Telling environmental change like it is? Reflections on a study in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper discusses a topical and influential approach to the study of African environments that criticizes the capacities of 'Western' science and narratives of environmental 'crisis' to comprehend patterns of environmental change and the role in them of African farmers as knowledgeable and skilled managers of the natural resources they use. We argue that this approach contains a symptomatic avoidance of processes of commoditization and differentiation in African farming which undermines its analytical value. The argument is illustrated by consideration of theoretical approaches to commoditization and their application to the results of a recent study of land and water use in 'wetlands in drylands' in four African countries. © Blackwell Publishers Ltd, Henry Bernstein and Terence J. Byres 2001.