Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism
About: This article is published in African Affairs.The article was published on 1997-04-01. It has received 1363 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Subject (philosophy) & Colonialism.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors define access as the ability to derive benefits from things, broadening from property's clas- sical definition as "the right to benefit from things" and examine a broad set of factors that differentiate access from property.
Abstract: The term "access" is frequently used by property and natural resource analysts without adequate definition. In this paper we develop a concept of access and examine a broad set of factors that differentiate access from property. We define access as "the ability to derive benefits from things," broadening from property's clas- sical definition as "the right to benefit from things." Access, following this definition, is more akin to "a bundle of powers" than to property's notion of a "bundle of rights." This formulation includes a wider range of social relationships that constrain or enable benefits from resource use than property relations alone. Using this fram- ing, we suggest a method of access analysis for identifying the constellations of means, relations, and processes that enable various actors to derive benefits from re- sources. Our intent is to enable scholars, planners, and policy makers to empirically "map" dynamic processes and relationships of access.
1,999 citations
Cites background from "Citizen and Subject: Contemporary A..."
...Rather than enfranchising local populations with rights over resources, states often manage local people as subjects to whom privileges, rather than rights, are to be delegated (Wong 1975; Hooker 1978; Burns 1999; Mamdani 1996; Ribot 1999)....
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...See de Janvry et al. (2001), Newell (2000), Mamdani (1996), Mearns (1995), Lund (1994), Agarwal (1994:19), Berry (1989, 1993), Peluso (1992b), Shipton and Goheen (1992), Bruce (1988), Blaikie (1985)....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors introduce a multilevel process theory to understand how these characteristics are generated and transformed over time, assuming that ethnic boundaries are the outcome of the classificatory struggles and negotiations between actors situated in a social field.
Abstract: Primordialist and constructivist authors have debated the nature of ethnicity “as such” and therefore failed to explain why its characteristics vary so dramatically across cases, displaying different degrees of social closure, political salience, cultural distinctiveness, and historical stability. The author introduces a multilevel process theory to understand how these characteristics are generated and transformed over time. The theory assumes that ethnic boundaries are the outcome of the classificatory struggles and negotiations between actors situated in a social field. Three characteristics of a field—the institutional order, distribution of power, and political networks—determine which actors will adopt which strategy of ethnic boundary making. The author then discusses the conditions under which these negotiations will lead to a shared understanding of the location and meaning of boundaries. The nature of this consensus explains the particular characteristics of an ethnic boundary. A final section i...
982 citations
Cites background from "Citizen and Subject: Contemporary A..."
...…colonization of the non-Western world, the racialization of its populations (Balibar 1988), and at the same time its division into ethnic domains (Mamdani 1996); the role of forced labor and slavery in the making of the Americas and the various ethnosomatic constellations that it produced…...
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TL;DR: This paper considers what the debates on trust have to offer health policy analysis by exploring the meaning, bases and outcomes of trust, and its relevance to health systems, and presents a synthesis of theoretical perspectives on the notion of trust.
951 citations
Cites background from "Citizen and Subject: Contemporary A..."
...Mamdani, M. (1996). Citizen and Subject: Contemporary...
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...…to the division between the citizens employed in the formal sector and receiving social protection, and the (often rural) subjects who largely have only informal livelihoods and limited access to social provisioning (Mamdani 1996, cited in Norton, Conway, & Foster, 2001; see also Macpherson, 1997)....
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01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore approaches to understand and rectify failures of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) policies and conclude that explanatory effort should be expanded from the "facilitating characteristics" of potentially successful CBNRM sites to include two sets of interfaces between donors and recipient states, and between the state (especially the local state) and CBNRMs at the local level.
Abstract: Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) remains a popular policy with many international funding institutions, in spite of growing evidence of its disappointing outcomes. It is underpinned by theoretically justified benefits which serve to reproduce and market it. The paper explores approaches to understand and rectify these failures. The conclusion is that explanatory effort should be expanded from the “facilitating characteristics” of potentially successful CBNRM sites to include two sets of interfaces—those between donors and recipient states, and between the state (especially the local state) and CBNRMs at the local level. Illustrative examples in Botswana and Malawi are given throughout the discussion.
681 citations
Cites background from "Citizen and Subject: Contemporary A..."
...These institutions, based upon “traditional” (usually chiefly) leadership amounted to what Mamdani (1996) called decentralised despotism, and analogous to apartheid....
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TL;DR: Boaventura de Sousa Santos as discussed by the authors is a sociologist at the School of Economics, University of Coimbra (Portugal) and Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School.
Abstract: Boaventura de Sousa Santos is Professor of Sociology at the School of Economics, University of Coimbra (Portugal) and Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. He is Director of the Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra and Director of the Center of Documentation on the Revolution of 1974, at the same University. He has published widely on globalization, sociology of law and the state, epistemology, democracy, and human rights in Portuguese, Spanish, English, Italian, French and German.
668 citations
References
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors introduce a multilevel process theory to understand how these characteristics are generated and transformed over time, assuming that ethnic boundaries are the outcome of the classificatory struggles and negotiations between actors situated in a social field.
Abstract: Primordialist and constructivist authors have debated the nature of ethnicity “as such” and therefore failed to explain why its characteristics vary so dramatically across cases, displaying different degrees of social closure, political salience, cultural distinctiveness, and historical stability. The author introduces a multilevel process theory to understand how these characteristics are generated and transformed over time. The theory assumes that ethnic boundaries are the outcome of the classificatory struggles and negotiations between actors situated in a social field. Three characteristics of a field—the institutional order, distribution of power, and political networks—determine which actors will adopt which strategy of ethnic boundary making. The author then discusses the conditions under which these negotiations will lead to a shared understanding of the location and meaning of boundaries. The nature of this consensus explains the particular characteristics of an ethnic boundary. A final section i...
982 citations
01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore approaches to understand and rectify failures of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) policies and conclude that explanatory effort should be expanded from the "facilitating characteristics" of potentially successful CBNRM sites to include two sets of interfaces between donors and recipient states, and between the state (especially the local state) and CBNRMs at the local level.
Abstract: Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) remains a popular policy with many international funding institutions, in spite of growing evidence of its disappointing outcomes. It is underpinned by theoretically justified benefits which serve to reproduce and market it. The paper explores approaches to understand and rectify these failures. The conclusion is that explanatory effort should be expanded from the “facilitating characteristics” of potentially successful CBNRM sites to include two sets of interfaces—those between donors and recipient states, and between the state (especially the local state) and CBNRMs at the local level. Illustrative examples in Botswana and Malawi are given throughout the discussion.
681 citations
TL;DR: Boaventura de Sousa Santos as discussed by the authors is a sociologist at the School of Economics, University of Coimbra (Portugal) and Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School.
Abstract: Boaventura de Sousa Santos is Professor of Sociology at the School of Economics, University of Coimbra (Portugal) and Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. He is Director of the Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra and Director of the Center of Documentation on the Revolution of 1974, at the same University. He has published widely on globalization, sociology of law and the state, epistemology, democracy, and human rights in Portuguese, Spanish, English, Italian, French and German.
668 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined how and for what reasons rural residents come to care about the environment and explored the deep and durable relationship between government and subjectivity and showed how regulatory strategies associated with and resulting from community decision making help transform those who participate in government.
Abstract: This paper examines how and for what reasons rural residents come to care about the environment. Focusing on Kumaon, India, it explores the deep and durable relationship between government and subjectivity and shows how regulatory strategies associated with and resulting from community decision making help transform those who participate in government. Using evidence drawn from the archival record and fieldwork conducted over two time periods, it analyzes the extent to which varying levels of involvement in institutional regimes of environmental regulation facilitate new ways of understanding the environment. On the basis of this analysis, it outlines a framework of understanding that permits the joint consideration of the technologies of power and self that are responsible for the emergence of new political subjects.
622 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined how government policies affect ethnic relations by comparing outcomes across two nearby districts, one in Kenya and one in Tanzania, using colonial-era boundary placement as a "natural experiment".
Abstract: This article examines how government policies affect ethnic relations by comparing outcomes across two nearby districts, one in Kenya and one in Tanzania, using colonial-era boundary placement as a “natural experiment.” Despite similar geography and historical legacies, governments in Kenya and Tanzania have followed radically different language, education, and local institutional policies, with Tanzania consistently pursuing more serious nation building. The evidence suggests that nation building has allowed diverse communities in rural Tanzania to achieve considerably better local public goods outcomes than diverse communities in Kenya. To illustrate, while Kenyan communities at mean levels of diversity have 25 percent less local school funding than homogeneous communities on average, the comparable figure in the Tanzanian district is near zero. The Kenya-Tanzania comparison provides empirical evidence that serious reforms can ameliorate social divisions and suggests that nation-building should take a place on policy agendas, especially in Africa.
590 citations