The cultural significance of plant-fiber crafts in Southern Africa: a comparative study of Eswatini, Malawi, and Zimbabwe
- Authors: Pullanikkatil, Deepa , Thondhlana, Gladman , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/399860 , vital:69564 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14728028.2021.1998797"
- Description: Traditional handicrafts made from various plant materials are produced by most cultures around the world. Many originated through symbolic and utilitarian needs that became ritualized through time, thereby gradually attaining greater value as cultural items or symbols rather than solely functional ones. Here we report on a survey of 343 crafters across Eswatini, Malawi, and Zimbabwe in southern Africa regarding the cultural uses and significance of the items they make from wild plant fibers and sell to local communities or tourists. The plant materials used were largely dictated by tradition and local availability and were crafted into a diverse range of products including baskets, mats, brooms, storage containers, hats, fish traps, ornaments, and furniture. Many products had uses and cultural significance at major ceremonies or rituals, such as weddings, funerals, initiation, and divination. The preparation and design of the different crafts were influenced by tradition as well as market demand as indicated by tourist fashions and advice provided by government or non-government agencies to boost income generation from crafts. Although the crafting of cultural objects is increasingly commercialized and subject to the tastes and fashions of tourist markets in the region, the traditional and cultural significance of such artifacts remains widely recognized and valued.
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Plant Fibre Crafts Production, Trade and Income in Eswatini, Malawi and Zimbabwe
- Authors: Thondhlana, Gladman , Pullanikkatil, Deepa , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/175936 , vital:42642 , https://doi.org/10.3390/f11080832 , https://doi.org/10.21504/RUR.c.5388470.v1
- Description: The production of plant fibre products is considered a promising pathway for contributing to people’s livelihoods particularly in developing countries, where economic options might be limited. However, there are limited comparative studies across countries on plant fibre products, making it difficult to examine how local and broader biophysical, socioeconomic, cultural and policy contexts influence craft production patterns in terms of primary plant resources used, products made and contributions to livelihoods. Using household surveys for data collection, this paper presents findings from a comparative analysis of plant fibre craft production and income in three southern African countries, Eswatini, Malawi and Zimbabwe.
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Unsustainable trade-offs: provisioning ecosystem services in rapidly changing Likangala River catchment in southern Malawi
- Authors: Pullanikkatil, Deepa , Mograbi, Penelope J , Palamuleni, Lobina , Ruhiiga, Tabukeli , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/176308 , vital:42683 , https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-018-0240-x
- Description: Provisioning ecosystem services of the Likangala River Catchment in southern Malawi are important for livelihoods of those living there. Remote sensing, participatory mapping and focus group discussions were used to explore the spatio-temporal changes and trade-ofs in land-cover change from 1984 to 2013, and how that afects provisioning ecosystem services in the area. Communities derive a number of provisioning ecosystem services from the catchment. Forty-eight species of edible wild animals (including birds), 28 species of edible wild plants and fungi, 22 species of medicinal plants, construction materials, ornamental fowers, frewood, honey, gum, reeds and thatch/weaving grasses were derived from the catchment and used by local communities.
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Busy as a Bee: Breeding Industrious Bees in Malawi
- Authors: Kasumba, Arnold M , Pullanikkatil, Deepa
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433537 , vital:72982 , ISBN 978-3-319-75580-9 , https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-75580-9_14
- Description: A trial and error venture at beekeeping by Arnold Kasumbu in central Malawi, is now a successful integrated farming enterprise incorporating 160 beehives and producing honey for customers in Malawi and Kenya. It is also a site for educational visits for university students learning about agriculture. Arnold’s parents were tobacco farmers living in the Mitundu area of Lilongwe District in central Malawi. He recalls that his childhood was steeped in poverty as he observed his father put in a lot of effort in his farm with diminutive returns. Being the eldest of three children in the household, Arnold was forced to end his schooling in Standard 8, as his family could not afford the school fees. Resolving that he would not do tobacco farming, he began exploring other means of income generation that would entail fewer struggles. He wanted to become wealthy and take care of his family. Through his integrated farm and beekeeping, he has done exactly that! This is Arnold’s life story.
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Considering the links between non-timber forest products and poverty alleviation
- Authors: Shackleton, Charlie M , Pullanikkatil, Deepa
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433551 , vital:72983 , ISBN 978-3-319-75580-9 , https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-75580-9_2
- Description: The debates around the value and importance of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are complex and ongoing. The complexity is a result of many factors, including the wide variety of species, products and uses, as well as the variety of constituencies and disciplines each seeing advantage from ‘co-opting’ the importance of the contribution of NTFPs to their own areas of interest and concern. Conservationists are interested in NTFPs because their combined high value in many settings offers a potential alternative to the destruction of forests by either commercial logging or their widespread conversion to other land uses.
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Listening to the Stories
- Authors: Pullanikkatil, Deepa , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433565 , vital:72984 , ISBN 978-3-319-75580-9 , https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-75580-9_25
- Description: This book has sought to contribute to the policy and academic debates regarding the opportunities and usefulness of the NTFP sector in reducing poverty. We have argued in the opening chapters that it is unlikely that NTFP use and trade will provide a pathway out of poverty for the millions of poor in the Global South. However, it is unlikely that any other one sector or intervention will. Consequently, the value of the NTFP sector and its role in poverty reduction for some needs to be added to the suite of strategies that governments, development agencies and NGOs consider when seeking to address poverty in the areas in which they operate.
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Poverty reduction strategies and non-timber forest products
- Authors: Pullanikkatil, Deepa , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433583 , vital:72985 , ISBN 978-3-319-75580-9 , https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-75580-9_1
- Description: The first of the 17 Global Goals that make up the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is to end poverty in all its forms everywhere. Although the numbers of poor people in the world has declined over the last few decades, it is still alarmingly high, being approximately 770 million in 2013 (Fig. 1) (World Bank in Understanding Poverty 2017). Currently the majority of the world’s poor live in rural areas, and their livelihoods are dominated by land-based activities including gathering of Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs). There were rela tively few studies offering more socially orientated perspectives and insights on the links between NTFP use, dependency and poverty. The ordinary people using NTFPs, their reasons for doing so and their experiences are given in this book.
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Poverty reduction through non-timber forest products
- Authors: Pullanikkatil, Deepa , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433598 , vital:72986 , ISBN 978-3-319-75580-9 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75580-9
- Description: This book narrates personal stories of people from around the world who have used natural products, in particular Non Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) as a means to come out of poverty. Ending poverty remains a major worldwide challenge and is the number one goal under the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The book fills an important knowledge gap; that of personal stories of NTFP users. This has not been part of past publications on NTFPs which tend to focus on statistics and analysis of numbers, thus, the human faces of NTFP users are missing. Narrative stories provide a wealth of data about people and their experiences rather than aggregated classifications, categories and characteristics of poverty. The objective of this book is to illustrate the poverty alleviation potential of NTFPs through documenting the personal life stories of individuals and households that lifted themselves out of poverty through trade of NTFPs. This book is for all who are interested in poverty alleviation and NTFPs.
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The hidden master
- Authors: Foit, Morris , Pullanikkatil, Deepa
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433613 , vital:72987 , ISBN 978-3-319-75580-9 , https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-75580-9_13
- Description: Handicrafts made in Kenya are popular with tourists and provides income to many artists. One such artist is Joseph Morris Njau Mung’othi, who renamed himself Morris ‘Foit’ out of respect for a Czech professor, Francis Foit who mentored him. The use of natural materials [non-timber forest products (NTFP)] for making handicrafts is common, but what is less common is the use of dead wood for making sculptures. This is a case study of a Kenyan sculptor who uses deadwood for carving, and has risen out of poverty by selling his art. He educated his five children and accumulated assets including a two-storeyed house-cum-studio and a car. Furthermore, his art gave him opportunities to travel to Uganda, Botswana and the United States. He is also the founder of an art center in Nairobi called the Kuona Trust, which supports local artists to exhibit and sell their work. This case study clearly demonstrates how the use of a NTFP product (in this case deadwood) helped Foit’s family rise above poverty.
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Three Generations of Healers
- Authors: Dlamini, Paul C , Pullanikkatil, Deepa
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433627 , vital:72988 , ISBN 978-3-319-75580-9 , https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-75580-9_
- Description: For eons, traditional medicine was the dominant medical system for millions of people in Africa. It plays an important role in health care for the majority of rural folk in Africa, who often do not have access to modern medicine. The high cost of modern health care systems has prompted the integration of traditional African medicine into the continent’s national health care systems. In Swaziland, a small kingdom located in Southern Africa, 85% of the people rely on traditional medicine for their primary health care. For Swazis, traditional medicine is anchored in their cultural and religious beliefs. In traditional African medicine, it is believed that illness is caused through spiritual or social imbalance and diagnosis is reached through spiritual means.
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Ugandan Bark Cloth: From Coffins to Handbags
- Authors: Nakisanze, S , Pullanikkatil, Deepa
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433640 , vital:72989 , ISBN 978-3-319-75580-9 , https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-75580-9_23
- Description: Bark cloth manufactured from the bark of the fig tree (Mutuba; Ficus natalensis) in Uganda is traditionally associated with death, because it was the fabric used for wrapping the dead before modern-day wooden coffins came about. Sarah Nakisanze’s story of building a successful enterprise in Uganda making crafts from bark cloth, is that of courage and determination to overcome mindsets and taboos, including the fear of death from touching bark cloth.
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Children and wild foods in the context of deforestation in rural Malawi
- Authors: Maseko, Heather N , Shackleton, Charlie M , Nagoli, J , Pullanikkatil, Deepa
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182101 , vital:43800 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-017-9956-8"
- Description: There is growing recognition of the contribution of wild foods to local diets, nutrition, and culture. Yet disaggregation of understanding of wild food use by gender and age is limited. We used a mixed methods approach to determine the types, frequencies, and perceptions of wild foods used and sold by children in four villages in southern Malawi that have different levels of deforestation. Household and individual dietary diversity scores are low at all sites. All households consume one or more wild foods. Across the four sites, children listed 119 wild foods, with a wider variety at the least deforested sites than the most deforested ones. Older children can name more wild foods than younger ones. More children from poor households sell wild foods than from well-off households. Several reasons were provided for the consumption or avoidance of wild foods (most commonly taste, contribution to health, limited alternatives, hunger, availability, local taboos).
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