Land Degradation in Southwestern Burkina Faso: The Environmental Effects of Demographic and Agricultural Change

The second part of the dissertation further explores the issue of for whom degradation is a problem, examining how farmers experience degradation differently; their experiences are influenced by questions of identity (age, gender, ethnicity, class and political power) and access to resources. I focus on how competition over land, an increasingly scarce resource, is enmeshed in discursive struggles about the meanings of land. Individuals and groups manipulate meanings and representations about rights to land and land management strategies in order to lay claim to land. I also challenge the narrative put forward by many in Burkina that investment in land quality is related to security of tenure. Migrants, who generally have the least secure access to land, are creating tenure security through investment in land quality.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Geography

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Gray, Leslie Carroll

Contributors dc:contributor

• Bassett, Thomas J.

• Physical Geography

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI9812599

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/85160