[13th Public Workshop / 10th Meeting of Culture and Society Research Unit] “Fragmentation, Cooperation and Power: The Institutional Dynamics in Natural Resource Governance in North-western Namibia” (May 14, 2013)

Date: May 14, 2013 (Tue.), 14:30 – 16:30
Venue: Seminar Room (No. 318), Inamori Center, 3F

“Fragmentation, Cooperation and Power: The Institutional Dynamics in Natural Resource Governance in North-western Namibia”
Michael Bollig (Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Vice-Rector for International Relations, Diversity and Academic Career, Universität zu Köln)

Program

14:30 – 16:30 Michael Bollig (Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Vice-Rector for International Relations, Diversity and Academic Career, Universität zu Köln)
“Fragmentation, Cooperation and Power: The Institutional Dynamics in Natural Resource Governance in North-western Namibia”

Abstract

Contemporary theoretical accounts of common pool resource management assume that communities are able to develop institutions for sustainable resource management if they are given security of access and appropriate rights of management, and if they can develop institutions that prevent free-riding and over-exploitation. Rural communities have been conceptualized as cornerstones of sustainable and efficient resource management: as a viable alternative to privatizing resources or putting them under state administration. In recent years comprehensive legal reforms of communal rural resource management in Namibia have sought to create an institutional framework linking sustainable land use and rural development. The state, however, ceded rights to communities in an ambiguous and fragmented manner, creating a number of instances of overlapping property rights. Nowadays communities grapple with the challenge of instituting these “new commons”, which are grafted onto earlier communal institutions, but also shaped by state legislation and the engagement of non-governmental organizations. This presentation describes the process of institutional development, focusing on the challenges arising from the necessity to define group boundaries, the issues arising from monitoring and sanctioning within a newly defined common property regime, and the ideological underpinnings of different trajectories of community based natural resource management (CBNRM).

[10th Meeting of Culture and Society Research Unit / 13th Public Workshop] “Fragmentation, Cooperation and Power: The Institutional Dynamics in Natural Resource Governance in North-western Namibia” (May 14, 2013)

Date: May 14, 2013 (Tue.), 14:30 – 16:30
Venue: Seminar Room (No. 318), Inamori Center, 3F

“Fragmentation, Cooperation and Power: The Institutional Dynamics in Natural Resource Governance in North-western Namibia”
Michael Bollig (Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Vice-Rector for International Relations, Diversity and Academic Career, Universität zu Köln)

Program

14:30 – 16:30 Michael Bollig (Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Vice-Rector for International Relations, Diversity and Academic Career, Universität zu Köln)
“Fragmentation, Cooperation and Power: The Institutional Dynamics in Natural Resource Governance in North-western Namibia”

Abstract

Contemporary theoretical accounts of common pool resource management assume that communities are able to develop institutions for sustainable resource management if they are given security of access and appropriate rights of management, and if they can develop institutions that prevent free-riding and over-exploitation. Rural communities have been conceptualized as cornerstones of sustainable and efficient resource management: as a viable alternative to privatizing resources or putting them under state administration. In recent years comprehensive legal reforms of communal rural resource management in Namibia have sought to create an institutional framework linking sustainable land use and rural development. The state, however, ceded rights to communities in an ambiguous and fragmented manner, creating a number of instances of overlapping property rights. Nowadays communities grapple with the challenge of instituting these “new commons”, which are grafted onto earlier communal institutions, but also shaped by state legislation and the engagement of non-governmental organizations. This presentation describes the process of institutional development, focusing on the challenges arising from the necessity to define group boundaries, the issues arising from monitoring and sanctioning within a newly defined common property regime, and the ideological underpinnings of different trajectories of community based natural resource management (CBNRM).

[11th Plenary Committee Meeting] Special meeting for research direction (May 11, 2013)

Date: May 11, 2013. 13:00-14:30
Venue: Middle-sized Meeting Room, Inamori Foundation Memorial Building, Kyoto University

Leaders and Sub-Leaders of research units/ research clusters came together to discuss future directions of the project.

Agenda

1. International symposium in Kyoto on October 2013
– Symposium title was decided as “African Potentials 2013: International Symposium on Conflict Resolution and Coexistence”.
– The symposium will be held for three days during from 4th to 6th October.
– Keynote speaker is Prof. Fredrick Cooper at New York University.
– The symposium is composed of four sessions and a session includes four presentations and comments.
– Each speaker has 30 minutes including question time
– Deadline of abstract (300 words) submission is July 31 and that of research paper (3,000-5,000 words) is September 3. The proceedings will be distributed to participants on October 4.

2. Report on the Conference of Canadian Association of African Studies
-The conference was held during from 1 to 3 May, 2013.
-Theme of the conference is “Africa Communicating: Digital Technologies, Representation, and Power”
-Our research project organized a session which composed of four presentations by Motoki Tahakashi (Kobe Univ.), Ichiyo Habuchi (Hirosaki Univ.) Naoki Naito (University of Tokushima), and Othieno Nyanjom (Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis) and a comment to the presentations by John Galaty (McGill University).
-The session entitled “Social Cohesion in Kenya: Changes in the State, Markets and Communication” attracted many participants and the discussion was very active.

3. Theme of plenary committee meeting on July 13
The 3rd African Forum will be held in Juba, South Sudan. Prior to the forum, a meeting concerning peace-making in South Sudan will be held on July 13 as 12th plenary committee meeting. An organizer of the meeting, Dr. Eisei Kurimoto, explained the plan.

4. Support to fieldworks of young researchers

5. Final report 2012 and grant application form 2013

6. Schedule of the plenary committee meeting, unit meeting, and cluster meeting

7. Other topics

[10th Plenary Committee Meeting / 3rd Public Lecture] “Peace Building in Africa: Challenges Found in the Field and the Future Options” (March 23, 2013)

Date: March 23, 2013
Venue: Inamori Foundation Memorial Bldg. (Inamori Center), Large Conference Room, Kyoto University

Program

14:00-14:15　Mitsugi Endo (Tokyo University)
Aims of the Workshop
14:15-15:15　Rumiko Seya (Japan Center for Conflict Prevention)
Peace Building in Africa: Challenges Found in the Field and the Future Options
15:15-16:00　Question and Discussion
16:30-17:30　Meeting for Exchanging Ideas between Ms, Seya and Project Members

Abstract

Many areas of contemporary Africa faces difficult questions, such as how various dispute is made to end and how dismantled and exhausted society by dispute shall be rebuilt. Rumiko Seya, who had participated in conflict resolution and peace building in Africa, talked about the problem with her experiences and the concrete example.

[3rd Public Lecture / 10th Plenary Committee Meeting] “Peace Building in Africa: Challenges Found in the Field and the Future Options” (March 23, 2013)

Date: March 23, 2013
Venue: Inamori Foundation Memorial Bldg. (Inamori Center), Large Conference Room, Kyoto University

Program

14:00-14:15　Mitsugi Endo (Tokyo University)
Aims of the Workshop
14:15-15:15　Rumiko Seya (Japan Center for Conflict Prevention)
Peace Building in Africa: Challenges Found in the Field and the Future Options
15:15-16:00　Question and Discussion
16:30-17:30　Meeting for Exchanging Ideas between Ms, Seya and Project Members

Abstract

Many areas of contemporary Africa faces difficult questions, such as how various dispute is made to end and how dismantled and exhausted society by dispute shall be rebuilt. Rumiko Seya, who had participated in conflict resolution and peace building in Africa, talked about the problem with her experiences and the concrete example.

[9th Meeting of Culture and Society Research Unit / 12th Public Workshop] “The Urban Working Class Dimensions of Zimbabwe’s War Veterans Revolution: New Empirical Evidence from the Informal Sector” (March 19, 2013)

Date: March 19 (Tue.), 2013, 16:00 – 18:00
Venue: Small Seminar Room-2, Inamori Center 3F.

“The Urban Working Class Dimensions of Zimbabwe’s War Veterans Revolution: New Empirical Evidence from the Informal Sector”
Wilbert Zvakanyorwa Sadomba (Department of Sociology, University of Zimbabwe)

Program

16:00 – 18:00 Wilbert Zvakanyorwa Sadomba (Department of Sociology, University of Zimbabwe)
“The Urban Working Class Dimensions of Zimbabwe’s War Veterans Revolution: New Empirical Evidence from the Informal Sector”

Abstract

The revolution that has been spearheaded by Zimbawean veterans of the 1970s guerrilla war has pushed Africa’s political, social and economic struggles to new horizons. It raises fresh philosophical questions about postcoloniality of and in Africa. The revolution, rooted as it is in the liberation struggle that culminated in a protracted war from the1960s to 1979, lay a political foundation that continues to shape philosophical thought and social practice of this small nation, with ripple effects on the whole continent and perhaps other developing nations across the world. The essence of this revolution is its combined challenge of neo-colonialism and imperialist domination supported by settler economic hegemony. There are four distinct rural and urban movements on which this revolution was anchored, viz. the land, informal mining, housing cooperatives and informal industry and trade movements. A combination of the two books focus on the land and housing cooperatives. Of the five the land movement was the most popularised and internationalised but it was by no means the most dramatic or even the most sustainable but on the contrary it was the most vulnerable to neo-colonial forces and imperialist attacks. However it was also the most symbolical. Current studies on the informal industrial movement add more empirical evidence to this theorisation. Future studies will pursue informal mining as part of the war veterans revolution. The address will illustrate how the war veteran revolution generated a centrifugal force that span the movements and it will discuss relative successes and failures of these in the current political stalemate of the country.

[12th Public Workshop / 9th Meeting of Culture and Society Research Unit] “The Urban Working Class Dimensions of Zimbabwe’s War Veterans Revolution: New Empirical Evidence from the Informal Sector” (March 19, 2013)

Date: March 19 (Tue.), 2013, 16:00 – 18:00
Venue: Small Seminar Room-2, Inamori Center 3F.

“The Urban Working Class Dimensions of Zimbabwe’s War Veterans Revolution: New Empirical Evidence from the Informal Sector”
Wilbert Zvakanyorwa Sadomba (Department of Sociology, University of Zimbabwe)

Program

16:00 – 18:00 Wilbert Zvakanyorwa Sadomba (Department of Sociology, University of Zimbabwe)
“The Urban Working Class Dimensions of Zimbabwe’s War Veterans Revolution: New Empirical Evidence from the Informal Sector”

Abstract

The revolution that has been spearheaded by Zimbawean veterans of the 1970s guerrilla war has pushed Africa’s political, social and economic struggles to new horizons. It raises fresh philosophical questions about postcoloniality of and in Africa. The revolution, rooted as it is in the liberation struggle that culminated in a protracted war from the1960s to 1979, lay a political foundation that continues to shape philosophical thought and social practice of this small nation, with ripple effects on the whole continent and perhaps other developing nations across the world. The essence of this revolution is its combined challenge of neo-colonialism and imperialist domination supported by settler economic hegemony. There are four distinct rural and urban movements on which this revolution was anchored, viz. the land, informal mining, housing cooperatives and informal industry and trade movements. A combination of the two books focus on the land and housing cooperatives. Of the five the land movement was the most popularised and internationalised but it was by no means the most dramatic or even the most sustainable but on the contrary it was the most vulnerable to neo-colonial forces and imperialist attacks. However it was also the most symbolical. Current studies on the informal industrial movement add more empirical evidence to this theorisation. Future studies will pursue informal mining as part of the war veterans revolution. The address will illustrate how the war veteran revolution generated a centrifugal force that span the movements and it will discuss relative successes and failures of these in the current political stalemate of the country.

[9th Plenary Committee Meeting / 2nd Public Lecture] “Utilizing African Potentials for Conflict Resolution” (January 26, 2013)

Date: January 26, 2013
Venue: Inamori Foundation Memorial Bldg. (Inamori Center), Large Conference Room, Kyoto University

Program

15:00～15:15　Itaru Ohta (Kyoto University)
Aims of the Workshop
15:15～16:15　Jin Matsumoto (Journalist, Adviser to Asahi Simbun)
Does Africa Have Conflict Resolving Ability?
16:15～16:35　Break
16:35～17:35　Yntiso D. Gebre (Addis Ababa University)
Legal Pluralism and Customary Courts in Ethiopia
17:35～18:00　General Discussion

Abstract

Itaru Ohta (Kyoto University)
The Aims of the Workshop

Contemporary African Societies face the task of how to prevent conflict and violence, how to reconstruct and rejuvenate the social order destroyed and exhausted by conflicts and how citizens can reconcile after the conflict. In this conference, we discuss how the knowledge or institution, which people in Africa created, accumulated, and practiced, can be applied to those pragmatic issues.

Jin Matsumoto (Journalist, Adviser to Asahi Simbun)
Does Africa Have Conflict Resolving Ability?

□ The answer is “Yes, she does.”
□ E.g. Somaliland (population of 2.8million)

  • The civil war broke out in the middle of 1980s. Barre regime collapsed in 1991.
  • Armed conflicts with in Somaliland continued. There were about 20 clans and 50 thousands AK-47 .
  • Clan leaders in Borama called a peace conference.
  • 82 elders called out to give up guns. Militias were absorbed into police and army.
  • UNDP took charge of disarmament.
  • Almost all guns held by citizens were withdrawn by year 2002.
  • Markets full of female. Reliable public peace.
  • Though, Somaliland is “mono-ethnic country”: citizens shares common interests.

□ Multiethnic countries are put in much serious situations: Republic Democratic of Cong, Northern Uganda, Chad, Zimbabwe

  • Economic collapse – food shortage – dependence on one’s own ethnicity – ethnic conflicts prevail.
  • Patrons receive bribe to support clients – to the clash of national economy.

□ Is it possible to resolve conflict in multiethnic society? – “Yes, if they find other values other than depending on ethnicity”

  • No prominent ethnic conflicts in the era of independence wars in Africa.
  • A society that people can live without depending on ethnicity. A society that people can live by working hard will replace ethnicity-prevailing societies.

□ Do not expect governments because they are always “benefit inducing”

  • Needs of incentive based on “when you work you can eat,” “when you work hard, there are more fortune.”
  • Much incentive in ORAP in Zimbabwe.
  • South Africa’s investment in Mozambique and Tanzania. Improvement in employment rates and labor quality.
  • My experiment. Introducing economic rationality by private bodies. OSR.

□ Difficult but worth trying.

Yntiso D. Gebre (Addis Ababa University)
Legal Pluralism and Customary Courts in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, plural legal systems exist: the formal (regular) court and the informal (customary) court. With the exception of family matters that may be handled outside of the regular court and disputes between Muslims that may be taken to the Sharia court, conflicts resolved through other traditional mechanisms lack legal recognition. However, research reveals that most people in rural communities and many people in urban areas prefer the customary courts over the formal law for all forms of disputes.

In the past, the customary dispute resolutions mechanisms were considered backward practices that need to be replaced by the modern codified law. Today, there exists a growing recognition of the relevance of traditional conflict resolutions. In recent years, it became evident that sometimes government authorities encourage customary courts to address conflicts that could not be resolved through the state machinery.

Customary dispute resolution institutions are not without blemishes, however. Some are criticized for violating human rights and for excluding women and the youth from participation in hearings. This places traditional courts at odds with the international instruments that Ethiopia has signed. There are also instances, in some localities, where customary courts handle hard crimes such as homicide and even pass death sentences at the village court level. This is another source of confrontation between the formal and informal systems.

In this presentation, I will explain the reasons why the traditional courts remain relevant and in some cases even dominant; the manifestations of the recent seemingly favorable trend and its implications; and the challenges associated with the use of customary courts.

[8th Plenary Committee Meeting / 3rd Meeting of East Africa Research Cluster] “Tanzania, a Country without Conflicts: Factors and Prospects” (November 17, 2012)

Date: Nov. 17, 2012
Venue: Kyoto University Yoshida Main Campus, Research Bldg. No.2, 4th floor, Large Conference Room.

Program

10:00〜10:30 Business Meeting
10:30〜11:20 Toshimichi Nemoto（Company Executive, JATA Tours）
Mixed Settlement of Multiethnic Groups and Conflict Prevention Urban Areas
11:20～12:10 Juichi Itani (Kyoto University)
Conflicts and Resolution Measures in Rural Areas
12:10～13:00 Lunch Break
13:00～13:40 Hiroshi Nakagawa (Former Ambassador to Tanzania / Former Director-General Food Safety and Consumer Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Japan)
Various Anxieties for Stability: Economic Growth and Retreat of Nyerere’s Dream
13:40～14:30 General Discussion
Chaired by Minako Araki (Ochanomizu University)

Abstract

After gaining independence from Britain in 1961, Tanganyika merged the People’s Republic of Zanzibar and established the United Republic of Tanzania (hereinafter Tanzania) in 1964. Julius Nyerere, who became the first president of Tanzania, advocated African Socialism based on family-like ties, or “familyhood”, in the Arusha Declaration in 1967. While creating administrative villages called ujamaa as the units, the Declaration had self-reliance and resource sharing as the centers of the policy, and included unique policies such as collective settlement, collective farms and thorough elementary education in Swahili language in order to achieve a peaceable and equal society. However, the national economy was ravaged by frequent droughts, the oil shock and civil war in Uganda in the 1970s, when the Ujamaa village policies were implemented, and consequently the policy increasingly lost its impetus. Nyerere stepped down in 1985, and the country turned its policy toward capitalist economy by acceptance of the Structural Adjustment Program in 1986.

African countries achieved independence following the “Year of Africa” one after another, and worked on self-sufficient nation building. However, the roads to food self-sufficiency and economic independence were rough with repeating political changes or ethnic conflicts caused by poverty and political instability. Thus, Tanzania found herself as the receiving country of refugees from neighboring countries. Tanzania has also gone through changes in policies and economic structures since formation of the United Republic until today. Its process involved forced resettlement and severe economic hardships, consequently leading to larger discrepancy between the reality and self-sufficient nationhood that Nyerere had idealized. However, in Tanzania, there has been no large-scale coup d’état or inter-ethnic conflict for the last half century in contrast to internal conflicts in its neighboring countries. Of course we cannot overlook armed clashes occurring between ruling and opposition parties at every general election in Zanzibar. Yet none of them have been intensified or prolonged, nor led to mass-scale religious/ethnic conflicts.

African countries started rapid economic growth in the mid-2000s after the era of economic stagnation. Its driving force was underground resources. The soaring price on crude oil and minerals on a global scale as well as the resource development race among foreign capitals resulted in flooding Africa with funds. Although one of the factors supporting economic development in Tanzania is gold mines, the industry has not benefited all of the people. In fact, price rise and city-oriented policies have strained the rural economy and even led to widening economic disparities.

With a focus on the fact that large-scale conflicts have not occurred in Tanzania for the last half century, this workshop explores the mechanism to avert conflicts in systems, disciplines, customs and policies by examining the factors from urban, rural and political perspectives. There exist local disciplines to recede daily disputes in rural communities, and we can also see unspoken rules to maintain orders among urban communities inhabited by mixed ethnic groups. Such mechanisms of maintaining orders are reflected in political bodies and policies. Assuming that there is a common concept in both macro- and micro- societies in Tanzania, what is it and how has it been developed in the history? Moreover, we will attempt to consider whether such a concept would continue its effective function even in an increasingly complicated, modern society.

Toshimichi Nemoto（Company Executive, JATA Tours）
Mixed Settlement of Multiethnic Groups and Conflict Prevention in Urban Areas

I describe how people have averted disputes and have collaborated through examining case studies, while giving an overview on the history of national formation in Tanzania. Religious, ethnic and educational systems.

Juichi Itani (Kyoto University)
Conflicts and Resolution Measures in Rural Area

Although social orders are maintained by laws and ordinances in Tanzania, rural societies have problems unsolvable by contemporary law, and they have solved such issues by their customary approaches. I will take up several issues of Tanzanian rural conflict communities, make reports on farmers’ handling of them, and consider the averting mechanisms seen in rural communities.

Hiroshi Nakagawa (Former Ambassador to Tanzania / Former Director-General of Food Safety and Consumer Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Japan)
Various Anxieties for Stability: Economic Growth and Retreat of Nyerere’s Dream

A “society where people are equally poor” remains stable at a low level without mounting complaints. However, from 2003 onward the global escalation of underground resource prices has brought a rapid growth in the Tanzanian economy, and has burst economic disparities to be apparent. The equal society that Nyerere dreamed about has gradually fallen back in a stream toward the economy-oriented society. I will consider whether “systems or frameworks that obviated conflicts” in Tanzania will be maintained to solve unstable factors even in globalizing conditions providing an outlook of the country’s future trends in governance.

[8th Meeting of Culture and Society Research Unit / 11th Public Workshop] “Human Rights NGOs and Strategies of Public Justice in Sub-Saharan Africa” (February 2, 2013)

Date：Feb.2, 2013 15:00-17:00
Venue: Inamori Foundation Memorial Bldg.

Program

15:00-17:00 Ronald Niezen (Department of Anthropology, McGill University)
“Human Rights NGOs and Strategies of Public Justice in Sub-Saharan Africa”

Abstract

The most significant influence on states that moves them in the direction of human rights compliance involves campaigns of public exposure and protest intended to apply reputational costs to violators of rights. The effectiveness and social consequences of these “politics of shame” vary considerably according to the nature of NGO networks and public participation in justice lobbying. This can be understood by comparison between the claims and strategies of the Tuareg in West Africa and those of the Umoja Women’s village among the Samburu of Kenya. The extension of the international movement of indigenous peoples into sub-Saharan Africa presents an opportunity to consider emerging processes of rights compliance, influenced by trans-national public engagement with distant public audiences.