Risk and agro-pastoral decision-making and natural resource management in Fulbe Society, Central Mali

TitleRisk and agro-pastoral decision-making and natural resource management in Fulbe Society, Central Mali
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication1997
AuthorsJ.W.M. van Dijk
Secondary TitleNomadic peoples
Volume1
Issue1
Pagination108 - 132
Date Published1997///
PublisherBerghahn Journals
Publication Languageeng
Keywordsagropastoralism, fieldwork, Fulani, Mali, natural resource management
Abstract

Risk and uncertainty dominate life in the semiarid tropics where most of the world's pastoralists live. Scientific approaches to risk in semiarid zones have been dominated by agroecology and agroeconomics. Within these paradigms risk is treated as a stochastic occurrence, and decisionmaking strategies are analysed with the help of simulation models, which are based on assumptions from rational choice decisionmaking theory, and presume that people are either geared towards profit maximization or towards risk minimization. The author shows that this approach is too narrow, because people operate not only in an ecological and economic environment, but also in social and cultural environments. He argues that an understanding of individual behaviour and cultural dynamics in high risk environments may be furthered by treating risk and uncertainty as total events, i.e. that more can be learned by tracing the consequences of single events across space and time, as well as the tracks people follow to deal with calamities. The argument is illustrated by a case study of Riimaybe cultivators and Fulbe herdsmen in an agropastoral community in the centre of the Niger Bend, central Mali. Fieldwork was carried out in the area in 1990-1992. Bibliogr., notes, sum. in French and Spanish

IR handle/ Full text URLhttp://hdl.handle.net/1887/9443
Citation Key926