Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-tj2md Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T00:05:45.670Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ethnography in the reconstruction of African land use histories: a Sierra Leone example

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

A. Endre Nyerges
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Résumé

L'histoire de l'utilisation de la végétation et de la terre en Afrique de l'ouest inclut un modèle de changements dans l'lenvironnement qui peuvent être decrit au mieux comme étant progressifs, subtils, et difficiles à mesurer avec précision. Comparer à, par exemple, le processus d'abbatement des arbres sur une grande échelle en Amazonie, la déforestation dans ce contexte ne se prête pas à des analyses et des évaluations toutes prêtes. Des techniques locales ethnographiques, écologiques, et ethno-historiques peuvent, cependant, eêre utilisées afin de développer l'information requise pour avancer notre compréhension des precédés d'utilisation de la terre et des changements forestiers dans la région.

Dans cet article, des recherches sur l'écologie contemporaine et ethnographique d'un groupe d'agriculteurs itinérant, les Susu de Sierra Leone, sont combinées avec une reconstruction historique et une documentation ethno-historique de l'endroit, commençant avec la visite du prêtre portuguais jésuite Fr Baltazar Barreira en 1516. Des sources documentaires ultérieures inclut le journal du sergent britannique Brian O'Beirne, qui a exploré la route de Freetown au Fouta Jallon en 1821, et le compte rendu d'un voyage régional par le voyageur colonial Frederick Migeod en 1922. Ces données parmi d'autres, sont utilisées pour déterminer comment les systèmes de production actuels reflètent le passé, et pour déterminer comment les systèmes du passé ont affecté l'environnement et comment ils ont changés et évolués avec le temps.

Type
Researching the social in biodiversity
Information
Africa , Volume 66 , Issue 1: The Social shaping of biodiversity: perspectives on the management of biological variety in Africa , January 1996 , pp. 122 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Appadurai, A. (ed.). 1986. The Social Life of Things: commodities in cultural perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atherton, J. H. 1983. ‘Ethnoarchaeology in Africa’, African Archaeological Review 1, 75–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Booth, W. 1989. ‘Monitoring the fate of the forests from space’, Science 243, 1428–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Botkin, D. B., Estes, J. E., MacDonald, R. M. and Wilson, M. V. 1984. ‘Studying the Earth's vegetation from space’, Bioscience 34 (8), 508–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brooks, G. E. 1975. ‘Peanuts and colonialism: consequences of the commercialization of peanuts in West Africa, 1830–70’, Journal of African History 16, 29–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brooks, G. E. 1993. Landlords and Strangers: ecology, society, and trade in western Africa, 1000–1630. Boulder, Co.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Church, R. J. H 1980. West Africa: a study of the-environment and man's use of it. Eighth edition, London.Google Scholar
Cole, N. H. A 1968. The Vegetation of Sierra Leone: incorporating afield guide to common plants. Sierra Leone: Njala University College Press.Google Scholar
DeWalt, B. R. 1983. ‘The cattle are eating the forest’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 39 (1), 18–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ewell, J. J. 1980. ‘Tropical succession: manifold routes to maturity’, Biotropica (special issue; Tropical succession, ed. Ewell, J.) 12 (suppl.), 2–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fairhead, J., and Leach, M., with Millimouno, D. and Kamano, M.. 1992. ‘Forests of the Past? Archival, oral and demographic evidence in Kissidougou prefecture's vegetation history’, Connaissance et organisation locales agro-écologiques (COLA), Working Paper 1.Google Scholar
Fairhead, J., and Leach, M. 1994. ‘Contested forests: modern conservation and historical land use in Guinea's Ziama reserve’, African Affairs 93, 481–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flanagan, J. G. 1989. ‘Hierarchy in simple “egalitarian” societies’, Annual Review of Anthropology 18, 245–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fyle, C. M. n.d. ‘North-east Sierra Leone in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: reconstruction and population distribution in a devastated area’, in C. M. Fyle, History and Socio-economic Development in Sierra Leone. Department of International Co-operation, German Adult Education Association.Google Scholar
Fyle, C. M. 1979. ‘Precolonial Commerce in Northeastern Sierra Leone’. Working Papers 10, African Studies Center, Boston University.Google Scholar
Gilruth, P. T., Hutchinson, C. F., and Bademba, B. 1990. ‘Assessing deforestation in the Guinea Highlands of West Africa using remote sensing’, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 56 (10), 1375–82.Google Scholar
Goucher, C. L. 1981. ‘Iron is iron ʼtil it is rust: trade and ecology in the decline of West African iron-smelting’, Journal of African History 22, 179–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, J. B., and Park, T. K. 1994. ‘Political ecology’, Journal of Political Ecology 1, 1–12.Google Scholar
Guyer, J. I. 1991. ‘Female farming in anthropology and African history’, in di Leonardo, M. (ed.), Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge: feminist anthropology in the postmodern era. Berkeley, Ca.: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hair, P. E. H 1978. ‘Sources on early Sierra Leone’ (13), ‘Barreira's report of 1607–08: the visit to Bena’, Africana Research Bulletin 8 (2–3), 64–108.Google Scholar
Harding, R. S. O 1983. Large Mammals of Kilimi. Philadelphia, Pa.: Wildlife Research Project.Google Scholar
Harding, R. S. O 1984. ‘Primates of the Kilimi area, northwest Sierra Leone’, Folia Primatologica 42, 96–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howard, A. M. 1976. ‘The relevance of spatial analysis for African economic history: the Sierra Leone-Guinea system’, Journal of African History 17 (3), 365–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howard, A. M. 1979. ‘Production, exchange, and society in northern coastal Sierra Leone during the nineteenth century’, in Jordan, V. D. and Isaac, B. L. (eds.), Essays on the Economic Anthropology of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Liberian Studies monograph series 6, Philadelphia, Pa.: Institute for Liberian Studies.Google Scholar
Janzen, D. H. 1988. ‘Tropical ecological and biocultural restoration’, Science 239, 243–1.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kopytoff, I. 1986. ‘The cultural biography of things: commoditization as process’, in Appadurai, A. (ed.), The Social Life of Things: commodities in cultural perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Laing, A. G. 1825. Travels in Timannee, Kooranko, and Soolima Countries. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Leach, M. and Fairhead, J., with Millimouno, D. and Kamano, M.. 1994. ‘The Forest Islands of Kissidougou: social dynamics of environmental change in West Africa's forest-savanna mosaic’. Report to ESCOR of the Overseas Development Administration. London: ODA.Google Scholar
Lillesand, T. M., and Kiefer, R. W. 1994. Remote Sensing and Image Interpretation. Third edition, New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Little, K. L. 1948. ‘The Mende farming household’, Sociological Review 40, 37–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMillan, D. E. 1995. Sahel Visions: planned settlement and river blindness control in Burkina Faso. Tucson, Az.: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Migeod, F. W. H 1927. A View of Sierra Leone. New York: Brentano's.Google Scholar
Moran, E. F. 1993. ‘Deforestation and land use in the Brazilian Amazon’, Human Ecology 21 (1), 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mouser, B. L. (ed.). 1979. ‘Brian O'Beirne: Journal, January to April 1821’, in Guinea Journals: journeys into Guinea-Conakry during the Sierra Leone phase, 1800–21. Washington, DC: University Press of America.Google Scholar
National Research Council. 1992. Global Environmental Change: understanding the human dimensions. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
Nye, D. H., and Greenland, J. J. 1960. The Soil under Shifting Cultivation. Commonwealth Bureau of Soils Technical Communication 51, Harpenden: Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau.Google Scholar
Nyerges, A. E. 1987a. ‘The development potential of the Guinea savanna: social and ecological constraints in the West African “Middle Belt”’, in Little, P. D. and Horowitz, M. M., with Nyerges, A. E. (eds.), Lands at Risk in the Third World: locallevel perspectives. Institute for Development Anthropology Monographs in Development Anthropology, Boulder, Co.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Nyerges, A. E. 1987b. ‘Development in the Guinea savanna’ (letter), Science 228, 263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nyerges, A. E. 1988a. ‘Swidden Agriculture and the Savannization of Forests in Sierra Leone’. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, Ann Arbor, Mi.: University Microfilms.Google Scholar
Nyerges, A. E. 1988b. ‘Seasonal constraints in the Guinea savanna: Susu ecology in Sierra Leone’, MASCA Research Papers in Science and Archaeology, special issue, ed. Huss-Ashmore, R., with Curry, J. J. and Hitchcock, R. K., ‘Coping with Seasonal Constraints’, 5, 86–95.Google Scholar
Nyerges, A. E. 1989. ‘Coppice swidden fallows in tropical deciduous forest: biological, technological, and sociocultural determinants of secondary forest successions’, Human Ecology 17 (4), 379–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nyerges, A. E. 1992. ‘The ecology of wealth-in-people: agriculture, settlement, and society on the perpetual frontier’, American Anthropologist 94 (4), 860–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nyerges, A. E. 1995. ‘Methodological Training in Remote Sensing and GIS for Comparative Study of Land Use and Deforestation Processes in West African Guinea Savanna’. Proposal to the National Science Foundation Cultural Anthropology Program, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Nyerges, A. E. In preparation (a). ‘Introduction: the ecology of practice’, in Nyerges, A. Endre (ed.), The Ecology of Practice: studies of food crop production in sub-Saharan West Africa. New York: Gordon & Breach.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nyerges, A. E. In preparation (b). ‘The social life of swiddens: juniors, elders and the ecology of Susu upland rice farms’, in Nyerges, A. E. (ed.), The Ecology of Practice: studies of food crop production in sub-Saharan West Africa. New York: Gordon & Breach.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rackham, O. 1980. Ancient Woodland: its history, vegetation and uses in England. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Richards, P. 1986. Coping with Hunger: hazard and experiment in an African ricefarming system. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Richards, P. 1992. ‘Famine (and war) in Africa: what do anthropologists have to say?’ Anthropology Today 8 (6), 3–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmink, M., and Wood, C. H. (eds.). 1984. Frontier Expansion in Amazonia. Gainesville, Fl.: University of Florida Press.Google Scholar
Schmink, M., and Wood, C. H. 1987. ‘The “political ecology” of Amazonia’, in Little, P. D. and Horowitz, M. M., with Nyerges, A. E. (eds.), Lands at Risk in the Third World: locallevel perspectives. Boulder, Co.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Skole, D., and Tucker, C. 1993. ‘Tropical deforestation and habitat fragmentation in the Amazon: satellite data from 1978 to 1988’, Science 270, 1905–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, V. A. (ed.). 1994. Remote Sensing and GIS in Ecosystem Management. Washington, DC: Island Press.Google Scholar
Spooner, B. 1984. Ecology in Development: rationale for three-dimensional policy. Tokyo: United Nationals University.Google Scholar
Spooner, B. 1987. ‘Insiders and outsiders in Baluchistan: western and indigenous perspectives on ecology and development’ in Little, P. D. and Horowitz, M. M., with Nyerges, A. E. (eds.), Lands at Risk in the Third World: local-level perspectives. Boulder, Co.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Tegler, B. 1983. ‘Environment and Plant Associations in Kilimi, Tambakha Chiefdom, Sierra Leone’. Report submitted to the Park Director, Outamba-Kilimi National Park, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Sierra Leone, by the World Wildlife Fund (US).Google Scholar
Teleki, G., and Baldwin, L. 1981. ‘Sierra Leone's wildlife legacy: options for survival,’ Zoonooz 54 (10), 21–7.Google Scholar
Teleki, G., and Bangura, I. 1981. ‘Outamba-Kilimi National Park: cornerstone for conservation,’ Zoonooz 54 (10), 28–31.Google Scholar
Tucker, C. J., Townshend, J. R. G, and Goff, T. E. 1985. ‘African land-cover classification using satellite data’, Science 227, 369–75.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Uhl, C. 1983. ‘You can keep a good forest down’, Natural History 4 (83), 71–9.Google Scholar
Uhl, C., Nepstad, D., Bushbacher, R., Clark, K., Kauffman, B., and Subler, S. 1989. ‘Disturbance and regeneration in Amazonia: lessons for sustainable land-use’, Ecologist 19 (6), 235–41.Google Scholar
Winterbottom, T. 1803. An Account of the Native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, to which is added, an account of the present state of medicine among them. Two vols., London; reprinted 1965, London: Frank Cass.CrossRefGoogle Scholar