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

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            Abstract

            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 Namibia's 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 people's everyday lives. Okonyoka is the first settlement to erect a community fence in Eastern Namibia's 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 people's 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.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Journal
            crea20
            CREA
            Review of African Political Economy
            Review of African Political Economy
            0305-6244
            1740-1720
            March 2001
            : 28
            : 87
            : 9-26
            Affiliations
            a Department of Geography , University of Sheffield
            b School of the Environment , University of Leeds
            Article
            8704500 Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 28, No. 87, March 2001, pp. 9-26
            10.1080/03056240108704500
            03a8b3d6-8823-47c7-aca7-4fd41130c5ed

            All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

            History
            Page count
            Figures: 0, Tables: 0, References: 37, Pages: 18
            Categories
            Original Articles

            Sociology,Economic development,Political science,Labor & Demographic economics,Political economics,Africa

            References

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