• The composers of this module
• Why Livelihoods?
• The origins of the livelihood perspective
• Learning goals of the module
• Introduction
• What is a livelihood?
• Towards a Livelihood framework
• This module: Why an emphasis on rural livelihoods?
• Green Revolution
• Food and social security

Content of the module
Composers Home 1. Livelihood 2. Why Livelihood 3. Origins of ”livelihood” 4. A Livelihood framework

File downloads

• file: Zambia case.pdf [158.14kb]
  
• file: migration working paper case.pdf [28.51kb]
  
• file: trade lib and livel linkages.pdf [299.47kb]
  
• file: migration vietnam.pdf [325.63kb]
  

Introduction

The central theme of this module is ‘livelihoods’ (moyen de vie; modo de vida; kostwinning ). Thinking in terms of ‘livelihoods’ is very useful way of examining and documenting the many different ways through which people ‘make a living’.

The module develops a framework for studying livelihoods. The lay out and learning goals are described here. The notion of livelihoods is useful for examining the strategies that people devise in order to make a living and in their attempts to improve their living conditions. Thinking in terms of ‘livelihoods’ also allows us to document and analyse processes and direction of social change. It offers a way of thinking that helps order complexity and identifies the many factors that affect livelihoods in both rural and urban areas.

We discuss what is a livelihood here.

Last modified at 2006-05-09 11:37

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This module: Why an emphasis on rural livelihoods?

This module takes a closer look at rural people and their livelihoods for two reasons:

• many development interventions frequently neglect the importance of agriculture as a source of livelihood. While it is a known fact that agriculture is not the only source of food and income, and in many cases not even is the main source(and probably has never been). It does, however, remain important to household food security and many rural livelihoods in the world.
• the associated and linked to the PAME module (Plant, Animal, Man and Environment) in its turn focuses on agricultural production and does not sufficiently take into account the fact that rural livelihoods also entail a set of activities outside the domain of agriculture.

What this module will do is to examine:

1. What a livelihood is and how to analyse it?
2. The theoretical and methodological underpinnings of livelihood analysis
3. Similar approaches to understanding process of change

This should provide us with analytical tools to find answers to questions like:

• Is agriculture really of diminishing importance to rural people?
  Can we talk about de-agrarianisation, as some academics do?
• Are current policies improving or worsening the conditions of the poor
• Is it relevant to distinguish rural from urban?

Last modified at 2006-02-23 13:49

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Composers Home 1. Livelihood 2. Why Livelihood 3. Origins of ”livelihood” 4. A Livelihood framework