Hajdu, Flora
- Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
The 'new variant famine' hypothesis suggests AIDS is contributing to food insecurity in southern Africa. Proposed causal mechanisms include a loss of livelihood assets and skills, brought about through AIDS' impacts on children's access to inherited property and intergenerationally-transferred knowledge. This paper employs a sustainable livelihoods framework to examine how AIDS is impacting on young people's access to assets and skills in two southern African countries: Malawi and Lesotho. Drawing on qualitative research with rural youth, the paper shows that AIDS affects some young people's access to some livelihood assets, but does not do so in a systematic or predictable way, nor are its impacts invariably negative. The broader cultural and institutional context is of key importance. The paper also demonstrates the need for the sustainable livelihoods framework to take greater account of the temporalities of livelihoods, and in particular the significance of lifecourse and generation. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license.
Keywords
Children; HIV; Livelihoods; Rural; Youth; Southern Africa
Published in
Journal of Rural Studies
2016, volume: 46, pages: 23-34
Publisher: PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
SLU Authors
Global goals (SDG)
SDG1 No poverty
SDG2 Zero hunger
UKÄ Subject classification
Human Geography
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2016.05.008
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/81136