Environmental limitations on prehistoric pastoralism in Africa

In several areas of Africa, pastoralism that existed prehistorically no longer survives today. Two such areas, the Southwestern Cape of South Africa and the Sahara, are discussed here, outlining methodologies for reconstruction of adaptive strategies on the basis of environmental parameters that constrained the pastoral economies.

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Résumé En plusieurs régions d'Afrique, le pastoralisme qui existait en temps préhistorique a maintenant disparu. L'article discute de deux de ces régions, le cap sud-ouest de l'Afrique du Sud et le Sahara, donnant un aperçu des méthodologies qui visent la reconstruction des stratégies adaptatrices en se fondant sur les paramètres écologiques qui ont contraint les économies pastorales.

     

RESPONSIBLE ACTION AND THE PROBLEM OF REIFICATION

This paper elaborates a “personal,” as opposed to an institutional, view of administrative responsibility. The idea of personal responsibility is better suited for appreciating the cognitive, conceptual, and interpersonal dynamics of policy processes than is the institutional view of responsibility as accountability. From the perspective of personal responsibility, the primary impediment to responsible action by policy makers, policy analysts, and administrators is not that they may act in ways that are ethically or morally wrong. Rather, the problem is that such actors may either not perceive that important choices are available to them or, when choices are perceived, their moral, as opposed to their instrumental, content may not be appreciated. Responsible action should thus be seen as a conceptual or cognitive issue, not simply one of adherence to or departure from institutionally objectivated standards of correctness. Inability to appreciate the moral nature of action may be explained by the cognitive tendency to reify policy making and administrative institutions, roles, rules, and situations.