LIVING TERRACES IN ETHIOPIA | ELIZABETH E. WATSON IN SOUTH AFRICA

Subtitle: Konso Landscape, Culture and Development Eastern Africa Series Author: Elizabeth E. Watson Publisher: James Currey (2009) ISBN-10: 1847010059 ISBN-13: 9781847010056 Condition: Very Good. Some light wear to spine-ends and corners. Else a clean, tightly bound copy in very good condition. Binding: Hardcover Pages: 242 Dimensions: 22.1 x 14.1 x 2.0 cm +++ by Elizabeth E. Watson +++ Terraced agricultural landscapes in Africa are remarkable feats of human engineering and social organization, enabling the conservation of soil and water and the cultivation of food. Indigenous terraced landscapes are all the more valuable because they have been produced by the people themselves and maintained for several hundred years, evidencing a valuable degree of sustainability. Taking a period of approximately a hundred years, Living Terraces is both an ethnography and history of the terraces of Konso in southern Ethiopia. It traces the way Konso agriculture and landscape has been produced and managed in close relationship with broader changes in Konso political and cultural lives. In shedding new light on the relationships between landscapes, livelihoods, culture and development, the book demonstrates the embeddedness of social institutions in areas of social, cultural, religious and political life, showing that social institutions cannot easily be abstracted, replicated or used instrumentally for development purposes.