Description
This edited volume examines the changes that arise from the entanglement of global interests and narratives with the local struggles that have always existed in the drylands of Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia/Inner Asia.
Changes in drylands are happening in an overwhelming manner. Climate change, growing political instability, and increasing enclosures of large expanses of often common land are some of the changes with far-reaching consequences for those who make their living in the drylands. At the same time, powerful narratives about the drylands as ‘wastelands’ and their ‘backward’ inhabitants continue to hold sway, legitimizing interventions for development, security, and conservation, informing re-emerging frontiers of investment (for agriculture, extraction, infrastructure), and shaping new dryland identities. The chapters in this volume discuss the politics of change triggered by forces as diverse as the global land and resource rush, the expansion of new Information and Communication Technologies, urbanization, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the spread of violent extremism. While recognizing that changes are co-produced by differently positioned actors from within and outside the drylands, this volume presents the dryland’s point of view. It therefore takes the views, experiences, and agencies of dryland dwellers as the point of departure to not only understand the changes that are transforming their lives, livelihoods, and future aspirations, but also to highlight the unexpected spaces of contestation and innovation that have hitherto remained understudied.
This edited volume will be of much interest to students, researchers, and scholars of natural resource management, land and resource grabbing, political ecology, sustainable development, and drylands in general.
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Drylands, frontiers, and the politics of change
Angela Kronenburg García, Tobias Haller, Han van Dijk, Jeroen Warner, Cyrus Samimi
PART 1: CLIMATE, ENVIRONMENT, AND NARRATIVES
Chapter 2. Climate variability and institutional flexibility: Resource governance at the intersection between ecological instability and mobility in drylands
Han van Dijk, Cyrus Samimi, Harald Zandler
Chapter 3. Environmental crisis narratives in drylands
Jeroen Warner, Angela Kronenburg García, Tobias Haller
PART 2: RESOURCES, INSTITUTIONS, AND POWER
Chapter 4. Wetlands in drylands: Large-scale appropriations for agriculture, conservation and mining in Africa
Angela Kronenburg García, Andrea Pase, Tobias Haller, Luis Artur, Sá Nogueira Lisboa, Marina Bertoncin, Monika Metrak and Malgorzata Suska-Malawska
Chapter 5. Large-scale agricultural investments in drylands: Facing some blind spots in the grabbing debate
Andrea Pase, Irna Hofman, Angela Kronenburg García, Tobias Haller, Davide Cirillo, Markus Giger, Manuel Abebe, Kaspar Hurni, Marina Bertoncin
Chapter 6. The ‘open cut’ in drylands: Challenges of artisanal mining and pastoralism encountering industrial mining, development, and resource grabbing
Troy Sternberg, Matthieu Bolay, Tobias Haller, Thomas Niederberger
Chapter 7. Mega-infrastructure projects in drylands: From enchantments to disenchantments
Tobias Haller, Andrea Pase, Jeroen Warner, Nurit Hashimshony-Yaffe, Angela Kronenburg García, Marina Bertoncin
Chapter 8. The new green grabbing frontier and participation: Conserving drylands with or without people
Eduard Gargallo, Tobias Haller, Dawn Chatty, Samuel Weissman, Heino Meessen, Markus Giger, Roman Maisuradze, Nikoloz Iashvili, Nino Chkhobadze
PART 3: CONFLICT, CONNECTION, AND LIVELIHOODS
Chapter 9. Religious movements in the drylands: Ethnicity, jihadism, and violent extremism
Han van Dijk, Mirjam de Bruijn
Chapter 10. Making cities in drylands: Migration, livelihoods, and policy
Nurit Hashimshony-Yaffe, Qian Zhang, Ahmed Alhuseen
Chapter 11. Drylands connected: Mobile communication and changing power positions in (nomadic) pastoral societies
Mirjam de Bruijn, Qian Zhang, Hama Abu-Kishk, Bilal Butt, Nurit Hashimshony-Yaffe, Troy Sternberg, Annemiek Pas
PART 4: RESPONSES AND POTENTIALS
Chapter 12. Pastoralists under COVID-19 lockdown: Collaborative research on impacts and responses in Kenyan and Mongolian drylands
Joana Roque de Pinho, Angela Kronenburg García, Nurit Hashimshony-Yaffe, Troy Sternberg, Andrea Pase, Stanley Kutiti ole Neboo, Debra Seenoi, Daniel Lepaiton Mayiani, Lenaai ole Mowuo, Matinkoi ole Mowuo, Sabdio Wario Galgallo, Batbuyan Batjav, Bolor-Erdene Battsengel, Enkhbayar Sainbayar
Chapter 13. Alternative perspectives: A bright side of natural resource governance in drylands
Annemiek Pas, Tobias Haller, Irene Blanco-Gutiérrez, Troy Sternberg, Patrick Meyfroidt
