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chapter 8
Power and Pathways, Violent Conflict and Mobility
Empirical Findings and Conceptual Innovations in Livelihoods Studies
Leo de Haan
Introduction
As explained in the introduction to this volume, the contemporary mission
of livelihoods studies is to further improve the understanding of exclusionary
processes faced by the poor and to guide and inspire interventions to counter-
vail that exclusion. All contributions to this volume originate from livelihoods
research in and around development practice and they all share the ambition
to contribute – through a critical perspective on ‘progress and development’ –
to a better understanding of exclusion, and beyond that, to more meaningful
development practices.
Absolutely crucial to the understanding of exclusionary processes is an ef-
fective conceptualisation of power, power relations and power struggles. Then,
there is an urgent need to arrive at meaningful generalisations that go beyond
the micro-level of the individual, the household and the family. While respect-
ing, valuing and learning from the particularities of the case, livelihoods s tudies
need to come to grips with endless variations through longitudinal analyses
of livelihood trajectories and pathways. And finally, two – often mutually
interacting – contexts need scrutiny because of the overwhelming impact they
have nowadays on the poor’s livelihoods: first, violent conflicts; and second,
accelerating mobility with corresponding translocality. The f ollowing sections
discuss the new prospects for further conceptual innovations in livelihoods
studies on these four key dimensions, which are offered by the contributions
to this volume.
Power
In Chapters 2 and 3, Geiser – on relational power, and Etzold – on social fields,
have narrated and developed further the body of thought on power relations
and power struggles and subsequent social exclusion. From these chapters, a
number of conceptual improvements and innovations for livelihoods studies
emerge. First, the metaphor of the labyrinth of rooms, corridors, stairways and
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other spaces as discussed in Chapter 1 was renewed. Etzold shows in Chapter 3,
that under the compression of time and space in globalisation, the walls in the
house of society have become flexible. Contemporary translocality entails peo-
ple living and organising their livelihoods in two or more rooms at the same
time. Moreover, he deepens the metaphor by pointing out that rooms trans-
form by the practices of people living in them. Latecomers – even with the
same access qualifications as the early arrivals – may be denied access if the
room is considered full. Some dwellers may even be kicked out when freedoms
which were once enjoyed are constrained. In other instances the same people
as before are still in the room, but the rules of the game may have changed con-
siderably. Moreover, sideward movements between rooms occur when it is not
the economic or educational status of individuals that changes but their life-
styles, attitudes and values. Meanwhile it remains important to remember, still
according to Etzold, that the architecture of the rooms, its entrance barriers
and the livelihood trajectories within and through the rooms are structured by
societal institutions and power relations. In this manner, Etzold has updated
the layered analysis of exclusionary practices and made it serve the purpose for
contemporary livelihoods research.
Second, in Chapter 2 Geiser has demonstrated that contrary to what de
Haan and Zoomers (2005: 36) argued, livelihoods studies do usually include
power relations in their analyses. But the way they go about it is embedded
in different ontologies which result in deviating conceptualisations. To under-
stand what meaning is put on power, Geiser proposes to follow a distinction
Bernstein (1992) made between residual and relational approaches to poverty.
Bernstein considered these two approaches – ideal-type – world views or filter-
ing spectacles of researchers analysing rural poverty. Both approaches explore
social relations and hence address power and politics, but they do that with
completely different ideological assumptions. By distinguishing them as on-
tologies, Geiser hits the mark. The first ontology is called ‘residual mainstream’,
because it considers poverty as the result of being left out of the development
process. According to this position, interventions are needed to make develop-
ment more inclusive for the poor. In practice this means involving them more
deeply into markets, that is, essentially what the neo-liberal school has been
advocating for the past three to four decades. The second position is called the
‘relational perspective’. According to this position, poverty is not the result of a
lack of market integration, but the result of the exploitative character of mar-
ket integration and social relations in general. That makes poverty not a state
of ‘assetlessness’, but a state of socio-political ‘relationshipness’.
Against the backdrop of a case analysis of rural vulnerabilities in Pakistan,
Geiser then put livelihoods studies to the test. He shows how the residual
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mainstream in livelihoods studies tries to understand why the poor cannot
make better use of various livelihoods opportunities. It focuses on identifying
avenues for supportive interventions to improve that. The supportive inter-
ventions may come from many directions: from states, development a gencies,
non-governmental organisations and increasingly from the private sector.
Particularly clarifying in this respect is Geiser’s discussion on whether this
residual mainstream position should be considered as an example of power-
blindness. Taking as point of departure de Haan’s (2012: 350) discussion on the
Foucauldian domains of power in Rowland (1997), he arrives at the conclusion
that all domains are represented in the residual mainstream position except
for ‘power over’, being a critical relational issue. Thus the residual mainstream
is not apolitical, but is politicised in a particular way.
By contrast, the relational position is more sensitive of underlying struc-
tures. ‘Power to’, being a creative power that expresses agency, is perceived as
extremely limited in this position, while it is central to the residual mainstream.
Instead, the relational position puts ‘power over’ centrally. That also determines
this position’s solution towards interventions to end social exclusion. Instead
of attempting to include peasants and workers in the development process
from which they were unintentionally excluded, the relational position – in
Geiser’s case of Pakistan – aims to mobilise peasants and workers in order to
overthrow exploitative social relations and their underlying structures. How-
ever, though the relational position usually – unjustly – accuses the residual
mainstream of being apolitical, it remains vague itself on how to go beyond the
critique towards the practice of solutions. As an alternative, he makes a plea
for concentrating on the relation between ‘power to’ and ‘power over’, in other
words, a renewed attention to agency and structure. Once more against the
backdrop of rural livelihoods in the Sindh region in Pakistan, Geiser offers an
outline of a differentiated livelihoods analysis beyond individualistic or struc-
turalist positions, inspired – perhaps to his own surprise – more often by social
activists than by academics. But when it comes to the practice of solutions, he
admits that it is not easy to identify ways out of power inequalities without
falling back on residual mainstream or relational stereotypes and without re-
lapsing into sloganeering.
At the start of his chapter, Geiser contends that the development industry
has created itself a new mantra by aiming for evidence-based policies and in-
terventions. Livelihoods studies became an important supplier of evidence.
What usually remains underexposed is that the relationship between evidence
and policy is often an uncomfortable one. Policy is not interested in evidence
when it does not meet its political goals. Thus evidence-based policy is a field of
contestation of its own. Geiser does not shun that contestation but he admits
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at the end of his chapter that searching for a differentiated analysis beyond the
relational position and the residual mainstream, is quite a challenge. It makes
authentic independent livelihoods research not very popular with either of the
two positions and more difficult to fund too.
Third, in Chapter 3 Etzold has offered additional inspiration to the anal-
ysis of power relations and social exclusion. To understand contemporary
translocality, mobility and migration Etzold organises his analysis around the
Bourdieusian concept of social fields, conceived as the setting in which peo-
ple’s positioning processes are located as a constitutive feature of their liveli-
hoods. Etzold’s ultimate goal is to conceptualise livelihood trajectories under
the impact of present-day accelerating mobilities. He considers Bourdieu’s
work particularly helpful because of its sensitivity to even the most subtle dif-
ferences between actors, their power relations and resulting social inequality.
With the help of Bourdieu’s theory of practice Etzold moves the emphasis from
actors’ individual capacities to their relational positions in social fields, and
subsequently to their habitus and socially embedded practices and to associ-
ated conflicts and power struggles.
As a rule, social fields are characterised by uneven power relations and
power struggles. Livelihoods are grounded in people’s past and present and
therefore also in their past and present positions of power or powerlessness,
that is, positions in social fields. For their part, social fields are hierarchically
structured. For example, migrants not only move from one place to another,
traversing different physical spaces and administrative boundaries, they also
traverse (and expand) different social fields. Translocal social fields created by
accelerated mobility and migration are equally characterised by uneven power
relations and power struggles. For example, they show numerous negotia-
tions and struggles over the transferability and transformability of assets and
capitals, which are valued differently across different scales by migrants and
translocal households. It should be remembered that the notion of a social
field does not always imply direct physical interaction of actors, and that social
inequality and social exclusion do not only occur as a result of direct, physical
interactions. In addition, social fields also entail rules or institutions. These
are constantly being negotiated and renegotiated by actors. The more power-
ful have more influence on the outcome of these negotiation processes and
thereby affect the livelihoods of the less powerful even if they do not interact
directly with them.
Fourth, and in closing, it should be remembered that the body of thought
on power relations in livelihoods can also profit from a Foucauldian-informed
interpretation of discourse which unfolds in a political arena as once concep-
tualised by Olivier de Sardan (2005). Discourse refers to an ensemble of ideas,
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attitudes, beliefs and practices expressed in and through communication and
conversation, that is, through social relations. Discourses construct truths and
reproduce truths. Such is not without political implications: discourses are ex-
pressions of power. Discourses are able to produce, reproduce and legitimise
power relations and social exclusion and may ultimately become a field of
contestation and power struggle themselves. According to Olivier de Sardan
(Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan 1997), a development project resembles a
card game with players holding different cards and playing by different rules.
In effect, the card game constitutes the arena while the players are strategic
groups, all driven by different interests. The concept of the political arena
adheres to a relational notion of power, meaning that all players, even the
most destitute, are able to exert some kind of power if only by not acting or
refusing. Olivier de Sardan combines that with a more restrictive, symbolic
Bourdieusian notion of power, that is, instituted power, which stems from the
possession of economic and social capital. Both notions of capital operate in
the political arena: the power everybody has and the power only some people
have. What becomes of a development project is not only an unpredictable
phenomenon, but often a muted confrontation too (Olivier de Sardan 2005:
185–186). Through discourse analyses the power struggles in the arena can be
revealed to be at what first sight looks like a conversation between the deaf.
This may also help to reshape and reinforce
participatory development’s ability to open up new spaces for political
action, arguing that celebrations of ‘individual liberation’ and critiques
of ‘subjection to the system’ both over-simplify participation’s power ef-
fects. To re-politicise participation, empowerment must be re-imagined
as an open-end and on-going process of engagement with political strug-
gles at a range of spatial scales.
williams 2004: 573
Consequently, this could also serve as a source of inspiration to operationalise
the differentiated analysis beyond the relational position and the residual
mainstream.
Pathways
Livelihoods studies have been criticised for ‘presenting an almost endless
variation of local livelihoods without being able to present generalised trends’
(de Haan 2012: 352) and have been challenged to come up with more general
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conclusions and generalisations beyond the local and case level. Supplementa-
ry research strategies were suggested to achieve this, namely meta-analysis and
comparative research. Meta-analyses are studies that re-analyse existing case
studies and particularly their underlying data through a rigid and systematic
analytical framework. Meta-analysis of livelihoods studies is demanding be-
cause many livelihoods studies are qualitative, and qualitative meta-research
is still in its initial stages. Moreover, it requires methodologically sound under-
lying case studies, which was doubted and criticised by some authors who had
the intention of meta-analysing livelihoods studies.
Livelihood researchers should consider this as a cry of alarm and take
it to heart. Perhaps a step forward could already be made if livelihood
researchers would more systematically engage in comparative research
… [This would mean that] similarities and differences in livelihoods are
systematically marked out on the basis of a comparative explanatory
framework.
de haan 2012: 354
But to relax the critique above: it was not all trouble and affliction in liveli-
hoods studies. One outstanding example of generalisation through compara-
tive livelihoods research was a research project funded by the Department for
International Development in the early 2000s to identify routes by which the
rural poor could climb out of poverty. The project called ladder (Livelihoods
and Diversification Directions Explored by Research) consisted of compre-
hensive surveys of more than a thousand households in dozens of villages in
Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Kenya. Lead by Ellis (Ellis and Bahiigwa 2003;
Ellis and Mdoe 2003; Ellis, Kutengule, and Nyasulu 2003) – by the way another
initiator of the sustainable livelihoods frameworks – it focused on structures
and agencies in the institutional environment of the rural poor that enabled
or hindered them in improving their livelihoods. It was a period of structur-
al adjustment programmes and poverty reduction strategies in sub-Saharan
Africa, which were promoted by the World Bank and imf in order to stimulate
economic growth after a period of economic decline and increased poverty.
But these reforms were also heavily contested because of their alleged nega-
tive effects on poverty. ladder was able to quantify trends in livelihoods and
to connect these with particular policies. For example, the project concluded
that improved rural livelihoods in Uganda could be attributed to economic re-
forms resulting in better prices for coffee and cotton producers, as well as to
increased engagement of the rural poor in non-farm activities. But in Tanzania
and Malawi, production of export crops grew without clear improvements in
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rural poverty. Moreover, food crops did not show any growth, despite econom-
ic reforms (Sen 2005).
Regularities and patterns in livelihoods can also be determined through the
identification of livelihood pathways. Chapters 4 and 5 of this book propose
this alternative method of going beyond the specific case. Especially for more
qualitative livelihoods studies and those using mixed methods, livelihood
trajectories and pathways are an appropriate method to uncover trends and
to arrive at generalisations. De Haan and Zoomers (2005) defined livelihood
pathways as
patterns of livelihood activities which emerge from a coordination pro-
cess among actors, arising from individual strategic behaviour embed-
ded both in a historical repertoire and in social differentiation, including
power relations and institutional processes, both of which play a role in
subsequent decision-making.
de haan and zoomers 2005: 45
The identification of livelihood trajectories is imperative for the analysis of
pathways. Livelihood trajectories examine individual (household) behaviour,
that is, the trajectory through the labyrinth of rooms, corridors, stairways and
other spaces, renewed by Etzold as explained in the previous section. Pathways
are the collective result of individual livelihood trajectories and therefore in-
deed a reflection of regularities and patterns in livelihoods. Individual trajec-
tories become a pathway by cumulation and coordination. One needs to be
aware that the coordination process does not necessarily depend on regular or
occasional consultations between actors. These may occur, but an actor’s liveli-
hood is always prompted – intentionally and unintentionally – by other actors’
livelihood practices in a social field and by habitus.
In Chapter 3 Etzold offered a valuable conceptual contribution on livelihood
trajectories against the background of his research on migration and trans-
locality. He recapitulates how trajectories and pathways are a fruitful way of
making Bourdieu’s habitus operational for livelihoods studies. Consequently,
livelihood trajectories constitute a methodological tool to examine social mo-
bility across social fields over time and through space. Upward, downward and
side movements may occur connected with more successful and less success-
ful livelihoods activities. Referring to the discussion in the previous section
on social fields, it is obvious that power relations are an integral part of this
conceptualisation. Moreover, social and spatial trajectories are closely related:
spatial trajectories are always also social trajectories. This also has important
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consequences for the emergence of translocality and translocal livelihood tra-
jectories which will be discussed in the final section.
In Chapter 4 do Rego and de Bruijn presented a stirring analysis of liveli-
hood pathways. The study is based on an exceptional dataset of individual
livelihood trajectories spanning a period of almost 80 years (do Rego 2012),
which is seldom seen in livelihoods studies. It concerns immigrants from Por-
tuguese islands in the Atlantic to the Caribbean island of Curaçao. The authors
classify the individual livelihood trajectories of Portuguese immigrants, mainly
peasants originating from Madeira and the Azores, in three chronologically
consecutive livelihood pathways. From the end of the 1920s, these immigrants
were contracted as low-skilled labourers for the oil industry in Curaçao and
for at least two decades that remained their sole livelihood. So, their first path-
way in Curaçao – or the first stage of their historical pathway – was that of oil
workers. Then gradually they managed to diversify their livelihoods towards
some niche opportunities ignored by other social groups on the island. One of
these alternative livelihoods, that of the farmer-cum-small-grocer, developed
into a new pathway of agro-commercial entrepreneurship. With hindsight,
that second stage laid the foundation for their contemporary sustainable liveli-
hoods. Portuguese groceries transformed into minimarkets and supermarkets.
By the end of the twentieth century, the Portuguese dominated the grocery
industry and owned most of the big supermarkets. A successful business elite
had developed: the third stage of their pathway in Curaçao. Do Rego and de
Bruijn analyse this successful pathway to sustainable livelihoods against the
backdrop of underlying processes of exclusion and inclusion, which gradually
unfolded into the integration of the Portuguese immigrants in Curaçaoan soci-
ety. At the beginning, immigration policies, labour laws, segregation practices
in the oil industry and overall discrimination excluded them from any other
livelihood opportunity and confined them to a livelihood of low-skilled oil in-
dustry labourers working and living in isolation of the rest of society. Then, as
former peasants and low-skilled labourers used to hard work, they managed to
find work outside the oil industry as farm workers, street sweepers, gardeners,
in stone quarries and as ice-cream vendors. These were all jobs rejected by the
Curaçaoan population because of the connotation with slavery and because
of the availability of better employment opportunities open to them – but not
to the Portuguese – for reasons of language, nationality or policy. At the same
time, employment in the oil industry was dwindling. If the Portuguese had not
been effective in their search for alternative livelihoods, they would have dis-
appeared from the island in that period. Do Rego and de Bruijn conclude that,
in a way, the Portuguese were led to the new livelihoods by habitus.
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Based on their new jobs outside the oil industry, many Portuguese men
managed to get permission for family reunification. Gradually a new pathway
developed out of these individual post-oil industry trajectories, that is, a liveli-
hood pathway of producing vegetables on Portuguese family farms spread all
over the island, and selling their produce and groceries to the local population
from small outlets next to their houses. These small outlets then grew into gro-
cery shops. The authors consider this second stage of agro-commercial entre-
preneurship as the basis for subsequent sustainable livelihoods development.
As the group was still building its identity and self-confidence in this second
phase, in-group bonding on the basis of specific cultural values was very
strong. At the same time, inclusion in Curaçaoan society increased because
their shops became neighbourhood meeting places, because they attended
the same Catholic churches as the local population, because of growing local
appreciation for their endurance and because of the availability of free pub-
lic education. The third stage of the Portuguese pathway, that of a successful
business elite owning mini-markets and supermarkets, only became possible
thanks to this increased inclusion. Inclusion facilitated bank loans, licences
and permits. But the third stage was also enabled by opportunities offered by
changing economic conditions. Newly emerging sections of the middle class
had preferences for a more sophisticated consumption pattern. At the same
time, older sections of the middle class were disappearing because of the de-
cline of the oil industry and so were the supermarkets concentrating on those
older consumers.
As indicated, the case presented by do Rego and de Bruijn covers a very
long period, exceptional in livelihoods studies. This allows for some significant
conclusions with respect to the conceptualisation of livelihood pathways and
its analytical potential to reveal regularities and patterns. First, and not sur-
prisingly, the chapter confirms that achieving sustainable livelihoods is closely
related to turning social exclusion into social inclusion. Though the chapter
does not extensively highlight individual power struggles related to individual
livelihood trajectories, it becomes crystal clear that across generations the Por-
tuguese overcame a number of institutional and social exclusionary practices.
Habitus led them to identify specific livelihood opportunities emerging from
changing social and economic conditions, that is, changes in their social field.
Cultural and social capital, in their case skills and bonding networks, were cru-
cial assets to identify and to access these new opportunities. Second, with its
growing success across generations, the livelihood pathway of the Portuguese
became more diffuse. Increased inclusion opened up many more livelihoods
opportunities giving rise to more livelihood trajectories than those falling un-
der the main route identified as ‘the pathway’ (or for that matter as ‘stages in
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the historical pathway’). In the beginning, strict exclusionary practices only
left room for very similar individual livelihood trajectories, that is, one specific
pathway. With the success of new livelihoods the social inclusion of the Portu-
guese also improved, apparently giving rise in later stages to more diverse live-
lihoods opportunities for this group. On the one hand, a clear pattern or direct
livelihood pathway can be distinguished: from Portuguese immigrant oil work-
ers, through agro-commercial entrepreneurs, to business elite. On the other
hand, currently only a minority of the individual Portuguese livelihoods in
Curaçao reflect this pathway, that is, own big supermarkets or otherwise are big
entrepreneurs. Today, there are many other Portuguese livelihoods in Curaçao,
most of them sustainable but with various levels of material well-being. In
sum, the clear pattern or pathway became more diffuse with increased inclu-
sion: nowadays Portuguese livelihoods resemble more and more the trajec-
tories in the rest of Curaçaoan society, in which they consider themselves –
not by coincidence – fully integrated. Today, there are few ‘Portuguese’ in
Curaçao and many Curaçaoan citizens with Portuguese roots.
Le Grand and Zoomers’s account in Chapter 5 of livelihood pathways of ex-
cluded agrarian communities in the southern Andes of Bolivia is also based
on a respectable body of data from more than a dozen agrarian communi-
ties followed over two decades in subsequent research projects and impact
studies. That makes it an exceptional study too. The authors drew a picture
of substantial livelihoods transformations in a resource-poor region against
the backdrop of crucial policy reforms and external support on the one hand,
and environmental degradation and globalisation on the other. Policy reforms
gave way to a significant empowerment of the indigenous population, the rec-
ognition of their demands and access to government funding through collec-
tive action, that is, collective political manoeuvring. Public services improved
considerably. However, only in some places was external support for agricul-
tural innovations successful in addressing environmental degradation caused
by climate change. Globalisation became evident through better markets for
agricultural produce, changing consumption patterns and rising demand, as
well as through migration to national and international destinations and the
emergence of multi-local livelihoods.
Le Grand and Zoomers explained how individual household livelihood tra-
jectories were quite similar for each community, giving rise to recognisable
pathways of communities. They also found similarities between community
pathways, giving rise to four distinct types of community pathways – that is, a
dryland decline pathway, an irrigation decline pathway, a dryland growth path-
way and an irrigation growth pathway. Labelled this way it looks as if popula-
tion (growth or decline) and natural capital or productive capacity (dryland
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or irrigation) were at play as the two major determining forces or indepen-
dent variables, driving the livelihood transformation with the pathways as
dependent variables. But that explanation is too simple. The four pathways
at the community level are inductive categories, emerging from individual
household trajectories in the respective communities, trajectories that were
nevertheless surprisingly similar. Access to permanent and reliable sources
of irrigation proved to be a major asset and dividing line between commu-
nity pathways. But whilst constraints in natural capital or productive capacity
turned out a major structural factor, it was equally important whether these
constraints were tackled – with external support – by technological innovation
and irrigation. The same goes for population growth and decline (or demo-
graphic change for that matter) which operated as an interwoven complexity
of primary effect and secondary source of successful or unsuccessful livelihood
transformations.
Communities of the irrigation growth pathway managed to improve their
level of production considerably through intensification thanks to higher lev-
els of external support. Consequently they grew in population. They had firm
migration networks and were able to build strong socio-political bridging net-
works that helped to capture important external benefits. Meanwhile their in-
come was large enough to make double residence possible and to allow their
children to study in urban areas. Successful livelihoods transformation went
hand in hand with increased social differentiation, reciprocity and cohesion.
Communities of the dryland growth pathway maintained their production lev-
els despite environmental degradation and increased climate variability. They
owed this to external support for productive innovation, such as mechanisa-
tion and agricultural innovations. Again, the ability to capture this support
through collective political manoeuvring was vital. In both growth pathways,
effective feedback loops occurred between rising incomes, external support,
retaining population (including youth) and population growth, and improved
public services. Interlocking feedback loops sustained livelihoods further.
By contrast, communities of the dryland decline pathway were not able to
maintain levels of production due to the negative effects of climate change, no-
tably droughts and erratic rainfall. The agricultural innovations offered did not
match natural capital. External support had little impact therefore, though this
was also due to weak local institutions, that is, weak social capital. Although
these communities managed to build up public services, this could not stop
the negative feedback loops. Youth left, population declined and social capital
further weakened. Communities of the irrigation decline pathway were faced
with natural conditions less favourable for irrigation and therefore incomes
were lower than in the irrigation growth pathway. These communities were
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unsuccessful in retaining their youth because of insufficient irrigation poten-
tial and lack of schooling opportunities. However, thanks to the relatively high
irrigation incomes of the households remaining behind, youth could migrate
to profitable international destinations. The level of internal reciprocal ex-
change remained high and bridging social capital through migration networks
was strong. Nevertheless, as compared to both growth pathways, the decline
pathways showed far less positive and stronger negative feedback loops. ngos
were not able to change the course of their interventions to address the decline
more effectively. In the end some communities were even abandoned.
In sum, this longitudinal analysis by le Grand and Zoomers demonstrates
again the ability of livelihood trajectories and pathways to reveal regularities
and patterns in livelihood transformation. Clearly, for agrarian communities of
the type discussed, natural capital is a major factor. But successful transforma-
tion of agrarian livelihoods was depending on an interrelated complex of f actors
of which internal social cohesion, reciprocity and collective political manoeu-
vring on the one hand, and bridging networks on the other hand stands out,
in other words social capital in both its bonding and bridging c apacity. Most
probably that is also an important explanation for the similarity in individual
household livelihood trajectories for each community. The important role of
social capital also clarifies the link between collective action and livelihood
pathway. As argued above, and demonstrated by do Rego and de Bruijn, liveli-
hood pathways are the result of individual trajectories. However, this does not
necessarily imply regular or occasional strategic consultations between actors.
Similarly, livelihood pathways are the result of collective action, but collective
action can mean in this respect both intentionally and unintentional (or sub-
conscious) coordination. Le Grand and Zoomers have demonstrated that the
ability to act collectively – in terms of attracting external support as well as in
joint decision making (thus intentional coordination) has contributed to at-
taining sustainable livelihoods. However, in the case of do Rego and de Bruijn
coordination was not a result of collective decision making but occurred more
unintentionally (or subconsciously). Calling to mind that Etzold characterised
livelihood pathways as patterns brought about by Bourdieu’s habitus, one can
conclude that it is precisely the unintentional appearance of coordination, op-
erating irrespectively of intentional coordination, that lays the groundwork for
the emergence of a livelihood pathway.
It may be concluded that livelihood trajectories and pathways are an ap-
propriate method for livelihoods studies using qualitative and mixed meth-
ods to uncover trends and to arrive at generalisations. Livelihood pathways are
the result of coordination of livelihood trajectories through habitus, whether
or not complemented by intentional collective action. As a rule, livelihood
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t rajectories and pathways perceive livelihoods in a holistic way, mindful of the
underlying historical repertoire of exclusionary mechanisms, power relations,
social differentiation and institutional processes.
Home in Violent Conflict
Already around the turn of the millennium, livelihoods studies showed
awareness of the significance of globalisation for the livelihoods of the poor.
Individualisation, increased mobility, multi-local livelihoods and transnational
networks were all flagged (de Haan and Zoomers 2003: 357). Also, strong doubts
were raised as to whether this new round of opportunities would help the poor
to escape from poverty (de Haan 2000: 355, 357). Referring to the discussion in
Chapter 1 on the worldwide rise in inequalities at the moment, these doubts
turned out to be correct. Moreover, it proves that livelihoods studies cannot be
accused of naïve localism, overlooking broader processes of globalisation and
technological innovation as Scoones (2009: 182) did. In the chapters by Etzold
and le Grand and Zoomers the link between the local and the global, through
policies and migration, is abundantly clear. In Chapter 6, Collingwood Esland
scrutinises the post-conflict rehabilitation of livelihoods under the continued
thread of violence in Lebanese communities, contaminated by l andmines and
cluster bombs. Once more this is a chapter that demonstrates the importance
of higher levels of scale, that is, the national and the global, for people’s liveli-
hoods. But foremost, the chapter stands out for its livelihoods analysis in the
context of extreme violence and fear. It examines how communities in south-
ern Lebanon regained their livelihoods while still living under the threat of
violence and severe contamination of the area by landmines. It gives proof of a
fruitful crossover of the livelihoods perspective with concepts from the politi-
cal economy of conflict, postcolonialism and biopolitics.
Moreover, this contribution is a prize example of deepening the notion
of ‘giving meaning’ in livelihoods studies. Some years after the inception
of the livelihoods approach, critique was formulated on its preoccupation
with material well-being as the general purpose of the poor’s livelihoods ac-
tivities. Instead, the holistic nature of livelihoods was stressed. For example,
Bebbington (1999: 2022) stated that ‘a person’s assets, such as land, are not
merely means with which he or she makes a living: they also give meaning to
that person’s world’. Similarly, at the beginning of the livelihoods approach,
house and housing were considered purely as physical assets. For example, in
their trendsetting book on urban livelihoods, Rakodi and Lloyd-Jones (2002)
regarded a house primarily as a shelter from which economic activities could
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be deployed or an additional income could be achieved through rent, that
is, a house as a place of income-generating activities (Rakodi 2002: 11). In a
section of the same book called ‘at home’ (Beall 2002: 75–78), notions such
as ‘belonging’ or ‘giving meaning’ were absent. But by then the turning point
was already noticeable: writing about migrants, Bebbington (2000: 510) noted
that to them ‘homes’ were more than a place of production and investment
for income generation but also a place to rest, celebrate and ultimately retire.
For the Lebanese communities discussed by Collingwood Esland in Chapter
6, ‘home’ is to be reclaimed from contamination: reclaiming home means re-
claiming identity. Also for Collingwood Esland the connotation of home is not
limited to the material but is extended to the imaginative: in her study ‘home’
is both a physical and a metaphorical space. It even includes homeland, as re-
gion of origin or region of birth. Consequently, the meaning of belonging and
emotional attachment even goes beyond the locale.
Above all, Collingwood Esland’s chapter is an impressive testimony of liveli-
hoods analysis in a situation of extreme violence and fear. It examined how
communities in southern Lebanon regained their livelihoods in a context
which is generally described as post-conflict, a euphemism because in real-
ity people were still living under the continued threat of violence. Because of
the severe contamination of the area by landmines, cluster bombs and other
munitions – a heritage of waves of hostilities in the past decades – livelihoods
rehabilitation literally included mine clearance and living with the threat of
explosions. In one community, agriculture was the main livelihood before the
conflict broke out and agriculture was also the main livelihood people wanted
to re-establish after the conflict had ended. Re-establishing their livelihoods
became synonymous with regaining lost agricultural land through clearance.
But in the other community few re-established the original agricultural live-
lihood. There, the displacement due to the conflict had lasted much longer,
sometimes up to two decades. Many villagers found jobs elsewhere in Lebanon
or migrated abroad. Upon return, most villagers continued these multi-local
livelihoods. Although in this community the link with land was also important,
it had a different meaning because many livelihoods did not directly depend
on land anymore and therefore mine clearance was not automatically con-
nected to safe production.
According to Collingwood Esland, violence and conflict ‘challenge some of
the founding principles of the livelihoods approach’. That livelihood c apitals
were destroyed and had to be rebuilt and that impact differed across gender,
generations and livelihoods did not come as a surprise. Nor that re-establishing
livelihoods was sometimes successful and sometimes not at all. At this point
the familiar exclusionary mechanisms were operating. But social e xclusion
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took another less familiar road too. Fear of violence and conflict had become
deeply entrenched in the social fabric, and the rehabilitation of livelihoods
became permeated with it. People felt excluded – abandoned to their fate – by
the very threat of new violence and new explosions of landmines and clus-
ter bombs, and powerlessness when coming face-to-face with their ruined
livelihoods.
To overcome shortcomings of the livelihoods approach in situations of vio-
lence, Collingwood Esland turned to a number of supplementary concepts to
give livelihoods analysis more explanatory power. From the political economy
of conflict the interpretation of vulnerability as powerlessness rather than im-
poverishment alone was introduced. Moreover, following critical geopolitics,
the idea was brought in that resilience can take the shape of resistance and
thus that livelihoods can sometimes be conceptualised as resistances. Further-
more, violence is not only regarded as produced by geopolitics but by cultural
practices too. Marking other people as Other enables the unleashing of vio-
lence against them, sometimes even extreme violence. To capture the impact
of extreme violence, Collingwood Esland took the notion of ‘bare life’ from
biopolitics. Bare life became widened to the everyday: it resonated in the suf-
fering of people in the Lebanese communities under examination. For these
people fear and fright had become daily emotions. Placement and mobilities
of bodies were regulated by contamination and fear of explosions and peril to
life. It resulted in an appropriation of power and disempowered livelihoods in
the case-study communities.
Finally, the violent conflict in southern Lebanon was anything but a local
affair. It was part of larger transnational networks of conflict, or a stretched out
geography as postcolonialism would put it. In a moving account, Collingwood
Esland makes clear that for people in the affected communities re-establishing
livelihoods through coping with, and adapting to, contamination became a
means to serve a ‘higher’ purpose, namely, a means to fight exclusion, reclaim
identity, to regain home and homeland, to challenge dominant political rela-
tions even if these extend over higher levels of scale. In this way, clearance
became much more than releasing the livelihoods-rebuilding capacity of as-
sets: clearance become an act of resistance, of emancipation and of regaining
freedoms.
The above demonstrates that livelihoods studies have made headway
through innovative cross-fertilisations of concepts with notions from the
political economy of conflict, postcolonialism and biopolitics in view of the
increased infringement of livelihoods by violent conflicts. It also shows that
the notion of ‘post-conflict zone’ can at times be innocuous, knowing that in
reality people continue to live in fear after a conflict has ended. A complete
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understanding of that fear can only be achieved if a livelihood is regarded ho-
listically, that is, as a way of giving meaning to people’s lives. Only then the
meaning of ‘home’ as a space of emotional attachment and of identity can be
read properly. Once more, it stresses the necessity of linking the ‘locale’ with
higher levels of scale, that is, the regional, the national and the global.
Mobility and Translocality
Mobility, migration and multi-local livelihoods have been part and parcel of
livelihoods studies early on (de Haan 2000: 355). Collingwood Esland not only
showed that the violent conflict in southern Lebanon triggered migration, she
also made clear that return to contaminated areas was accompanied in one
community by multi-local livelihoods, which gave rise to differentiated im-
pacts on livelihoods rehabilitation. Migration networks and multi-locality are
underexposed in do Rego and de Bruijn’s Chapter 4 on the livelihood pathways
of Portuguese immigrants in Curaçao. Sometimes one could catch a glimpse
of it, for example when immigrants managed to get permits for family reuni-
fication, which laid the foundation for their family farms and which probably
reduced the multi-locality of their livelihoods. But one should also remember
that most of the Portuguese pathway developed in a ‘pre-globalisation’ era, an
era in which the interdependency of the world system was far less advanced
than today and information and transportation systems did not allow for in-
tensive mobilities yet. Le Grand and Zoomers demonstrated in Chapter 5 that
the profound livelihoods transformation in the southern Andes of Bolivia
were closely linked to migration. Migration was both an effect and a second-
ary source of unsuccessful transformations in the decline pathways. However,
multi-local livelihoods networks sometimes functioned as bridging structures
for progress too, as can be concluded from the analysis of the growth pathways.
Moreover, mobility as part of livelihoods transformations in the research area
was much broader than migration only. It also involved concentration of settle-
ments and movements from high altitude zones to lower areas and valleys. In
fact this broader perspective on mobility, that is, beyond migration, is typical
for contemporary livelihoods studies as demonstrated by Etzold in Chapter 3
and Steel, Cottyn and van Lindert in Chapter 7.
As explained in the previous sections, Etzold’s contribution on mobility,
translocality and the reproduction of space and place, displays how inspira-
tional Bourdieu’s thoughts on social fields and habitus can be for the study of
migration. He indicated that the livelihood trajectories are simultaneous social
and spatial mobilities: not only have upper-class migrants different t rajectories
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than poorer ‘clandestine’ migrants. The former show relatively convenient, di-
rect and short spatial trajectories; the latter tend to show longer, non-linear
or transversal trajectories. But for many, the journey is also a ‘rite the passage’
and an opportunity for upward social mobility (though downward mobility is
often an unexpected but more realistic outcome). Etzold correctly pointed at a
neglected and unresolved counterpart of mobility, that is, immobility. Because
some people are socially and spatially mobile, others may become immobile,
experiencing social exclusion (or social immobility) caused by the other’s mo-
bility. This will be explained below, following Steel, Cottyn and van Lindert.
Moreover, mobile periods alternate with immobile periods – often lasting
longer – while a person is awaiting the next border-crossing opportunity or
busy to earn and collect enough money to pay the next trafficker.
As a result of mobility, the rooms, corridors, stairways and other spaces of
the labyrinth become interconnected, resulting in the construction of translo-
cal spaces. Translocality means that actors are organising their livelihoods in
social fields which stretch over borders and connect different places and social
contexts. Translocality put outdated ideas about unidirectional, one-off, inter-
nal or international trajectories behind and stresses interwovenness. Translo-
cality does not emerge automatically; it needs to be produced and reproduced,
and that occurs through livelihoods, translocal livelihoods. The way livelihoods
reproduce the translocal social field – and the way places, being crossroads in
translocal networks are being transformed – constitutes a forceful method-
ological starting point for livelihoods analyses that connects the locale (and
for that matter the house and home and homeland from the previous section)
with the global and the process of globalisation. Finally, translocal social fields
are like any other social field marked by power relations and power struggles,
and thus by vulnerability and social exclusion. Given the transaction costs in-
volved, the stakes are high and vulnerability grows. The risk of a downward
social mobility of the translocal household lurks around the corner.
After Etzold’s stirring conceptual contribution, Steel, Cottyn and van
Lindert followed up in Chapter 7 with some sustaining empirical findings. The
authors, making use of data from several case studies in sub-Saharan Africa,
confirm that nowadays livelihoods and mobility are inextricably interrelated
and interdependent. They also underpin that the organisation of contempo-
rary livelihoods reflects the broader processes of globalisation. Like Etzold,
they consider mobility and immobility as intensely associated. The movement
of one household member determines the immobility of other members, for
example by entrusting care-taking to the stay-at-homes (or rather burdening
them with care-taking), as a result of which these household members cannot
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move. Steel, Cottyn and van Lindert even concluded that mobility of h ousehold
members engender disruptive threats to the stay-at-homes not in the least be-
cause of the discontinuity and unpredictability of remittances. Likewise, the
household’s dependence on remittances may be so big that it compels mi-
grants to stay at their destination. Moreover, where Etzold already criticised
the outmoded view of linear, unidirectional and one-off migration trajectories,
Steel, Cottyn and van Lindert criticise the model of unidirectional mobility
from rural areas to cities. Improvements in infrastructure and transporta-
tion have boosted rural–urban connectivity. As a result, especially short-term
mobility patterns are becoming increasingly complex and multifaceted – that
is, rural to rural, rural to urban, and urban to rural – driven by interwoven sets
of livelihood activities.
Steel, Cottyn and van Lindert’s innovative contribution to the livelihoods
debate lies in their proposition that at present mobilities are being trans-
formed under the impact of new information and communication technolo-
gies, and that new intangible forms of mobility are emerging. They showed
that mobile phones have facilitated livelihoods and impacted on mobility in
many different ways. Mobile phones reduced people’s need to travel, that is,
reduced mobility, without weakening social relations. Mobile phones replaced
physical trade of traders. The latest innovation, the smartphone, has even more
impact on business and on connecting the rural and urban. Women, bounded
to their homes for many reasons, have been able to extend their livelihoods
beyond their direct physical surroundings. The smartphone in particular with
its ability to display images, facilitates the building of trust between otherwise
anonymous urban sellers and rural buyers. Online connections have also aug-
mented the manoeuvring space of rural dwellers by providing direct access
to urban consumption markets. Steel, Cottyn and van Lindert argue that ict
reduces the need for physical mobility in livelihoods and that physical mobil-
ity is being replaced by a kind of intangible, digital mobility. Meanwhile, they
also show that this new mobility engenders new exclusions. Smart phones are
yet beyond the means of many. To access the same consumption markets, they
need the intervention of intermediate traders with a smartphone. Of course,
that comes at a cost.
In Conclusion
This volume opened with an overview of the worldwide discrepancy between
declining poverty amidst persisting inequalities and exclusion. It was argued
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that inequality and exclusion are not just undesirable from a utilitarian per-
spective, but first of all from a social justice point of view. It was argued that
processes of social exclusion and inclusion and social justice needed special
attention. Generally, livelihoods studies aim at understanding poor people’s
lives and at contributing to improvement. Therefore, livelihoods studies would
have an important contribution to make to the understanding and countering
of social exclusion. The livelihoods studies purposely collected for that reason
in this book substantiate this claim. Each contribution has its own flavour and
personal touch, stemming from the authors’ deep involvement in and engage-
ment with particular livelihoods contexts. They all gave evidence of progress
made in livelihoods studies with respect to the three superimposed layers of
livelihood analysis as symbolised by the metaphor of the labyrinth of rooms,
corridors, stairways and other spaces. They discussed the organisation of par-
ticular livelihoods and the access to resources, assets or capitals and entitle-
ments indispensable to exploit livelihood opportunities; they unravelled the
power relations and power struggles, not directly visible but ever-present; and
they analysed the invisible but persistent underlying structures directing so-
cial behaviour.
This book focused on four key dimensions in contemporary livelihoods
studies: the conceptualisation of power, power relations and power struggles;
the need to arrive at meaningful generalisations through longitudinal analy-
ses of livelihood trajectories and pathways; and the two mutually interacting
contexts, violent conflicts and accelerating mobility. This led to a number of
prospects for further conceptual innovations in livelihoods studies. First, with
respect to the question of power in livelihoods analysis, the guidance offered
by Bourdieu’s theory of practice is widely acknowledged. It draws attention to
the relational positions of livelihood actors in social fields, and to their habitus
and socially embedded practices. As a rule, social fields are characterised by
uneven power relations and power struggles, which resonate in the way actors
organise their livelihoods. It also became clear that the prevailing distinction
in the livelihoods debate between apolitical and political positions, that is, a re-
sidual mainstream position and a relational position, is not correct because in
fact both have their views on power. As an alternative for an unfruitful dispute
between both positions, this book made a plea for bridging the d istinction be-
tween ‘power to’ and ‘power over’ through a renewed attention to agency and
structure. In a way, the more operationalised concept of political arena could
provide space for such a bridging analysis.
Second, this book suggested livelihood trajectories and livelihood p athways
in order to identify regularities and patterns in livelihoods as a step towards
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