Suchergebnisse

'What is a chief?' and 'what do chiefs do?' are the two questions which begin this study of political authority in rural Lesotho. These questions are contained within a broader one, 'why do villagers often hold chiefs, individually and generally, in contempt but recoil at the suggestion of dissolution of the chieftainship?' The latter question arose from the author's initial field experiences to become the basis for a study which examines the history of the chieftainship in Lesotho. This history is seen as a dialectical process involving a struggle over, and a struggle for, the chieftainship. The former struggle refers to the interventions of elites in society, namely senior chiefs, colonial government officials and, in more recent times, post-independence governments and foreign aid agencies. The latter struggle refers to the interventions of chiefs and the rural populace. Having outlined different ethnographic descriptions of Lesotho's chieftainship, in order to illustrate the different criteria of authority which were applied in the making of the chieftainship, the study goes on to consider the efforts of different agencies to make the chieftainship in the image they desired. The contradictions within, and between, these interventions are explored as the study moves towards consideration of why rural Basotho still support the chieftainship. This analysis takes the discussion from the colonial context, during which Basutoland and the chieftainship were created, to contemporary regional and local rural contexts, in which the chieftainship exists. The discussion illustrates how chiefs have been personifications of family and society, and how this representation is being challenged amongst the rural populace today. The multiplicity of forces which have shaped the chieftainship are then drawn together in a conclusion which examines the pivotal role of the chieftainship in the creation of a national identity and in the crisis of legitimacy facing the contemporary state in Lesotho. The study is informed by a marxist theoretical perspective, but it is also influenced by the debate on postmodernism in Anthropology. This leads the study to acknowledge the current context of theoretical uncertainty for ethnographic research, and the opportunities this affords for exploration of new perspectives. One result is that the study examines tentatively the role of bio-physical phenomena in the way Basotho have constructed society and nature, and represented this construction in their collective understanding of political authority.

Using Lesotho as a case study, this dissertation examines the changing forms of land tenure in a rural Southern African population. Land tenure in Lesotho is seen to have undergone many transformations over the last 200 years. These transformations are illustrated through an historical analysis of political and of social relationships in rural Lesotho. For example, the chieftainship in Lesotho is analysed to illustrate how changes in its structure have led to a strengthening of commoners' usufruct land rights. In turn, by examining how commoners' land rights have been expressed over time, this study demonstrates the contemporary significance of kinship ties in a rural Lesotho community. The significance of kinship is seen to lie in the flexibility which its principles allow, for members of the rural community, to accommodate the demographic, ecological and economic pressures of living in a peripheral part of Southern Africa. In effect, such flexibility is seen to have enabled the rural community to allocate, as optimally as possible, the scarce resources it has and can utilise. By examining how those resources have been utilised, this study demonstrates how relations of production in the rural community have become defined by communal control over rather than individual ownership of resources. As a result, this study illustrates how groups of agnatically related households have been formed into units of production in which the permanent rural residents, rather than the wage earning migrant workers, have control over resources, including the latter's' cash incomes. The development of such a unit of production is seen to be based on a sustained and vital interest by Basotho in land. That interest, which has been defined by principles of kinship, has prevented the alienation o Basotho from land. In effect, that interest has been a response by Basotho to the many and diffuse threats to their material existence brought about by their incorporation into a Capitalist politico-economic system. Consequently, this dissertation argues for a reconsideration of kinship in anthropological history, in view of the historical rather than synchronic anthropological perspective adopted in this study.

Cover -- Series Information -- Title page -- Dedication -- Table of contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- 1. Introduction D.I. Ray, T. Quinlan, K. Sharma, T.A.O. Clarke with W. Donkoh, C. Owusu-Sarpong, M. Lekorwe, S. Vawda, S. Mkhize, M. Nyendu, R. Thornton, M. Molomo, P. Sithole, and K. Kgotleng. "Introduction" -- 2. Donald I. Ray and Gaelle Eizlini. "Chiefs as Development Agents: Ghanaian Pilot Study" -- 3. Wilhelmina J. Donkoh. "Traditional Rulers as Partners in Health and Education Delivery" -- 4. Donald I. Ray and Sherri A. Brown. "Building HIV/AIDS Competence in Ghana - Traditional Leadership and Shared Legitimacy: A Grassroots Community Intervention Best Practices Model" -- 5. Wilhelmina J. Donkoh. "The Developmental and HIV/AIDS-Fighting Roles of Traditional Rulers: Agency of Festivals" -- 6. Sherri Brown. "Building AIDS Competence in Manya Krobo and the Role of the Manya Krobo Queen Mothers Association" -- 7. Kimberley Schoon. "From Calgary to Krobo and Back: How the IDRC Encouraged Grassroots Links between Canada and Ghana." -- 8. Christiane Owusu-Sarpong. "The Predicament of the Akan 'Queenmother' (Ohemmaa)" -- 9. Mogopodi H. Lekorwe. "Gender and Traditional Leadership in Botswana" -- 10. Shahid Vawda. "Governance Policy and Democracy: Reconstituting Traditional Authorities in the eThekwini Municipality (Durban), 1994-2003" -- 11. Sibongiseni Mkhize. "Gearing Up for Constructive Engagement: Traditional Authorities and the Predicament of the 2000 Local Government Elections in the Durban Region, South Africa" -- 12. Morgan Nyendu. "Traditional Authorities and the District Assemblies System: A Case Study of the South Tongu District, Ghana" -- 13. Mogopodi Lekorwe. "The Kgotla and Traditional Leadership in Botswana".

This collection of essays examines the relatively new, and frequently overlooked, political phenomenon in post-colonial Africa of chieftaincy "re-inventing" itself. The traditional authority of chiefs has been one of Africa's missing voices who are now bringing new resources to the challenges that AIDS, gender, governance, and development pose to the peoples of Africa. d This publication presents new research in Ghana, Botswana, and South Africa, providing the broadest geographic African coverage on the topic of African chieftaincy. The nineteen authors, many of them emerging scholars from Africa, are all members of the Traditional Authority Applied Research Network (TAARN). Their essays give critical insight into the transformation processes of chieftaincy from the end of the colonial/apartheid periods to the present. They also examine the realities of male and female traditional leaders in reinventing their legitimacy and their political offices in the age of great social and political unrest, health issues and governance and development challenges.

Abstract Background The rapid evolution in disease burdens in low- and middle income countries is forcing policy makers to re-orient their health system towards a system which has the capability to simultaneously address infectious and non-communicable diseases. This paper draws on two different but overlapping studies which examined how actors in the Zambian health system are re-directing their policies, strategies and service structures to include the provision of health care for people with chronic conditions. Methods Study methods in both studies included semi-structured interviews with government health officials at national level, and governmental and non-governmental health practitioners operating from community-, primary health care to hospital facility level. Focus group discussions were conducted with staff, stakeholders and caregivers of programmes providing care and support at community- and household levels. Study settings included urban and rural sites. Results A series of adaptations transformed the HIV programme from an emergency response into the first large chronic care programme in the country. There are clear indications that the Zambian government is intending to expand this reach to patients with non-communicable diseases. Challenges to do this effectively include a lack of proper NCD prevalence data for planning, a concentration of technology and skills to detect and treat NCDs at secondary and tertiary levels in the health system and limited interest by donor agencies to support this transition. Conclusion The reorientation of Zambia's health system is in full swing and uses the foundation of a decentralised health system and presence of local models for HIV chronic care which actively involve community partners, patients and their families. There are early warning signs which could cause this transition to stall, one of which is the financial capability to resource this process.