Kate Hampshire

Fulani on the Move: Seasonal Economic Migration in the Sahel as a Social Process

Most research on short-term rural to urban migration and its impacts takes an economic approach and often emphasises negative aspects of migration, linking it synergistically with rural poverty in sending areas. Data from Fulani migrants in Northern Burkina Faso challenge this pessimistic view of short-term labour migration. Rather than a response to destitution, migration seems to be a useful way in which reasonably prosperous households can further enhance livelihood security. Moreover, factors not easily incorporated into a standard economic analysis, identity and village networks, emerge as being essential to the understanding of migration in this population. Finally, migration emerges as a highly dynamic process, which an ahistorical, static framework of analysis fails to capture.

Youth, mobility and mobile phones in Africa: findings from a three-country study

The penetration of mobile phones into sub-Saharan Africa has occurred with amazing rapidity: for many young people, they now represent a very significant element of their daily life. This paper explores usage and perceived impacts among young people aged c. 9–18 years in three countries: Ghana, Malawi and South Africa. Our evidence comes from intensive qualitative research with young people, their parents, teachers and other key informants (in-depth interviews, focus groups and school essays) and a follow-up questionnaire survey administered to nearly 3000 young people in 24 study sites. The study was conducted in eight different sites in each country (i.e. urban, peri-urban, rural and remote rural sites in each of two agro-ecological zones), enabling comparison of experiences in diverse spatial contexts. The evidence, collected within a broader research study of child mobility, allows us to examine current patterns of usage among young people with particular attention to the way these are emerging in different locational contexts and to explore connections between young peoples phone usage, virtual and physical mobilities and broader implications for social change. The issues of gender and inter-generational relations are important elements in this account.

Where dogs, ghosts and lions roam: learning from mobile ethnographies on the journey from school

This paper draws on mobility research conducted with children in three countries: Ghana, Malawi and South Africa. It has two interlinked aims: to highlight the potential that mobile interviews can offer in research with young people, especially in research contexts where the main focus is on mobility and its impacts, and to contribute empirical evidence regarding the significance of everyday mobility to young peoples lives and future life chances in sub-Saharan Africa. During the pilot phase of our research project on children, transport and mobility, the authors undertook walks home from school with teenage children1 in four different research sites: three remote rural, one peri-urban. As the children walked (usually over a distance of around 5 km) their stories of home, of school and of the environment in-between, gradually unfolded. The lived experiences narrated during these journeys offer considerable insights into the daily lives, fears and hopes of the young people concerned, and present a range of issues for further research as our study extends into its main phase.

‘Doing it right?’: working with young researchers in Malawi to investigate children, transport and mobility

This paper explores involving children in Malawi in research about young people, mobility and transport, respecting their rights of participation, education, and protection from exploitation. The Malawi study forms one component of a research project taking place in three sub-Saharan African countries. A foundation of the larger project was the conviction that children are experts on their own lives; therefore seeking childrens views was essential, thus respecting the UNCRC. We also embraced an ethical approach, that ‘the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration’. We reflect on challenges in putting ethical principles into practice in the inevitably messy real-world.

The political culture of poaching: a case study from northern Greece

Poaching has deep social and cultural roots and its meanings are multi-layered. This article explores the meanings attached to the practice of illegal hunting and fishing around Lake Kerkini in northern Greece. Here poaching must be considered in the context of a disordered ecosystem, where the dominance of locally maligned fish and bird species results from economic and environmental policy designed to benefit distant farmers. We conclude that poaching cannot be understood only as an individual action, but as one where collective and personal identities are defended in the face of seemingly irrevocable economic and social decline. The discussion shows that poachers identify different kinds of poaching. Some of the most apparent forms of poaching, done by local inhabitants, may be less damaging than other commercially oriented forms, including by outsiders. Poaching is motivated through a complex mix of factors. Our data lead us to discuss two manifestations of poaching (a) poaching as a form of collective resistance; and (b) poaching as a violation of culturally valued types of human-nature interaction. Some people who admit undertaking what they perceive as least detrimental forms of poaching are antagonistic towards what they construe to be truly harmful forms. Such people appear willing to act and to support actions against types of poaching they agree to be threatening. This is a message with potential importance for environmental management strategy.

Networks of nomads: negotiating access to health resources among pastoralist women in Chad

Health resources among pastoralist groups are strongly gendered. While certain types of health resources fall within the female domain (home-based treatment, caring and supportive roles, and knowledge surrounding particular reproductive conditions) access to most outside health practitioners, treatments and knowledge is controlled largely by men. For pastoralist women, this means that actions taken during illness episodes depend largely on the nature and quality of social support systems available, and on their ability to mobilise them effectively. These support systems include husband and other affines, male kin, and networks of female kin and friends. Factors such as position within domestic and wider social units, as well as life cycle, affect womens ability to access and mobilise these different support systems for their health needs. However, seasonal mobility interacts with gender and social support systems in complex ways that profoundly influence womens access to health resources. Most literature on nomadic peoples and health focuses on the physical barriers posed by spatial mobility to accessing health resources. However, it is suggested here that, for pastoralist women in Chad, the spatial fluidity of social networks might be a more important consideration. At certain times of the year women enjoy relatively easy access to a large range of extended kin and other social contacts, while at other times, when people are very dispersed, options become much more limited, often resulting in illness treatment being delayed. Mobility should not, though, be seen purely as a constraint. It can also be an opportunity, increasing the potential geographical and social resource base with regard to health for women.

Mobility, education and livelihood trajectories for young people in rural Ghana: a gender perspective

This paper examines the gendered implications of Africas transport gap (the lack of cheap, regular and reliable transport) for young people in rural Ghana, with particular reference to the linkages between restricted mobility, household work demands, access to education and livelihood potential. Our aim is to show how mobility constraints, especially as these interact with household labour demands, restrict young peoples access to education and livelihood opportunities. Firstly, the paper considers the implications of the direct constraints on young peoples mobility potential as they travel to school. Then it examines young peoples (mostly unpaid) labour contributions, which are commonly crucial to family household production and reproduction, including those associated with the transport gap. This has especially important implications for girls, on whom the principal onus lies to help adult women carry the heavy burden of water, firewood, and agricultural products required for household use. Such work can impact significantly on their educational attendance and performance in school and thus has potential knock-on impacts for livelihoods. Distance from school, when coupled with a heavy workload at home will affect attendance, punctuality and performance at school: it may ultimately represent the tipping point resulting in a decision to withdraw from formal education. Moreover, the heavy burden of work and restricted mobility contributes to young peoples negative attitudes to agriculture and rural life and encourages urban migration. Drawing on research from rural case study sites in two regions of Ghana, we discuss ethnographic material from recent interviews with children and young people, their parents, teachers and other key informants, supported by information from an associated survey with children ca. 9–18 years.

“Real” Poachers and Predators: Shades of Meaning in Local Understandings of Threats to Fisheries

This article explores the idea of multiple and contested notions of nature, natural resource management, and the implications for local involvement with conservation, within the context of attitudes toward poachers and other predators of fish in the Nemunas Delta area of Lithuania. Qualitative research methods are used to elicit local understandings of threats to fishing livelihoods and to unravel the ambiguities surrounding peoples perceptions of, and attitudes toward, competitors for fish: human (poachers) and nonhuman (predators of fish, primarily birds). Neither poachers nor predators are classified as a simple category, unequivocally “bad ” or threatening. Rather, poaching and predation are represented by a multidimensional spectrum of acceptability based not only on the perceived threat to fish stocks but also on a sense of aesthetics, fairness, and identity. We conclude by examining the implications of this work for natural resource management, both in Lithuania and elsewhere.

Children and young people as producers of knowledge

The 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child represented a particularly important way-mark for child-centred studies because it affirmed children’s rights to participation: the right to give and receive information, rights of association and rights to participation in cultural life. Since then the potential for young people to participate in a range of other communication and advocacy activities, including a more proactive role in participatory research, has been promoted with growing determination by many child-focused non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and academics. Concepts of children’s rights and empowerment are central to these efforts. Save the Children’s briefing paper (2000) on research, monitoring and evaluation with children and young people puts the emphasis firmly on partnership with children – the importance of not only collaborative work between children and adults, but also on allowing children to plan and carry out their own research. However, despite the widespread promotion of children’s voices by activists and policymakers in recent years, the potential for young people’s knowledge to impact on adult agendas and policy arenas remains less than certain. For academics, working with children as research partners (as opposed to research subjects) is by no means beyond dispute. An exciting but arguably perilous enterprise, it brings to the fore a range of debates around power relations, ethics, capacities and competencies (of all concerned). James (2007) asks whether research carried out by children necessarily represents a more accurate or authentic account of children’s issues: her warning about the dangers of ethnographic ventriloquism may be salutary and is specifically considered in a number of the papers that comprise this special issue. Most of the papers in this collection were presented, in initial form, in a session on Children and Young People as Knowledge Producers in August 2009, at the Royal Geographical Society/Institute of British Geographers (RGS/IBG) annual conference (which had as its overall theme Geography, Knowledge and Society) at Manchester University, UK. The authors offer diverse disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives on young people’s role and potential in knowledge production, in a range of contexts: two are set in UK (Todd, Walker et al.), one in Slovakia (Blazek and Hraňová), one in Brazil (Jupp-Kina) and two in sub-Saharan Africa (Ansell et al., Hampshire et al.). In terms of disciplinary focus, the majority of authors, while based in departments of anthropology, education, geography and psychology, are academics involved in interdisciplinary endeavours in their childand youth-focused research, whether in UK or overseas. While at least one of the academic researchers has also had some prior experience as a social-work practitioner (Jupp-Kina), the value of academic/practitioner collaboration is clearly demonstrated in the paper by Blazek and Hraňová, which brings together the reflections of an academic geographer and a community youth worker. Although they employ diverse methods, everyone in this special issue explores ‘participatory’ work with children and young people, using critical perspectives of children’s production of knowledge and seeing children mainly as social actors in their own right. This leads not only to very valuable insights into issues often viewed primarily from an adult perspective – impacts of flooding (Walker et al.), evaluation of educational psychology services (Todd) – but, of likely particular interest to the readers of this journal, a focus on critiques of participation

Out of the reach of children? Young people’s health-seeking practices and agency in Africa’s newly-emerging therapeutic landscapes

Despite a dominant view within Western biomedicine that children and medicines should be kept apart, a growing literature suggests that children and adolescents often take active roles in health-seeking. Here, we consider young peoples health-seeking practices in Ghana: a country with a rapidly-changing therapeutic landscape, characterised by the recent introduction of a National Health Insurance Scheme, mass advertising of medicines, and increased use of mobile phones. Qualitative and quantitative data are presented from eight field-sites in urban and rural Ghana, including 131 individual interviews, focus groups, plus a questionnaire survey of 1005 8-to-18-year-olds. The data show that many young people in Ghana play a major role in seeking healthcare for themselves and others. Young peoples ability to secure effective healthcare is often constrained by their limited access to social, economic and cultural resources and information; however, many interviewees actively generated, developed and consolidated such resources in their quest for healthcare. Health insurance and the growth of telecommunications and advertising present new opportunities and challenges for young peoples health-seeking practices. We argue that policy should take young peoples medical realities as a starting point for interventions to facilitate safe and effective health-seeking.