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Rural Poverty (rural + poverty)
Terms modified by Rural Poverty Selected AbstractsRural Poverty and Development Strategies in Latin AmericaJOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE, Issue 4 2006CRISTÓBAL KAY Several approaches to the study of poverty are discussed, to learn from their strengths as well as their weaknesses. For this purpose the concepts of marginality, social exclusion, new rurality and rural livelihoods, as well as the ethnic and gender dimensions of poverty, are examined. The debate on the peasantization (capitalization) or proletarianization (pauperization) of the peasantry sets the scene for the analysis of the different strategies adopted by peasants and rural labourers to secure their survival and perhaps achieve some prosperity. In examining the success or failure of interventions by governments, civil society and international organizations in the reduction of poverty, it is claimed that the State has a key role to perform. Furthermore, it is argued that poverty is caused and reproduced by the unequal distribution of resources and power at the household, local, national and international levels. Therefore, the starting point for the eradication of poverty has to be the implementation of a development strategy that addresses such inequalities while at the same time achieving competitiveness within the global system. [source] A Bigger Piece of a Very Small Pie: Intrahousehold Resource Allocation and Poverty Reduction in AfricaDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 1 2007Bridget O'Laughlin ABSTRACT Feminist research has convincingly shown that an increase in household income does not necessarily lead to improvement in the well-being of all members of the household. More questionable is the policy conclusion often drawn from this research for rural Africa: redressing gender imbalance in control of productive resources will significantly reduce poverty. This contribution argues that the evidence and analysis presented by two studies repeatedly cited to show that gender inequality is inefficient are problematic. It is mythical to suggest that tinkering with women's market position by exchanging unequal collective rights to productive resources for individual ones will decisively reduce rural poverty in Africa. That will depend on the restructuring of long-term and deeply unequal processes of integration in the market, not on a firmer insertion of women within existing patterns of individualization and commodification of productive resources. [source] Using Farmers' Preferences to Assess Development Policy: A Case Study of UgandaDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 3 2010Philip A. S. James As part of ongoing economic reforms, the Ugandan government implemented the Plan for the Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA) targeted at reducing rural poverty. This article demonstrates the application of a stated preference method using a choice experiment conducted in 9 sub-counties to assess farmers' preferences for adaptation options and identify areas of the PMA requiring reform to improve its effectiveness. This research shows the importance of microfinance, agricultural extension systems and basic education in farmers' adaptation decisions, and highlights a crucial need to improve local engagement in decision-making. A potentially problematic contradiction between farmers' preferences and some interventions proposed under the PMA is identified. [source] The Machakos Case Study: Solid Outcomes, Unhelpful HyperboleDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 1 2006Jules Siedenburg This article revisits the well-known study of Machakos District, Kenya reported in the book More People, Less Erosion by Tiffen et al., which found dramatic, compelling evidence of successful endogenous adaptation to changing circumstances by rural Africans. The article seeks to elucidate discrepancies between the Machakos findings and other findings in the interest of both scientific accuracy and policy relevance. It is suggested that the Machakos study comprises hopeful data, on the one hand, and problematic calculations and assertions, on the other. After exploring problems with the study, the article suggests an alternative interpretation of the data that is arguably more pertinent to contemporary concerns with rural poverty and environmental degradation as well as more widely applicable in sub-Saharan Africa. [source] Evolving Themes in Rural Development 1950s-2000sDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 4 2001Frank Ellis This article provides a brief overview of the major switches in rural development thinking that have occurred over the past half-century or so. Dominant and subsidiary themes are identified, as well as the co-existence of different narratives running in parallel. The continuing success of the long-running ,small-farm efficiency' paradigm is highlighted. The article concludes by asking whether sustainable livelihoods approaches can be interpreted as providing a new or different way forward for rural development in the future. The answer is a cautious ,yes', since these approaches potentially permit the cross-sectoral and multi-occupational character of contemporary rural livelihoods in low-income countries to be placed centre-stage in efforts to reduce rural poverty. [source] Globalisation, rural restructuring and health service delivery in Australia: policy failure and the role of social work?HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE IN THE COMMUNITY, Issue 3 2007BSocStud, MLitt, Margaret Alston PhD Abstract The impacts of globalisation and rural restructuring on health service delivery in rural Australia have been significant. In the present paper, it is argued that declining health service access represents a failure of policy. Rural communities across the world are in a state of flux, and Australia is no different: rural communities are ageing at faster rates than urban communities and young people are out-migrating in large numbers. During the past 5 years, rural Australia has also experienced a severe and widespread drought that has exacerbated rural poverty, and impacted on the health and well-being of rural Australians. Australian governments have responded to globalising forces by introducing neoliberal policy initiatives favouring market solutions and championing the need for self-reliance among citizens. The result for rural Australia has been a withdrawal of services at a time of increased need. This paper addresses the social work response to these changes. [source] Traditional Management Systems, Poverty and Change in the Arid Zone Fisheries of Northern NigeriaJOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE, Issue 1 2005ARTHUR E. NEILAND This paper, based on fieldwork results, explores traditional management systems (TMS) in the arid zone fisheries of north-eastern Nigeria with particular reference to their impact on rural poverty. The first section provides a historical background by tracing the evolution of the TMS since the nineteenth century, with reference to government policy on fisheries management and poverty alleviation. The second gives an overview of TMS, including definitions, distribution, principal objectives, regulatory mechanisms and the impact of TMS on the performance of the fisheries and on the livelihoods of rural people. The third considers the perceptions and attitudes of the fishing communities with regards to the fisheries and TMS. The paper concludes, paradoxically, that while TMS provide a basis for the sustainable livelihoods of many fishing people, they also reflect and enforce the social positions of the rich and powerful members of society who oversee them, at the expense of the poor. In the future, poverty alleviation in fisheries will need to incorporate both sectoral and non-sectoral strategies , dealing with the existing ,paradox of TMS' by encouraging appropriate institutional changes and community development, and recognizing the importance of employment creation in other sectors of the economy as a source of alternative income. [source] Neo-Classical Neo-Populism 25 Years On: Déjà Vu and Déjà Passé.JOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE, Issue 1-2 2004Towards a Critique The Griffin, Khan and Ickowitz argument in favour of redistributive land reform, as a means of eradicating rural poverty, is an updated version of a case made by Griffin 30 years ago, and is here seen as a variant of neo-classical neo-populism. The essential logic presented by GKI is considered and it is argued that the approach is defective in its lack of historical perspective and its deployment of a static approach in a dynamic context: these defects manifested in its ignoring of the processes associated with capitalist transformation. It is further argued that its logical foundation is the neo-classical construct of perfect competition, which is without historical basis; its empirical justification is a postulated inverse relationship between land productivity and size of holding, supposedly true of all places and all times, but which is swept away by the development of capitalism in agriculture; and its social specification, in failing to capture the existence of differentiated peasantries, ignores the actual class structure of the countryside. [source] The impact of migration on rural poverty and inequality: a case study in ChinaAGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2010Nong Zhu Migration; Poverty; Inequality; China Abstract Large numbers of agricultural labor moved from the countryside to cities after the economic reforms in China. Migration and remittances play an important role in transforming the structure of rural household income. This article examines the impact of rural-to-urban migration on rural poverty and inequality in a mountainous area of Hubei province using the data of a 2002 household survey. Since migration income is a potential substitute for farm income, we present counterfactual scenarios of what rural income, poverty, and inequality would have been in the absence of migration. Our results show that, by providing alternatives to households with lower marginal labor productivity in agriculture, migration leads to an increase in rural income. In contrast to many studies that suggest that the increasing share of nonfarm income in total income widens inequality, this article offers support for the hypothesis that migration tends to have egalitarian effects on rural income for three reasons: (1) migration is rational self-selection,farmers with higher expected return in agricultural activities and/or in local nonfarm activities choose to remain in the countryside while those with higher expected return in urban nonfarm sectors migrate; (2) households facing binding constraints of land supply are more likely to migrate; (3) poorer households benefit disproportionately from migration. [source] Rural poverty report 2001: the challenge of ending rural poverty edited by the INTERNATIONAL FUND FOR AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT (IFAD). (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp.JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 5 2003No abstract is available for this article. [source] Rural mobility as a response to land shortages: the case of MalawiPOPULATION, SPACE AND PLACE (PREVIOUSLY:-INT JOURNAL OF POPULATION GEOGRAPHY), Issue 4 2006Deborah Potts Abstract Malawi is the most densely populated country in southern Africa, and its economy and the livelihoods of the vast majority of its people are dependent on agriculture. Rural land is, therefore, a critical resource. Malawi is divided into three Regions and during the colonial period, such economic development as did occur tended to be concentrated in the Southern Region. The Northern Region was often characterised, by contrast, as the ,dead North'. Levels of economic development in the Central Region fell between the other two regions. At independence in the 1960s, internal migration patterns reflected this, with net in-migration to the Southern Region and net out-migration from the Northern. In the 40 years since, there have been marked changes in these patterns, and in the last intercensal period, 1987,1998, the Northern Region was experiencing net in-migration from the Southern Region, and was the fastest growing region. This paper traces these changes over time through analysis of census data, and relates them to increasingly serious land shortages in the south and the geography of tobacco estate development since independence. This analysis is further supported by a range of other surveys and research which indicate the depth of land shortage and rural poverty in the south of the country. The paper concludes that rural,rural migration, although under-studied, particularly in southern Africa, is a vitally important aspect of rural livelihood change and positive adaptation in sub-Saharan Africa which deserves more attention. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] FOOD INSECURITY IN BUHAYA: THE CYCLE OF WOMEN'S MARGINALIZATION AND THE SPREAD OF POVERTY, HUNGER, AND DISEASEANNALS OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRACTICE, Issue 1 2009Valerie Githinji This chapter focuses on how the marginalization of Bahaya women increases poverty, thus exacerbating issues of hunger and related disease in a region characterized by a history of environmental degradation, agricultural change and decline, rural poverty and disease. In the past several decades, diminishing sizes of banana farms, an overall decline in cattle, decreasing soil fertility, and an increase in food crop pathogens have posed challenges to achieving adequate agricultural yields in Buhaya of northwestern Tanzania. This situation has resulted in an increase in poverty, food insecurity, nutrition insecurity, and related disease. Culturally, women are the primary agriculturalists and producers and providers of food in Buhaya. However, Bahaya cultural practices hinder women from achieving equal representation in society, thus blocking their access to self advancement and resources such as money, land, education, and agricultural inputs. These constraints marginalize and hinder women from fulfilling their social role as primary farmers and provisioners of food, nutrition, and care. As patriarchal practices and ecological challenges work to constrain women's roles, poverty, food scarcity, and disease increase, affecting and weakening the foundation of Bahaya society and culture. [source] "Sophisticated People Versus Rednecks": Economic Restructuring and Class Difference in America's WestANTIPODE, Issue 1 2002Lucy Jarosz In this paper, we argue for the importance of constructing a human geography of white class difference. More particularly, we present a theoretical framework for understanding the cultural politics of class and whiteness in the context of rural restructuring. We theorize these politics through an examination of the national discourse of redneck that has emerged in the US. We analyze the term "redneck" as one of several rhetorical categories that refer to rural white poor people. We argue that while various terms are employed in geographically specific ways and cannot be used interchangeably, they nonetheless function similarly in positioning the white rural poor. Our examination of redneck discourse exemplifies these processes and points up the need for a broader analysis of representational strategies that reinforce class difference among whites. Drawing upon three case studies of white rural poverty, we deconstruct these imagined rural spaces by situating discourses about white rural poor people in the context of geographically specific political economies of power and social relations in Kentucky, Florida, and Washington. These case studies, as well as the national discourse of redneck, represent rural poverty as a lifestyle choice and as an individualized cultural trait. Abstract rural spaces are construed as poor, underdeveloped, and wild; rural, white poor people are represented as lazy, dirty, obsolescent, conservative, or alternative. A focus upon the political economy of community resource relationships and the construction and reproduction of redneck discourses reveals how exploitative material processes are justified by naming others and blaming the persistence of rural poverty upon the poor themselves. [source] Socioeconomic Changes and the Decline in Poverty: A View from Three Villages in the Philippines, 1985,1997,ASIAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 4 2005Jonna P. Estudillo O10; O15 The present paper examines socioeconomic changes and decline in rural poverty using a panel dataset collected in the Philippine villages in 1985, 1993 and 1997. The most important finding is the transition of the rural economy away from a regime of low nonfarm income to a regime of high nonfarm income accompanied by a marked decline in poverty. The relative contribution of access to land on rural poverty reduction declined, whereas the relative contribution of human capital, more importantly represented by college schooling, increased over time. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||