Summary

The attainment of sound and sustainable environmental management is one of humanity's greatest challenges this century, particularly in Africa, which is still heavily dependent on the exploitation of natural and agricultural resources and is faced with rapid population growth. Yet, this challenge should not be reduced to Malthusian parameters and the simple question of population growth and failing resources.
In this volume, ten anthropologists and geographers critically address traditional Malthusian discourses in essays that attempt to move "beyond territory and scarcity" by:
- Exploring alternatives to the strong natural determinism that reduces natural resource management to questions of territory and scarcity.
- Presenting material and methodologies that explore the different contexts in which social and cultural values intervene, and discovering more than "rational choice" in the agency of individuals.
- Examining the relevance of the different conceptions of territory for the ways in which people manage, or attempt to manage, natural resources.
- Placing their research within the framework of the developing discussion on policy and politics in natural resource management.
The studies are drawn from a range of sub-Saharan African countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Lesotho, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sudan.