Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Migration, Land Use, and Resource Control

研究生尼科尔·M·史密斯在J·特伦斯·麦凯布博士的指导下，将在坦桑尼亚北部的西曼吉罗区进行为期12个月的实地研究。她将调查作为马赛牧民生计多样化战略的移民的环境后果，询问新的移民模式如何以及在多大程度上影响土地使用决策和资源控制。由于干旱、土地基数减少等因素，西曼二罗区十多年来一直经历着外迁。最近，这种迁移的性质发生了变化。人们越来越多地被家人送到梅雷拉尼地区，而不是迁移到城市从事无技能的工作。在那里，一旦他们掌握了新的技能，他们就会成为坦桑尼亚宝石采矿业的高薪中间人。然后，这些新移民带着财富和地位回来，这让他们在土地使用和资源分配方面拥有更大的权力。史密斯将通过收集两个村庄的几种不同类型的人种学数据来研究他们新影响的地方效应，这两个村庄已经有了广泛的基线数据。她将与住户和个人进行半结构化访谈，与村和乡村土地委员会成员举行焦点小组，并收集个人生活史。这些信息将用于确定不同的移徙做法及其所涉及的家庭和个人、作出移徙决定的过程和实际的移徙经历，以及移徙与土地利用、移徙与资源控制和分配之间的关系。此外，现有的关于该地区的数据将使她能够从纵向的角度来看待这些影响。这项研究将有助于发展社会科学中更具活力的社会生态学理论。就土地利用、野生动物保护和当地生计而言，坦桑尼亚北部是世界上争议最大的地区之一，从那里吸取的经验教训可能会对包括美国在内的许多其他地方产生政策影响。这项研究还将为研究生的教育提供支持。

Graduate student Nicole M. Smith, working under the direction of Dr. J. Terrence McCabe, will undertake twelve months of field research in Simanjiro District, northern Tanzania. She will investigate the environmental consequences of migration as a livelihood diversification strategy by Maasai pastoralists, asking how and to what extent new migration patterns are impacting land use decisions and resource control. Because of drought, declining land base, and other factors, Simanjiro district has experienced out-migration for over a decade. Recently there has been a change in the nature of this migration. Instead of migrating to cities for unskilled work, men are increasingly being sent by their families into the Mererani region where, once they acquire new skills, they become well-paid middlemen in the Tanzanite gem mining industry. These new migrants then return with wealth and status, which gives them increased power over land use and resource allocation. Smith will look at the local effects of their new influence by collecting several different kinds of ethnographic data in two villages for which extensive baseline data are already available. She will conduct semi-structured interviews with households and individuals, hold focus groups with village and Village Land Committee members, and collect individual life-histories. This information will be used to identify the different migration practices and the households and individuals involved with each, the processes behind decisions to migrate and actual migration experiences, and the relationships between migration and land use, and migration and resource control and allocation. In addition, extant data on the region will allow her to look at these effects from a longitudinal perspective.This research will contribute to developing more dynamic socioecological theory in social science. Northern Tanzania is one of the most contentious areas of the world in terms of land use, wildlife conservation and local livelihoods, and lessons learned there can have policy implications in many other places, including the United States. The research also will support the education of a graduate student.