Pauline E. Peters

Whose Security? Deepening Social Conflict Over 'Customary' Land in the Shadow of Land Tenure Reform in Malawi

Malawi, like other countries in Africa, has a new land policy designed to clarify and formalise customary tenure. The country is poor with a high population density, highly dependent on agriculture, and the research sites are matrilineal-matrilocal, and near urban centres. But the case raises issues relevant to land tenure reform elsewhere: the role of ‘traditional authorities’ or chiefs vis-a-vis the state and ‘community’; variability in types of ‘customary’ tenure; and deepening inequality within rural populations. Even before it is implemented, the pending land policy in Malawi is intensifying competition over land. We discuss this and the increase in rentals and sales; the effects of public debates about the new land policy; a new discourse about ‘original settlers’ and ‘strangers’; and political manoeuvring by chiefs.

Rural income and poverty in a time of radical change in Malawi

Abstract Malawi is one of the poorest countries in Africa. There is widespread, though not universal, agreement about the shape of poverty in the country and the policy challenge this sets. Agriculture continues to be the most obvious means to stimulate broad-based rural growth and to provide levels of food security and income needed for the majority rural population. A longitudinal study over a decade during which radical policy and political changes occurred provides the data and basis for discussing the appropriate policy directions for reducing poverty.

Striving for Normality in a Time of AIDS in Malawi

Drawing on a twenty-year study, we examine the effects of HIV-related illness and death on villagers in Malawi during 2006. Contrary to unidimensional images of an AIDS disaster, we found people striving for normality – trying to control the abnormal circumstances of the rising toll of HIV-related illness and death. Just over 40 % of the sample households had experienced at least one death (certainly or probably) related to HIV, but only about 10% were found to be suffering acute or serious livelihood stress due to HIV deaths. The ability to deal with illness and death depended on households’ pre-existing characteristics, particularly income level, and, critically, on their placement in the extended matrilineal family. But increasing pressures on an already severely stressed population, and failure of the current ‘ community-based ’ approach to deliver * Our deepest thanks go to the families who have been so helpful and hospitable during the years of

Is "rational choice" the best choice for Robert Bates? An anthropologist's reading of Bates's work

Abstract The paper examines critically the contribution of rational choice and Robert Bates to three areas of interest to anthropologists: individual choice and rationality, institutions and culture. While methodological individualism with its focus on narrow material interests can provide situational logic which illuminates the strategy of actors at a point in time, it is not very successful in depicting the social and cultural dynamics of groups over time. Institutions in all their richness are reduced to sets of rules which are largely used as instrumental means and ends of individuals. Finally Bates presents culture as instrumental signs and signals which reduces a wide range of meanings, motivations and social circumstances to a single register of economic logic or material advantage.

Contestations over "tradition" and "culture" in a time of AIDS.

In Malawi, the distress and unease caused by rising numbers of deaths and chronic illness due to HIV infection have led people to search for explanations. Here, we describe two particular “turns to culture.” Zomba villagers over two decades have come to link AIDS with kanyera, an indigenous illness syndrome. In contrast, the public media, government, and donors blame “promiscuity” and “cultural practices” for HIV infection. The resulting stigmatization causes people to avoid naming AIDS, and both turns to culture tend to link blame and stigma to women.

Books reviewed: Development and settlement in Botswana

J. Parson, Botswana: Liberal Democracy and the Labor Reserve in Southern Africa (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press and London: Gower, 1984). Pp. 145. £11.50. R. M. K. Silitshena, Intra‐Rural Migration and Settlement Changes in Botswana (Leiden: African Studies Centre, 1983). Pp. 230. Df1.10. K. Shillington (comp.), Essays on the History of Botswana: a bibliography of history research essays presented in part fulfilment of the B.A. degree of the University of Botswana 1976–1984 (Department of History, University of Botswana, 1984). Pp. 20. P4 (£2.50). (Available from Botswana Book Centre) P. Kallaway (ed.), Apartheid and Education: The Education of Black South Africans (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1984). Pp. x+409. R16.95 paperback. C. R. Hill, Change in South Africa: Blind Alleys or New Directions? (London: Rex Collings, 1983). Pp. 224. £12.00. F. S. Parker, South Africa: Lost Opportunities (Lexington: Lexington Books, 1983). Pp. 290.

Inequality and Social Conflict Over Land in Africa

25.45. S. Fredman, M. Nell and P. Randall, The Narrow Margin: How Black...