Browsing by Author "Cousins, B."

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  • Conflict management for multiple resource users in pastoralist and agro-pastoralist contexts
    Cousins, B. (University of Sussex, Brighton, UK: IDS, 1996)
    Livelihood systems in rural social formations often involve the utilization of natural resources for multiple purposes (e.g. wetlands which are used for both cropping and for grazing) or by more than one user (as when rangelands are grazed by different herd owners or groups of herd owners). Disputes or conflicts are common in these situations, and institutional frameworks for resolving disputes and managing conflict have usually evolved in response. In a development context, where terms of access to and control over resources are often altered, conflict management and resolution have become increasingly central. This paper addresses these issues in pastoralist and agro-pastoralist contexts. The causes of these conflicts (e.g. multiple users and multiple uses) are discussed along with innovative approaches to prevention, management (e.g. contingency models) and resolution (e.g. building local mediation capabilities). The author builds a case for social change, as a consequence of development efforts, to be used as a potentially constructive force enabling a deeper understanding of the organizational identities and relations within a social context.
  • How do rights become real? Formal and informal institutions in South Africa's land reform
    Cousins, B. (1997)
    How do legally defined rights to resources become effective command over those resources? What are the limits to social change through legal reform? These questions are having to be confronted, often painfully, by rural people and activists and government officials involved in South Africa's post-apartheid land reform, central components of which comprise ambitious and wide-ranging 'rights-based' laws and programs. Two central issues are: supplementing the passing of new legislation with the detailed design of programs to implement these laws, and the interplay of formal and informal institutions in the complex social arenas within which people actually live. The environmental entitlements framework helps us to explore these questions.