Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-skm99 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T08:48:04.780Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Towards a conceptual framework of household coping: reflections from rural West Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Alayne M. Adams ,
Jindra Cekan  and
Rainer Sauerborn
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The study and application of household coping have largely been confined to the problems of famine and food insecurity. Based on field insights from West Africa, this paper argues that understanding how households cope and allocate resources in times of crisis is of immense value to a broad array of development interventions. It also introduces a conceptual framework that evaluates household coping in exogenous and endogenous contexts. The application of this framework may provide a more informed approach to development intervention design, implementation and targeting that is sensitive to the differential needs and experiences of rural households and communities.

Résumé

L'etude et l'application des comportements des ménages face aux difficultés ont été largement confinées aux problemes de famine et de précarité alimentaire. S'appuyant sur l'observation de situations en Afrique occidentale, cet article suggère qu'une meilleure connaissance de la manière dont les ménages font face aux difficultés et affectent leurs ressources en temps de crise est extrêmement utile pour un large éventail d'interventions en faveur du développement. II présente aussi un cadre conceptuel d'évaluation des comportements des ménages face aux difficultés dans des contextes exogènes et endogènes. L'application de ce cadre peut fournir une approche mieux informée en matière de conception, de mise en oeuvre et de ciblage des interventions en faveur du développement, et plus sensible aux différents besoins et expériences des communautés et des ménages ruraux.

Type
Pairing makes for power, but whence resilience?
Information
Africa , Volume 68 , Issue 2 , April 1998 , pp. 263 - 283
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, A. M. 1992. ‘Seasonal Food Insecurity in the Sahel: nutritional, social and economic risk among Bambara agriculturalists in Mali’. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London.Google Scholar
Adams, A. M. 1993. ‘Food insecurity in Mali: exploring the role of the moral economy’, IDS Bulletin 24 (4), 41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adams, A. M., and Castle, S. E. 1994. ‘Gender relations and household dynamics’, in Sen, G., Germaine, A. and Chen, L. C. (eds), Population Policies Reconsidered: health, empowerment and rights Boston, Mass.: Harvard School of Public Health.Google Scholar
Becker, G. 1981. A Treatise on the Family, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Benini, A. A. 1992. ‘Armed conflict, access to markets and food crisis warning: a note from Mali’, Disasters 16, 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruce, J. 1989. ‘Homes divided’, World Development 17 (7), 979.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan-Smith, M., Davies, S. and Petty, C. 1992. Famine Early Warning Systems and Response: the missing link? Summary of findings and conclusions, London: Save the Children Fund (UK), and Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.Google Scholar
Cekan, J. 1992. ‘Seasonal coping strategies in central Mali: five villages during the soudure, Disasters 16, 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cekan, J. 1994. ‘Listening to One's Clients: a case study of Mali's Famine Early Warning System (SAP) and rural producers’. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Medford, Mass.: Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.Google Scholar
Corbett, J. 1988. ‘Famine and household coping strategies’, World Development 19 (9), 1009.Google Scholar
Davies, S. 1993a. ‘Versatile Livelihoods: strategic adaptation to food insecurity in the Malian Sahel’. Report to ODA/ESCOR, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.Google Scholar
Davies, S. 1993b. ‘Are coping strategies a cop-out?’, IDS Bulletin 24 (4), 60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devereux, S. 1992. ‘Household Responses to Food Insecurity in North-eastern Ghana’. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Devereux, S. 1993. ‘Goats before ploughs: dilemmas of household response sequencing during food shortages’, IDS Bulletin 24 (4), 52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Waal, A. 1988. ‘Famine Early Warning Systems and the use of socio-economic data’, Disasters 12 (10).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Waal, A. 1989. Famine that Kills: Darfur, Sudan, 1984–85. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Folbre, N. 1986. ‘Hearts and spades: paradigms of household economies’, World Development 14 (2), 245–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goody, J. (ed.). 1958. The Development Cycle in Domestic Groups. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gray, L., and Kevane, M. 1993. ‘For whom is the rural economy resilient? Initial effects of drought in western Sudan’, Development and Change 24, 159–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guyer, J. 1981. ‘Household and community in African studies’, African Studies Review 24 (2–3), 87–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guyer, J., and Peters, P. 1987. Introduction to ‘Conceptualizing the household: issues of theory and policy in Africa’, special issue of Development and Change 18 (2), 197–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horton, S., and Miller, B. D. 1989. ‘The Effect of Gender of Household Head on Food Expenditures: evidence from low-income households in Jamaica’. Paper presented at a conference on Family, Gender Differences and Development, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University.Google Scholar
Kennedy, E. 1991. ‘Effects of Gender of Head of Household on Women's and Children's Nutritional Status’. Paper presented at a workshop on the Effects of Policies and Programmes on Women, Washington, D.C.: International Food Policy Research Institute.Google Scholar
McNetting, R., Wilk, R. R., and Arnould, E. A. (eds). 1984. Households. Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maxwell, S., and Frankenberger, T. R. 1992. Household Food Security: concepts, indicators, measurements: a technical review. New York: UNICEF.Google Scholar
Moock, J. L. (ed.). 1986. Understanding Africa's Rural Households and Farming Systems. Boulder, Col.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Mortimore, M. 1991. ‘Five faces of famine: the autonomous sector in the famine process’, in Bohle, H. (ed.), Famine and Food Security in Africa and Asia: indigenous response and external intervention to avoid hunger, Bayreuth: Bayreuther geowissenschaftliche Arbeiten 15.Google Scholar
Rahmato, D. 1988. ‘Peasant survival strategies’, Disasters 12 (4), 326–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reardon, T., Matlon, P., and Delgado, C. 1988. ‘Coping with household-level food insecurity in drought-affected areas of Burkina Faso’, World Development 16 (9), 1065–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sauerborn, R. 1994. ‘Household Strategies to Cope with the Economic Cost of Illness: a community-based study in Burkina Faso’. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard School of Public Health.Google Scholar
Sauerborn, R., Adams, A. M., and Hien, M. 1996. ‘Household strategies to cope with the economic costs of illness’, Social Science and Medicine 43 (3), 291–301.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sen, A. 1984. ‘Economics and the family’, Asian Development Review 14, 14–26.Google Scholar
Sijm, J. 1992. ‘Food Security and Policy Interventions in Mali’. Unpublished master's thesis, Rotterdam: Tinbergen Institute, Erasmus University.Google Scholar
Swift, J. 1993. ‘Understanding and preventing famine and famine mortality’, IDS Bulletin 24 (4), 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, D. 1992. “The Distribution of Income and Expenditure within the Household’. Paper presented at the IFPRI/World Bank Conference on Intrahousehold Resource Allocation: policy issues and research methods, Washington, D.C., 12–14 February.Google Scholar
Toulmin, C. 1986. ‘Access to food, dry season strategies and household size amongst the Bambara of central Mali’, IDS Bulletin 17 (3), 58–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toulmin, C. 1992. Cattle, Women and Wells: managing household survival in the Sahel. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
von Braun, J., Bouis, H., and Pandya-Lorch, R. 1992. ‘Improving the Food Security of the Poor: concept, policy and programmes’. Washington, D.C.: International Food Policy Research Institute.Google Scholar
Watts, M. 1983. Silent Violence: food, famine and the peasantry in northern Nigeria. Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Webb, P., von Braun, J., and Johannes, Y. 1992. Famine in Ethiopia: policy implications of coping with failure at national and household levels. Research Report 92, Washington, D.C.: International Food Policy Research Institute.Google Scholar