Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Conservation and Customary Law in Coastal Southwest Madagascar

研究生伊莲娜·里尔（格鲁吉亚大学），由博士监督J彼得·布罗修斯和博士布拉姆·塔克，将进行多地点人种学研究，调查努力和试图利用什么被认为是传统习惯法在自然资源管理的影响。研究人员将侧重于马达加斯加传统习惯法（dina）的案例，以及它如何在Velondriake项目中得到应用，Velondriake项目是为马达加斯加Vezo人制定的一项以社区为基础的自然资源管理举措。初步研究表明，Vezo渔民历史上并没有实践Dina，或任何明确的资源管理传统。但在过去的五年里，一个外国非政府组织（NGO）在共同管理的Velondriake项目中推广了迪纳的意识形态和实践。研究者将利用参与观察、焦点追踪、一年两次的家庭问卷、文化领域技术、访谈和文献研究的结果：1）探讨国家政府、国际非政府组织保护机构和维佐人自己是如何理解和构建迪娜文化模式的; 2）比较维佐人的迪娜文化模式与他们实际的沿海觅食行为; 3）调查市场和保护项目如何影响Vezo福利和环境感知;最后，4）调查市场如何影响Velondriake项目的参与。这项研究很重要，因为它将有助于改善合作努力，为发展中国家的资源管理制定有意义的参与性办法。它还将提高学术界对传统的“发明”，其与制度发展的关系，以及其对社会，经济和环境变化的影响的理解。资助这项研究也支持研究生的教育。

Graduate student Elaina Lill (University of Georgia), supervised by Dr. J. Peter Brosius and Dr. Bram Tucker, will conduct multi-sited ethnographic research to investigate efforts and effects of trying to utilize what is thought to be traditional customary law in natural resource management. The researcher will focus on the case of Malagasy traditional customary law known as dina, and how it has been employed in the Velondriake project, a community-based natural resource management initiative developed for the Vezo people in Madagascar. Preliminary research suggests that Vezo fishers did not historically practice dina, or any explicit resource management tradition. But for the past five years, a foreign non-governmental organization (NGO) has promoted dina ideology and practices in the co-managed Velondriake project. The researcher will use the results of participant observation, focal follows, a biannual household questionnaire, cultural domain techniques, interviews, and document research to: 1) explore how the national government, international NGO conservation agents, and Vezo people themselves understand and construct cultural models of dina; 2) compare Vezo cultural models of dina to their actual coastal foraging behavior; 3) investigate how markets and conservation projects affect Vezo welfare and perception of the environment; and finally, 4) investigate how markets influence participation in the Velondriake project. This research is important because it will contribute to improving collaborative efforts to develop meaningful participatory approaches to resource management in the developing world. It will also improve scholarly understanding of the "invention" of tradition, its relationship to institutional development,and its effects on social, economic, and environmental change. Funding this research also supports the education of a graduate student.