Study on Crisis of Agricultural Production in Africa-From The "Increased Vulnerability"Point of View-

非洲农民有各种应对困难的策略。然而，据说他们不仅在物理灾难面前变得更加脆弱，而且在社会经济威胁面前变得更加脆弱。脆弱性是指没有防御能力、不安全以及暴露在风险、冲击和压力之下，一直是政治生态中的一个关键概念。许多研究表明，那些更脆弱的人更容易破坏他们的环境。在这项研究中，(1)考察了政治生态学的理论发展过程，(2)参照风险研究，研究了政治生态学中脆弱性研究的重要性，(3)考察了研究非洲农业危机的新方法的必要性，明确了我们需要新的方法来研究非洲农业危机，这要求我们改变概念框架，反映可持续发展和政治生态研究的最新进展。

African peasant farmers have various strategies to cope with the difficulties. However, they are said to have become more vulnerable not only to physical disaster but also socio-economic threat.Vulnerability which means defencelessness, insecurity, and exposure to risk, shocks and stress, has been a key concept in the political ecology. Many studies have done which show that those who are more vulnerable are more apt to devastate their environment. So it is very important to understand better nature of people's vulnerability.In this study, (1) theoretical development process of political ecology has been surveyed, (2) the importance of vulnerability study in political ecology has been studied with reference to the risk studies, and (3) the necessity of new approaches to the study on agricultural crisis in Africa are examined.It has become clear that we need new approach to the study on agricultural crisis in Africa, which entail the shift of conceptual framework reflecting recent development in the study on sustainability and political ecology.