farmer-based research, designed to quantify nutrient fluxes across the farming system and to analyze the social, economic, political and environmental factors affecting nutrient management practices. This paper discusses the practical difficulties of how to use participatory farmer-led studies to assess soil degradation extent and its causes, and of then disseminating this information to farming communities and policymakers. Nutrient balance studies show that land degradation is evident on arable fields as soil nutrient depletion (the main threat to poorer manure-reliant farmers) and soil acidification (the main threat to wealthier farmers who have become dependent on inorganic fertilizer additions). Integrated nutrient management strategies involving both compound fertilizer additions and regular manure inputs can mitigate most soil degradation even on the sandy infertile Kalahari soils, but remain infrequently practised. The need to retain nutrient flows through the livestock sector from rangeland to arable land is thus vital to environmental sustainability and offers an applicable entry point for agricultural development initiatives and support. Factors identified as threatening the flow of nutrients from rangelands to arable lands include policy settings in terms of the different support programmes offered to communal farmers, village-level extension advice, household poverty levels and labour constraints.

Community fencing in open rangelands: self‐empowerment in Eastern Namibia

This article examines the cross‐cutting debates of empowerment, vulnerability, sustainability and livelihoods within the local and global contexts relevant to the people of Okonyoka, a settlement of less than 150 people situated in the heart of Eastern Namibias southern communal lands. Here, people are adapting their livelihoods flexibly in response to both environmental natural resource variability and to changes in social institutions and land use policies. Drought‐coping strategies, privatisation of the range through fencing and changes to social networks, all have both positive and negative impacts on peoples everyday lives. Okonyoka is the first settlement to erect a community fence in Eastern Namibias southern communal area, but surrounding settlements are impressed with the positive environmental and societal results and are planning to follow suit. Such fences can, however, inhibit neighbouring peoples livihoods, particularly the poor or socially excluded, and can change long‐standing regional drought‐coping strategies. Though the policy context is dynamic and changing, such moves have the potential to radically change the landscape of communal areas.

Mixing Methods in Fertility Research

Fertility research in population geography is rooted in a spatial demography tradition which places emphasis on the use of quantitative methodologies to analyse, model and project fertility. As data sources have become more sophisticated and abundant some have questioned whether research within the discipline is now too data-oriented resulting in a reluctance to embrace new methods and concepts. Alternative conceptualisations of fertility and reproduction are outlined which represent a shift away from general explanation to more differentiated understandings of reproductive behaviour and favour the use of qualitative methodologies in combination or in a multi-level framework. The paper illustrates, with reference to a research project in the Kalahari of Botswana, the potential for methodological pluralism in the study of fertility.

The Subjectivities of Young Somalis: The Impact of Processes of Disidentification and Disavowal

The twin forces of the global economy and global conflicts have accelerated patterns of transnational migration at the beginning of the 21st century, raising questions about how such mobility might shape processes of identification. In this chapter, we focus on the experiences of Somali refugee and asylum seeker children aged 11–18 now living in Sheffield, UK. In doing so, we draw on narrative theories of identity (Somers, 1994). In outlining a narrative approach to identity, Somers (1994: 606) argues that ‘it is through narratives and narrativity that we constitute our social identities … all of us come to be who we are (however ephemeral, multiple and changing) by being located or locating ourselves (usually unconsciously) in social narratives rarely of our own making’. In particular, we seek to understand how young Somalis negotiate and discursively position themselves within hegemonic social narratives that are not of their own making and which define what it means to be: British and Muslim; that are racialised and gendered. These hegemonic social narratives are very powerful in making certain subject positions available to be inhabited, even though the actuality of social categories are more contradictory, fragmented, shifting and ambivalent than dominant public definitions of them (Frosh et al., 2002).