Poetry Reading - Poet Laureate of the UP

Russell Thorburn, Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula, is visiting Michigan Tech and presenting a reading, workshop, and slide show to the Michigan Tech community from 7 to 8:30 p.m., on Thursday, April 10, in the East Reading room of the Van Pelt and Opie Library. This exceptional event is open to the public and is sponsored by the Friends of the Van Pelt Library; all are welcome and no preregistration is required.

Droughts and famines: The underlying factors and the causal links among agro-pastoral households in semi-arid Makueni district, Kenya

Famines are often linked to drought in semi-arid areas of Sub-Saharan Africa where not only pastoralists, but also increasingly agro-pastoralists are affected. This study addresses the interplay between drought and famine in the rural semi-arid areas of Makueni district, Kenya, by examining whether, and how crop production conditions and agro-pastoral strategies predispose smallholder households to drought-triggered food insecurity. If this hypothesis holds, then approaches to deal with drought and famine have to target factors causing household food insecurity during non-drought periods. Data from a longitudinal survey of 127 households, interviews, workshops, and daily rainfall records (1961–2003) were analysed using quantitative and qualitative methods. This integrated approach confirms the above hypothesis and reveals that factors other than rainfall, like asset and labour constraints, inadequate policy enforcement, as well as the poverty-driven inability to adopt risk-averse production systems play a key role. When linking these factors to the high rainfall variability, farmer-relevant definitions and forecasts of drought have to be applied.

How fit turns into misfit and back: institutional transformations of pastoral commons in African floodplains

We enlarge the notion of institutional fit using theoretical approaches from New Institutionalism, including rational choice and strategic action, political ecology and constructivist approaches. These approaches are combined with ecological approaches (system and evolutionary ecology) focusing on feedback loops and change. We offer results drawn from a comparison of fit and misfit cases of institutional change in pastoral commons in four African floodplain contexts (Zambia, Cameroon, Tanzania (two cases). Cases of precolonial fit and misfit in the postcolonial past, as well as a case of institutional fit in the postcolonial phase, highlight important features, specifically, flexible institutions, leadership, and mutual economic benefit under specific relations of bargaining power of actors. We argue that only by combining otherwise conflicting approaches can we come to understand why institutional fit develops into misfit and back again. Key Words: African floodplains; governance; institutional change; institutional fit; New Institutionalism; pastoral commons