Differential Responses of Rural Residents to Long-term Economic Change in Kita, Mali

如何解释贫穷国家农村人口的发展可能性？现有的理论倾向于过分强调殖民历史和当代农村决策中持续的国际不平等的重要性。这个项目由美国大学的一位人类学家进行，使用案例研究的方法来调查马里农村地区个人经济策略的地方差异。重点将放在人们如何获得工作所需的社会和技术知识，特别是他们如何利用社会网络获取资源和市场。将审查群体特征（性别、种族、年龄、宗教、教育）与个人经历之间的关系。分析了消费与投资的配置模式。研究人员和她的马里人类学同事将收集数据，以更新1978年首次研究的60个家庭的样本。对农村家庭的反复访问将收集有关长期经济活动、家庭内部资源和生产转移、牲畜转移、费用和投资的数据。所创造的新知识将促进我们对地方行动如何在经济发展中发挥积极作用和被动作用的理解，以及个人和群体行动在多大程度上可以有效地创造社会变革。此外，这些知识对于决策者制定提高西非热带稀树草原地区人民生活水平的战略也很有价值。

What explains the development possibilities of rural people in poor countries? Existing theories tend to overemphasize the importance of the colonial past and continuing international inequalities in contemporary rural decision making. This project by an anthropologist from American University uses a case study approach to investigate the local variation of individual economic strategies in a rural area of Mali. The focus will be on how people get the social and technical knowledge needed to work, in particular how they use social networks to access resources and markets. The relationship between group characteristics (gender, ethnicity, age, religion, education) and individual experiences will be examined. The patterns of allocation between consumption and investment will be analyzed. Data will be collected by the researcher and her Malian anthropological colleagues to update a sample of 60 households first studied in 1978. Repeat visits to rural households will collect data on economic activities over time, intra-household transfers of resources and production, livestock transfers, expenses and investment. The new knowledge to be created will advance our understanding of how local action can be pro-active as well as reactive in economic development, and the extent to which individual as well as group action can be effective in creating social change. In addition the knowledge will be valuable for policy makers designing strategies to improve living standards for people in this savanna West African region.