Groundnuts as ‘economic crop’ or ‘wife of the home’ in Northern Nyasaland

This paper examines points during the 1930s in which the colonial state in Nyasaland attempted and failed to bring groundnuts more into the colonial export economy. Nyasaland colonial officials, the Department of Agriculture, European export companies and the British Colonial Office attempted to establish the groundnut as an ‘economic crop’ for African smallholder farmers in the Northern Province of Nyasaland in the 1930s. Their failure was in part due to competing and conflicting interests: payment of hut taxes, reduction of millet production, improvement of food security, payment of railway costs, and reduction of migration. Farmers actively resisted colonial efforts to sell groundnuts to European buyers. The paper addresses the question: how can we understand the nature of colonial state power in relation to Nyasaland peasant agricultural practices in the 1930s? I argue that conflicting interests within the colonial state, as well as external constraints led to efforts to both stabilize and exploit the Nyasaland farmer in the Northern Province. These competing agendas helped lead to a failed effort at groundnut promotion. Colonial officials' actions were linked to ideas about gender, ethnicity and migration. Lack of colonial scientific knowledge about groundnuts, including their gendered role in the local food system contributed to the failure. The focus on groundnuts is a lens through which to understand the nature of colonial power in Nyasaland and the role of agricultural science in the colonial state. The paper contributes to broader discussions about multiple historical geographies of colonialism, the nature of African colonial states, and the relationship of African farmers to colonial states.     

The role of gender norms in access to agricultural training in Chikwawa and Phalombe,Malawi

Based on qualitative research conducted in Chikwawa and Phalombe in Malawi, this article discusses how gender relations shape men and women’s access to and participation in agricultural training. It also examines how men and women justify or challenge gender inequalities in relation to access to agricultural information and knowledge. Data on gender and recruitment to and participation in training, barriers to training and access to information as well as farmer to farmer extension models were collected and analysed. A gender relations approach, focusing on power and inequality, was used to analyse the data. The data shows that the perception of men as household heads and women as carers or helpers who are also illiterate and ignorant often has implications on women’s ability to access training and information. Negative stereotypical perceptions about women by their husbands and extension workers militate against women’s access to training and information. Institutional biases within extension systems reproduce gender inequality by reinforcing stereotypical gender norms. Extension officers should be targeted with training on gender responsive adult learning methodologies and gender awareness to help them be more inclusive and sensitive to women’s needs.     

Orphan geographies in Malawi

There are about one million orphans in Malawi. The global response has been a mix of alarm and inaction, with well-intended efforts often stymied by misunderstandings about childhoods, family dynamics, and poverty in Malawi. This paper uses children's geographies and interviews with 25 orphans in Malawi to bring forward the everyday lives and circumstances of orphans at the micro-scale, while addressing the impact of macro-scale processes such as the Millennium Development Goals and transnational charities. The results point to specific problems with contemporary understandings of orphanhood in southern Africa and underscore the need for reflection on the effectiveness of interventions targeted at orphans as a discrete group.     

His Brother’s Keeper: Charles Livingstone and the ‘Failure’ of David Livingstone’s Zambezi Expedition

David Livingstone’s Second Expedition to Africa (1858 to 1863) began with lavish promises and expectations and ended ignominiously, with official Britons castigating the once greatly esteemed explorer of Africa. To what extent did Charles Livingstone, an ordained Congregational minister and David’s American-trained younger brother, help to diminish the Expedition’s successes? Were David Livingstone’s promising exploring and scientific efforts compromised by his seemingly troubled, racist, brother? American-trained and an ordained minister, with a supposed ‘ascendancy’ over his elder brother, how did Charles’ prejudices and actions undermine his brother’s leadership and the accomplishments of the Zambezi project?     

Disease, Social Identity, and Risk: Rethinking the Geography of AIDS

The emergence of new diseases and the re-emergence of 'old' diseases necessitates a relook at what shapes vulnerability to ill health. A framework is proposed that combines a realist approach to mapping vulnerability with feminist and post-structural approaches that focus more attention upon the role of social identities and cultural framings of disease. Too often investigations of disease focus either upon structural determinants of risk such as political policy and the economy, or on discursive definitions of disease that impact its experience. A combination of these approaches would result in a more effective framework for evaluating vulnerability, and subsequently for generating effective disease prevention strategies. The social, economic, political, and cultural context of HIV/AIDS in Malawi is given as an illustration of this framework.     

New maps and atlases

GENERAL

All Possible Worlds: A History of Geographical Ideas. By Preston E. James. 9 × 6. xiii + 622 pp. 35 maps/figures. Odyssey Press, Indianapolis, 1972. $6.lb50.

The Conceptual Revolution in Geography. By W.K.D. Davies. 9 1/2 × 6 1/2. 416 pp., 35 figures. tables, references, bibliography. University of London Press, 1972. £4.lb85.

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

The Ice Age in Britain. By B. W. Sparks and R. G. West. 9 1/2 × 6 1/4. 302 pp. 44 plates, references, index. Methven, London, 1972. £5.lb50.

MEDICAL GEOGRAPHY

Man, Environment and Disease in Britain: A Medical Geography of Britain through the ages. By G. Melvyn Howe. 8 3/4 × 5 3/4. 285 pp. 16 plates, 91 figures, maps and tables. David and Charles, Newton Abbott, 1972. £4.lb75.

Medical Geography: Techniques and Field Studies. Ed. N. D. McGlashan. 9 1/2 × 6 1/2, 336 pp. 86 figures. Methuen, London, 1972. £4.lb50.

Sheila Bain

EDUCATIONAL

The U.S.S.R. By G. Melvyn Howe. 6 7/8 × 8 1/4, 110 pp., 55 maps, 40 plates. Book list, tables, index. Hulton, Amersham, 1972. 80p.

Topics in Geography. A series of books by various authors. 8 3/4 × 8 1/2. Paperbound. Macmillan, 1970–1971. 50p.

London. By Oswald Hull. 72 pages.

Transport. By Oswald Hull. 72 pages.

Food, Clothing and Shelter. By Leonard W. Stevens. 79 pages.

Towns. By P. M. Turner. 80 pages.

Hulton's Practical Geography Series Book 4 Advanced Techniques and Statistics. By Philip A. Sauvain, 10×7 1/2, 164 pp., Plates, Maps and Diagrams. Hulton, Amersham, 1972. £1.lb20.

Geographical Studies in Western Europe. By T. W. Randle. 9 3/4 × 7 1/2, 170 pp., 145 figures, 57 plates. Oliver &; Boyd, Edinburgh, 1971. £1.lb25.

A Notebook of Physical Geography. By K. Briggs. 9 3/4 × 7 3/8, 109 pp. Numerous illus. And diagrams, exercises. University of London Press, 1972. 60p.

East Africa in Colour. By D. C. Money. 7 1/4 × 9 3/4. 60 pp. 113 figures. Evans Brothers, London, 1972. 60p.

Geography from Space. By E. C. Barrett. 11 1/4 × 8 1/4. 95 pp. Numerous illus. Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1972. 95p.

A Physical and Human Geography of the British Isles. By F. R. Dobson and M. E. Virgo. 6 1/4 × 9 1/4. 152 pp. Numerous illus. English Universities Press, London, 1972. 90p.     

‘Gender hates men’: untangling gender and development discourses in food security fieldwork in urban Malawi

This article examines the social construction and contestation of gender and gender roles in the city of Blantyre in Malawi. In fieldwork on gendered household roles related to food security, interviews with men and women revealed a distinct set of connotations with the word gender, which reflected Malawians’ historical and contemporary engagement with concepts of development, modernity, and human rights. We denote the Malawian concept of gender as gender in order to distinguish the word participants used in interviews from the more widely accepted conventional definition. We then use this distinction to highlight the ways in which ideas of gender equality have been introduced and received in the Malawian context. The urban setting of the research is key to drawing out the association of gender with Westernization, bringing into focus the power dynamics inherent in the project of translating global discourses of gender rights and gender equality into meaningful social change in developing countries. Gender in Malawi denotes a top-down (and outside-in) process of framing Malawi’s goals for gender equality. This creates political constraints both in the form of resistance to gender, because it resonates with a long history of social change imposed by outside forces, and in the form of superficial adherence to gender to appear more urban and modern, especially to a Western researcher. Local understandings of gender as gender undermine efforts to promote gender equality as a means to address Malawi’s intense urban poverty and household food insecurity.     

Ochre fingerprints: Distinguishing among Malawian mineral pigment sources with Homogenized Ochre Chip LA–ICPMS

In this study, we compared the effectiveness of instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) of bulk ochre to laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry of homogenized ochre chips (HOC LA–ICPMS) at distinguishing among three ochre sources in northern Malawi. Both techniques upheld the Provenance Postulate; however, HOC LA–ICPMS required less sample material than INAA and facilitated fast, inexpensive replicate observations that allowed for more robust statistical analysis. Our results indicated that HOC LA–ICPMS is a maturing technique that will be a valuable option for analysing artefacts that require minimally destructive sampling but are too large to fit into the laser cell for direct ablation. With regard to the statistical procedures used, stepwise canonical discriminant analysis was demonstrated to be a highly effective method for distinguishing among ochre sources, even in the presence of significant intra‐source and intra‐sample heterogeneity. Continued development of the HOC sample preparation technique will expand the range of archaeological ochre artefacts that can be included in provenance studies and prevent bias towards artefacts of convenient‐to‐analyse dimensions.