Landscapes of diversity: A local political ecology of livelihood diversification in south-western Niger

The landscapes created by livelihood diversification in rural Africa result from human activity from biophysical processes, and from their interrelati ons. The paper explores these interrelationships through analysis of 'produ ctive bricolage' - the ways in which rural people in one of Africa's most d isadvantaged countries have constructed a livelihood system that is a respo nse to local constraints and opportunities, and to broader patterns of inco me-generating possibilities. Zarma farmers in south-west Niger inhabit a re gion where the political economy has helped fuel economic migration and a p artial withdrawal from agriculture, and has significantly altered social re lationships and labour patterns in and between households. Zarma responses to these conditions include income diversification, and these activities ar e expressed in their fields and their farms, as well as in their economic a nd locational choices. Attempts to build bridges between the concerns of a geographically aware 'local political ecology', concerned with these patter ns of livelihood dynamics and resource use, and the new cultural geography of landscape must continue to pay attention to material practices enacted t hrough human agency. Social and environmental change is a fluid, non-linear , and dynamic process in drylands. that are marginal to the globalized econ omic system.