Chief Mitigation Officer, Office of the Vice-President, Department of Disaster Management Affairs, Malawi.
Disasters. 2019 Jan;43(1):135-156. doi: 10.1111/disa.12295. Epub 2018 Jul 3.
Chiefs are at the centre of household and community development efforts in most low-income countries around the world. Yet, researchers and scholars have paid limited attention to the institution of chieftaincy and to understanding its role in the management of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. This paper draws on a micro ethnographic evaluation conducted in two predominantly rural districts of Malawi in southeast Africa to assess two different manifestations of elite control. In the first case, a resettlement programme was implemented where chiefs were co-opted and took the lead. In the second case, a food insecurity response programme was designed to exclude chiefs. The study finds that neither co-opting nor countering chiefs prevents elite capture. Rather, the majority of chiefs oscillate between malevolent and benevolent capture. The findings require that states focus on the cultural and political dimensions of rural life when designing climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction programmes.
酋长在世界上大多数低收入国家的家庭和社区发展工作中处于中心地位。然而，研究人员和学者对酋长制度及其在气候变化适应和减少灾害风险管理中的作用关注有限。本文借鉴了在非洲东南部马拉维的两个主要农村地区进行的微观民族志评估，以评估两种不同的精英控制表现形式。在第一种情况下，实施了一项安置方案，酋长被拉拢并带头参与。在第二种情况下，设计了一项粮食不安全应对方案来排除酋长。研究发现，拉拢或对抗酋长都不能防止精英控制。相反，大多数酋长在恶意和善意的控制之间摇摆不定。研究结果要求各国在设计气候变化适应和减少灾害风险方案时，关注农村生活的文化和政治层面。
