Mr Seamus Murphy
BA Sociology (UCD), BA Information Studies (UCD), MA Social Anthropology of Development (SOAS), MPhil Res (SOAS)
Overview
- Name:
- Mr Seamus Murphy
- Email address:
- 272301@soas.ac.uk
- Thesis title:
- 'Power, Development Discourses, and Food Security; the changing entitlements of Lake Chilwa’s resource-users'.
Internal Supervisors
Biography
Interests in the impact of development paradigms on the food security of southern Malawi's populations, with particular focus on natural resource management policies.
PhD Research
Lake Chilwa, in southern Malawi, is a fluctuating resource, which follows varying cycles of recession, and impacts profoundly upon the surrounding ecological environment. In response to Lake Chilwa’s endemic fluctuations, resource-users have sustained a traditionally mobile livelihood system, which constitutes the 'tri-economy'. That is, during ecological shifts between dry and wet periods, resource-users have shifted between fishing, pastoralism, and cropping. Significantly, these livelihood strategies demand occupational and geographical mobility. However, the Chilwa 'tri-economy' has recently undergone change. Since 1995, particular development discourses that have influenced policy-making around Lake Chilwa’s resources have led to a widespread adoption of community-based-natural-resource-management programmes. These policies, which empower community-level organisation to enforce fishing regulations, have given rise to particular issues among resource-users. By aligning lake jurisdictions and regulations with notions of ‘community’, principles of community-based fisheries management may potentially restrict the means of these traditionally mobile livelihood strategies. Fundamentally, there are two major points in question. Firstly, community-based fishery management programmes, which are founded upon ideas of ‘community’ and ‘local participation’, run the risk of marginalising economically significant migrant groups. Secondly, economic mobility between livelihoods may be impeded by obstructing traditionally established access arrangements between villages. This research examines the impact that developments in fishery policies have on the livelihoods that depend upon the ecology and resources of the Lake Chilwa Basin.
PhD Affiliations
Centre for Social Research, Malawi
