Water And Soil In Holy Matrimony

This book is a biography based on a qualitative ethnographic study of adaptation to climate by Mr Zephaniah Phiri Maseko, an award-winning smallholder farmer from Zvishavane, rural Zimbabwe. Ethnographic data provides insight and lessons of Mr Phiri Maseko and other farmers practices for rethinking existing strategies for adaptation to climate change. The concept of adaptation is probed in relationship to the closely related concepts of vulnerability, resilience and innovation. This study also explores the concept of conviviality and argues that Mr Phiri Masekos adaptation to climate hinges on mediating barriers between local and exogenous knowledge systems. The book argues that Mr Phiri Maseko offered tangible adaptive climate strategies through his innovations that marry water and soil so that it wont elope and run-off but raise a family on his plot. His agricultural practices are anchored on the Shona concept ofhurudza(an exceptionally productive farmer). This book explores the concept and practices ofuhurudza,to suggest that the latter-dayhurudza(commercial farmer)as embodied by Mr Phiri Maseko offers an important set of resources for the development of climate adaptation strategies in the region. This study of smallholder farmers adoption of innovations to climate highlights the complex interplay of multiple factors that act as barriers to uptake. Such interplay of multiple stressors increases the vulnerability of smallholders. The study concludes by arguing that in as much as the skewed colonial land policy impoverished the smallholder farmers, Mr Phiri Maseko nonetheless redefined himself as a latter-dayhurudzaand thus breaks free from the poverty cycle by conjuring ingenious ways of reducing vulnerability to climate. The book does not suggest that Mr Phiri Masekos innovations offer a silver bullet solution to the insecure rural livelihoods of smallholder farmers; nevertheless, they are a source of hope in an environment of uncertainty. His steely tenacity in the face of a multi-stressor environment is to be treasured.

Nhakanomics: Harvesting Knowledge and Value for Re-generation Through Social Innovation is a radical departure from the commonly held belief that neo-liberal economics from the US and the West is universal, and is the only solution to underdevelopment and poverty throughout the world. Instead, the book teases out and theorises the intellectually rutted terrain of development studies, and neo-liberal economics from a decolonial Pan-Africanist perspective. Following a path of social innovation, with perspectives drawn from social anthropology, economics, and business and management studies Nhakanomics is a unique socio-economic approach applicable in the Global South and in Southern Africa in particular. The study argues that the process and substance of nhakanomics with its pre-emphasis on the relational South provides a robust and holistic approach to social innovation and social transformation grounded in relational networks and meshworks. The central idea is a call to re-GENE-rate society, through local Grounding and Origination, and tapping into local-global Emergent Foundations via a newly global Emancipatory Navigation, while ultimately culminating in global-local transformative Effects in four recursive cycles of re-GENE-rating C(K)umusha, Culture, Communication, and Capital after re-Constituting Africa-the 5Cs. With a novel and radical approach the book is an interrogation of neo-liberal economics in the Global South. As such, this book is remarkably handy to students and practitioners in the fields of economics, development studies, political science, science and technology studies, business management, sociology, transformation studies, and development related non-Governmental Organisations working with grassroots communities.

In Rock | Water | Life Lesley Green examines the interwoven realities of inequality, racism, colonialism, and environmental destruction in South Africa, calling for environmental research and governance to transition to an ecopolitical approach that could address South Africa's history of racial oppression and environmental exploitation. Green analyzes conflicting accounts of nature in environmental sciences that claim neutrality amid ongoing struggles for land restitution and environmental justice. Offering in-depth studies of environmental conflict in contemporary South Africa, Green addresses the history of contested water access in Cape Town; struggles over natural gas fracking in the Karoo; debates about decolonizing science; the potential for a politics of soil in the call for land restitution; urban baboon management; and the consequences of sending sewage to urban oceans.

As the world today faces messy problems, what in some circles has been called global weirding, the term resilience has taken centre stage. This is crunch time –as we grapple with the negative effects of both climate change and urbanisation. Some commentators have compared the huge problems we face today to Oom Schalk’s proverbial leopard waiting for us in the withaak’s shade. Do we endlessly count Oom Schalk’s proverbial leopard’s spots? This is the question posed by a stellar cast of academics, researchers, and experts whose contributions in this text is a rallying cry for action to build resilience to the challenging impact of urbanisation and climate change. To that end, this volume gives hope about the potential for human agency. Our challenge however, is to re-examine our values, to change our conservation conversation and return to a more wise and holistic understanding of ourselves and our place in the Universe. Perhaps, then only can the obituaries on our demise stay locked in the drawer.