Research Interests

Currently, I am interested in how land access in land scarce areas mitigates sickness. Vulnerability studies show that households with limited access to resources are more likely to suffer the effects of disease. In rural South Africa, years of apartheid segregated the society and created a large landless class. Many, however, that do not own land have access to either communal land or land owned by others. My research examines how households with varying access to land use that land to help mitigate sickness, particularly HIV and AIDS which effects as many as 30 percent of adults in that country. Land access allows a variety of land use which can be beneficial to vulnerable households. Land ownership can be an economic net, but also a stressor.

Previously, I have examined the history of afforestation projects in Mpumalanga, South Africa. Eastern South Africa is home to over 1.4 million hectares of pine and eucalyptus plantations. Many of these plantations were planted on land previous occupied by local African homesteads. The forced removals of Africans during the apartheid rule is clearly documented, yet the focus of many past studies was on those dispossessed for agricultural land. People dispossessed for plantation forests are often invisible in part because many of the villages are literally hidden from view behind the trees. Also, these dispossessed ended up forming a labor force for the forestry industry, working on the very land they once occupied.