Browsing by Author "Schroeder, R. A."

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Dilemmas of counter-mapping community resources in Tanzania
    Hodgson, D.; Schroeder, R. A. (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 2002)
    Recent work has celebrated the political potential of `counter-mapping', that is, mapping against dominant power structures, to further seemingly progressive goals. This article briefly reviews the counter-mapping literature, and compares four counter-mapping projects from Maasai areas in Tanzania to explore some potential pitfalls in such efforts. The cases, which involve community-based initiatives led by a church-based NGO, ecotourism companies, the Tanzanian National Parks Authority, and grassroots pastoralist rights advocacy groups, illustrate the broad range of activities grouped under the heading of counter-mapping. They also present a series of political dilemmas that are typical of many counter-mapping efforts: conflicts inherent in conservation efforts involving territorialization, privatization, integration and indigenization; problems associated with the theory and practice of `community-level' political engagement; the need to combine mapping efforts with broader legal and political strategies; and critical questions involving the agency of `external' actors such as conservation and development donors, the state and private business interests.
  • "Re-claiming" land in the Gambia: Gendered property rights and environment intervention
    Schroeder, R. A. (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Association of Geographers, 1997)
    This paper is an analysis of environmental policies and practices and their impact on access and control of resources within a gender context. The analysis shows how women worked to change usufruct rights and male leaders manipulate environmental policies to "re-claim" the resources for Natural Resource Management projects. Women converted low-lying land into lucrative irrigated vegetable gardens to see projects allow men to take control over the territory. Land inheritance is patrilinear in this area; women often get permission to use unwanted land such as swampland and low-lying land. Market season is short so women carry their vegetables and sell them door to door.
  • Shady practice: Gender and the political ecology of resource stabilization in Gambian garden/orchards
    Schroeder, R. A. (Clark University, 1993)
    This article discusses gender dynamics of gardens and orchards along the North Bank of the river Gambia: rivalry between men and women's crops, competition over women's labor when trees are introduced for the environmental stabilization, and how the shade canopy undermines women gardeners' rights and keeps the lands under male control. The author conducts an ethnographic study in the North Bank of the river Gambia in 1989 and 1991. Because of two decades of drought that changed this area' ecology, there was competition between men and women's crop production systems over low-lying and groundwater resources. Men and women have separate places, specific crops, time and different product value for production. Men grow mainly cash crops and women grow food crops. However, two decades of drought led to women's groups increasing fruit and vegetable production in low-lying communal gardens and adopting a new type of shorter-duration production systems. Women's labor sustained men's irrigated cash crops. These changes with infrastructure development and government policies attracted many funds and development project in this area that motivated women to expand their garden production of cash crops. This cash income gradually made women a major financial contributor within their household. However, conflict developed with male construction of orchards and subsequent demands for women's labor in the same locations.