• Society, development and the environment (utveckling och miljö; miljöutmaningar i ett samhällsperpektiv).
• Rural landscapes, landscape history and environmental change (with a focus on agricultural landscapes in Africa) (landskap- och miljöshistoria med fokus på afrikanska jordbrukslandskap)
• Environmental justice (miljörättvisa)
• History of geographical thought and the theory, methods and philosopy of geography (geografins idéhistoria, metoder och teorier)
• Methods and research design (metoder och forskningsdesign)
• Cartography (Kartografi)
• Thesis supervision (uppsatshandledning), all levels

 

In my research I am interested in exploring society-nature, farmer-environment and labor-ecology relations. 

I am active in several research projects that all have a focus on geographies of labor, rural landscapes and environmental change (land use, water flows, biodiversity, climate change...). 

Since the late 1990s my research has broadly been concerned with landscape history, rural development and environmental change in different African countries (Botswana, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, Niger, Burkina Faso). 

More recently I have become interested in questions of labor and landscapes in the context of climate change mitigation and adaptation, which I currently research in a project on farmwork in Sweden (together with Brian Kuns, SLU and Ida Säfström, SU), where we look at farm labor (experiences, social patterns and processes) in the context of sustainability transformations and visions in Swedish farm-based production.

During the academic year 2019-2020 I was on sabbatical leave as a visiting scholar at the University of California, Santa Cruz at the Environmental Studies Department. 

I have recieved several research grants from Formas, VR, Forte and have been involved in several international research projects, including EU and internationally funded projects, for example the recently completed project on "Transformations to Groundwater Sustainability" financially supported by the Belmont Forum and NORFACE Joint Research Programme on Transformations to Sustainability, and co-funded by NWO, ANR, VR, UKRI-ESRC, NSF, ISC and the European Commission through Horizon 2020.

I have supervised seven PhD projects to completion (five as main supervisor), and is currently the main supervisor of one PhD project at the department.

See my publications at: ‪Lowe Börjeson - ‪Google Scholar

I am one of the founders and the editor-in-chief for the journal Rural Landscapes: Society, Environment, History, published by Stockholm University Press. You find the journal homepage here: Rural Landscapes: Society, Environment, History (rurallandscapesjournal.com)

 

 

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• From panic to business as usual: What coronavirus has revealed about migrant labour, agri‐food systems and industrial relations in the Nordic countries

  2023. Brian Kuns (et al.). Sociologia Ruralis

  Article

  This article focuses on migrant labour in Nordic agriculture, wild berry picking and food processing. The starting point is the fear of a food crisis at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic (2020) because of the absence of migrant workers. The question was raised early in the pandemic if food systems in the Global North are vulnerable due to dependence on precarious migrant workers. In the light of this question, we assess the reactions of farmers and different actors in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden to what looked like an unfolding food crisis. In many ways, the reactions in the Nordic countries were similar to each other, and to broader reactions in the Global North, and we follow these reactions as they relate to migrant workers from an initial panic to a return to business as usual despite the continuation of the pandemic. In the end, 2020 proved to be an excellent year for Nordic food production in part because migrant workers were able to come. We discuss reasons why the Nordic countries did not face disruptions during the pandemic, map out patterns of labour precarity and segmentation for migrant labour in agriculture and food production in the Nordic countries and propose questions for further research.

  Read more about From panic to business as usual

• Knowing Groundwater: Embodied Encounters with a Lively Resource

  2023. Frances Cleaver (et al.). Water Alternatives 16 (1), 171-192

  Article

  This paper is concerned with how water prospectors, well diggers, and irrigation farmers come to know groundwater. Drawing on cases from Tanzania and Zimbabwe, the paper shows that much knowledge is derived from the close encounters with groundwater that occur through hard physical work, mediated by the use of lowcost tools and technologies. In this paper we show how this knowledge is embedded in everyday livelihoods, landscapes, and moral ecological rationalities. Through empirical material of such close encounters with groundwater, we make two interrelated points. Firstly, we draw attention to the importance of embodied forms of knowledge in shaping engagements with groundwater. Frequent close physical interactions with groundwater generate rich and intimate understandings of the changing quality and quantity of water flows. These understandings become primary ways in which people in communities know water, which is lively and sometimes invisible. Secondly, we argue that, though apparently mundane, reliant on low-cost technology, and highly localised, these encounters significantly shape broader socio-natural relationships in emerging groundwater economies. Amongst other examples, our data show groundwater prospectors monitoring the depth of borehole drilling in a shared aquifer in an attempt to ensure equitable access for different users. In concluding the paper, we reflect on the extent to which the knowledge and relationships formed through close physical encounters with groundwater have the potential to shape trajectories of groundwater management.

  Read more about Knowing Groundwater

• The Scaling Down of SAGCOT Public Private Partnerships: From Large-Scale Blueprint Ideals to Small-Scale Pragmatism

  2023. Noah M. Pauline, Victor Mbande, Lowe Börjeson. The African Review, 1-25

  Article

  This study analyses SAGCOT’s public-private partnership policy, which anticipated attracting external investors in large-scale nucleus farms to commercialise smallholder farmers. Data were collected from a review of SAGCOT policy documents, a compilation of SAGCOT registered partners and qualitative interview data collected from private companies, government officials, farmers and outgrower associations. The majority of SAGCOT registered commercial partners are small- to medium-scale and most of them were already operating in the area before SAGCOT was established. We conclude that the SAGCOT investment strategy, in practice, has been linked to small- to medium-scale operations and also mainly to already existing enterprises, which stand in contrast to the initially envisioned model of attracting new large-scale farming enterprises to the region. We argue that there is a need for SAGCOT and policy makers to learn from this dissonance between initial policy ambition and actual outcomes of SAGCOT public-private partnerships.

  Read more about The Scaling Down of SAGCOT Public Private Partnerships

• Coffee, child labour, and education: Examining a triple social–ecological trade-off in an Afromontane forest landscape

  2022. Tola Gemechu Ango (et al.). International Journal of Educational Development 95

  Article

  In biodiversity rich agriculture–forest moasic landscapes in south-western Ethiopia, the production of coffee and food crops, including guarding them from forest-dwelling mammals, requires a high input of labour, which is supplied partly by children. Through field observations and interviews with smallholders, we studied the extent of children’s participation in coffee production and food crop guarding, its impact on school attendance and implications for sustainable development. The findings revealed that the extent of children’s participation in such work is correlated with the level of household’s income and residential location, i.e. near versus far from forests or in coffee versus non-coffee areas. Child labour and school absenteeism linked to coffee production and crop guarding are widespread problems. Some of the measures taken to mitigate the problem of school absenteeism were coercive and posed threats to poor households. The paper concludes that child work in coffee production and crop protection is at the cost of school attendance for many children, which represents a critical social justice issue and a trade-off with the economic and environmental values of the forest. Reducing poverty would likely mitigate the problem of child labour and school absenteeism and promote synergistic development in the region.

  Read more about Coffee, child labour, and education

• Ecosystem services in Sahelian village landscapes 1952-2016: estimating change in a data scarce region

  2022. Hanna Sinare (et al.). Ecology & Society 27 (3)

  Article

  Burkina Faso and the wider Sahel region have experienced substantial changes in rainfall, population, and landscape use. These changes have altered ecosystem services, the benefits that people receive from ecosystems, and rural livelihoods. However, it is difficult to assess the magnitude of these changes because of missing and fragmented social, agricultural, and ecological data. We estimated changes in 10 key provisioning ecosystem services in rural Burkina Faso between 1952 and 2016. We used a simple model of plausible social-ecological changes to make a historical extrapolation that bridges these data gaps, and assessed historical changes. Our approach combined the interpretation of historic aerial photographs and satellite images, with field observations and interviews. We applied the approach for six villages in two administrative regions for six points in time. We modeled the use of historic ecosystems by analyzing a range of estimates of changes in the generation of each service and its value to people. We found that cultivated ecosystem services have increased 1.5–23 times over the study period, while the non-cultivated ecosystem services firewood, construction material, and medicine have decreased to 66–20% of their previous values. Per capita production of cultivated ecosystem services has remained relatively stable, while the per capita production of all other ecosystem services has decreased, to 54–11% of their 1952 values. Although alternatives are available for some ecosystem services, such as medicine and construction material, there are currently limited alternatives available for other services, such as firewood. Decline in wild food availability and consumption is likely to reduce the nutritional value of rural people’s food. Our analysis of changes demonstrates that shrubs and trees on fields generate many ecosystem services that are key to rural livelihoods, and that efforts to enhance crop yields should maintain shrubs and trees. Our approach for estimating historical ecosystem services may also be useful to apply in other data scarce regions.

  Read more about Ecosystem services in Sahelian village landscapes 1952-2016

• Transformations to groundwater sustainability: From individuals and pumps to communities and aquifers

  2021. Margreet Zwarteveen, Lowe Börjeson. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability

  Article

  Read more about Transformations to groundwater sustainability: From individuals and pumps to communities and aquifers

• The Production and Destruction of Forests through the Lens of Landesque Capital Accumulation

  2021. Lowe Börjeson, Tola Gemechu Ango. Human Ecology

  Article

  Read more about The Production and Destruction of Forests through the Lens of Landesque Capital Accumulation

• Effects of Land Use Change Related to Small-Scale Irrigation Schemes in Kilombero Wetland, Tanzania

  2021. Edmond Alavaisha (et al.). Frontiers in Environmental Science 9

  Article

  Increasing agricultural land use intensity is one of the major land use/land cover (LULC) changes in wetland ecosystems. LULC changes have major impacts on the environment, livelihoods and nature conservation. In this study, we evaluate the impacts of investments in small-scale irrigation schemes on LULC in relation to regional development in Kilombero Valley, Tanzania. We used Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) techniques together with interviews with Key Informants (KI) and Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with different stakeholders to assess the historical development of irrigation schemes and LULC change at local and regional scales over 3 decades. Overall, LULC differed over time and with spatial scale. The main transformation along irrigation schemes was from grassland and bushland into cultivated land. A similar pattern was also found at the regional valley scale, but here transformations from forest were more common. The rate of expansion of cultivated land was also higher where investments in irrigation infrastructure were made than in the wider valley landscape. While discussing the effects of irrigation and intensification on LULC in the valley, the KI and FGD participants expressed that local investments in intensification and smallholder irrigation may reduce pressure on natural land cover such as forest being transformed into cultivation. Such a pattern of spatially concentrated intensification of land use may provide an opportunity for nature conservation in the valley and likewise contribute positively to increased production and improve livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

  Read more about Effects of Land Use Change Related to Small-Scale Irrigation Schemes in Kilombero Wetland, Tanzania

• Enriching perspectives

  2020. Juliana Porsani (et al.). Ecology & society 25 (4)

  Article

  Based on a case study from rural Mozambique, we stress that ecosystem services research may be enriched through gendered livelihood approaches, particularly in terms of experienced ecosystem services. Ecosystem services studies have been accused of being gender blind. We argue for the value of open narratives that are attentive to the gender dynamics underpinning the production and reproduction of livelihoods. By focusing on the experienced gender dimension of ecosystem services, livelihood perspectives fulfill the normative role of providing a people-centered means to assess the values of the environment from below and can therefore constitute an entry point to a holistic understanding of by whom, how, when, and why the environment is experienced as valuable. Our findings stress the dynamism and plurality of experienced ecosystem services (i.e., they vary across groups and time and cross-cut material and immaterial dimensions), as well as the asymmetrical gendered and fundamentally cultural relations that they enable. Accounting for the experienced gender dimension of ecosystem services is critical to contextualize the environment in people's lifeworlds and to make understandings of ecosystem services representative of, and instrumental to, people's voices and agendas. We show how such enriched, diverse, bottom-up ecosystem services perspectives form an essential foundation (together with ecological research) for resisting applications of reductionist top-down categories assumed to represent general local values.

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• Processes of Forest Cover Change since 1958 in the Coffee-Producing Areas of Southwest Ethiopia

  2020. Tola Gemechu Ango, Kristoffer Hylander, Lowe Börjeson. Land 9 (8)

  Article

  We investigated the spatial relations of ecological and social processes to point at how state policies, population density, migration dynamics, topography, and socio-economic values of ‘forest coffee’ together shaped forest cover changes since 1958 in southwest Ethiopia. We used data from aerial photos, Landsat images, digital elevation models, participatory field mapping, interviews, and population censuses. We analyzed population, land cover, and topographic roughness (slope) data at the ‘sub-district’ level, based on a classification of the 30 lowest administrative units of one district into the coffee forest area (n = 17), and highland forest area (n = 13). For state forest sites (n = 6) of the district, we evaluated land cover and slope data. Forest cover declined by 25% between 1973 and 2010, but the changes varied spatially and temporally. Losses of forest cover were significantly higher in highland areas (74%) as compared to coffee areas (14%) and state forest sites (2%), and lower in areas with steeper slopes both in coffee and highland areas. Both in coffee and highland areas, forest cover also declined during 1958–1973. People moved to and converted forests in relatively low population density areas. Altitudinal migration from coffee areas to highland areas contributed to deforestation displacement due to forest maintenance for shade coffee production in coffee areas and forest conversions for annual crop production in highland areas. The most rapid loss of forest cover occurred during 1973–1985, followed by 2001–2010, which overlapped with the implementations of major land and forest policies that created conditions for more deforestation. Our findings highlight how crop ecology and migration have shaped spatial variations of forest cover change across different altitudinal zones whilst development, land, and forest policies and programs have driven the temporal variations of deforestation. Understanding the mechanisms of deforestation and forest maintenance simultaneously and their linkages is necessary for better biodiversity conservation and forest landscape management.

  Read more about Processes of Forest Cover Change since 1958 in the Coffee-Producing Areas of Southwest Ethiopia

• Soil management and soil properties in a Kenyan smallholder irrigation system on naturally low-fertile soils

  2018. Martina Angela Caretta (et al.). Applied Geography 90, 248-256

  Article

  In this study we examine the impact of soil management practices on soil properties in a landscape with naturally relatively poor soils on and below the dry slopes of a Rift Valley escarpment in Kenya that have been dominated by extensive smallholder investments in canal irrigation over the last 300 years. We show that farmers in the area have been able to keep up agricultural production in the face of growing population. The actual practices of soil management at one moment in time appear to be of minor importance to soil improvement, as indicated by the low correlation between Soil Management Index (SMI) and soil chemical data. However, cultivation triggers a process of slow soil improvement manifested by a positive correlation between nutrient levels and duration of irrigated cultivation and soil management, which likely explains farmers' confidence in soil productivity. However, we also identify sodicity as a risk connected to intensified irrigation in the area. Finally, we stress the need for further studies integrating investigations of local irrigation and soil management with soil and water quality analyses. These will be crucial to shape sustainable place-based and farmer-led solutions for African agricultural growth.

  Read more about Soil management and soil properties in a Kenyan smallholder irrigation system on naturally low-fertile soils

• Land Concessions and Rural Livelihoods in Mozambique

  2017. Juliana Porsani, Lowe Börjeson, Kari Lehtilä. Journal of Southern African Studies 43 (6), 1181-1198

  Article

  In rural Mozambique, as in other African countries, large-scale land acquisitions are on the rise. This process is usually portrayed by host governments and investors as comprising win-win deals that can simultaneously boost agricultural productivity and combat poverty. This article focuses on one such investment, a large-scale Chinese land acquisition in the lower Limpopo valley, where attempts to modernise agriculture have occurred since colonial times. Based on an analysis of primary quantitative and qualitative data, this study explores livelihoods in the targeted area and local experiences and views regarding land loss and its implications. Our findings reveal a top-down process enabled by disregard for sound legislation, whereby land dispossession was followed by take-it-or-leave-it' opportunities that were unsuited to the most land-dependent livelihoods, particularly those of single-headed households. As the modernisation of the region is once again attempted through the promotion of large-scale agriculture, important historical continuities prevail. This study adds critical evidence to the discussion on the local development potential of land deals in Mozambique and other areas marked by similar democratic deficits.

  Read more about Land Concessions and Rural Livelihoods in Mozambique

• Crop raiding by wild mammals in Ethiopia

  2016. Tola Gemechu Ango, Lowe Börjeson, Feyera Senbeta. Oryx

  Article

  We assessed the impacts of crop raiding by wild mammals on the livelihoods of smallholding farmers in south-western Ethiopia. Data were generated through participatory field mapping, interviews and focus groups. The results indicated that wild mammals, mainly olive baboons Papio anubis and bush pigs Potamochoerus larvatus, were raiding most crops cultivated in villages close to forests. In addition to the loss of crops, farmers incurred indirect costs in having to guard and cultivate plots far from their residences, sometimes at the expense of their children's schooling. Raiding also undermined farmers’ willingness to invest in modern agricultural technologies. Various coping strategies, including guarding crops and adapting existing local institutions, were insufficient to reduce raiding and its indirect impacts on household economies to tolerable levels, and were undermined by existing policies and government institutions. It is essential to recognize wild mammal pests as a critical ecosystem disservice to farmers, and to identify ways to mitigate their direct and indirect costs, to facilitate local agricultural development and livelihood security, and integrate wildlife conservation and local development more fully in agriculture–forest mosaic landscapes.

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• Drought tolerant species dominate as rainfall and tree cover returns in the West African Sahel

  2016. Hendrik Haenke (et al.). Land use policy 59, 111-120

  Article

  After the severe droughts in the 1970s and 1980s, and subsequent debates about desertification, analyses of satellite images reveal that the West African Sahel has become greener again. In this paper we report a study on changes in tree cover and tree species composition in three village landscapes in northern Burkina Faso, based on a combination of methods: tree density change detection using aerial photos and satellite images, a tree species inventory including size class distribution analysis, and interviews with local farmers about woody vegetation changes. Our results show a decrease in tree cover in the 1970s followed by an increase since the mid-1980s, a pattern correlating with the temporal trends in rainfall as well as remotely sensed greening in the region. However, both the inventory and interview data shows that the species composition has changed substantially towards a higher dominance of drought-resistant and exotic species. This shift, occurring during a period of increasing annual precipitation, points to the complexity of current landscape changes and questions rain as the sole primary driver of the increase in tree cover. We propose that the observed changes in woody vegetation (densities, species composition and spatial distribution) are mediated by changes in land use, including intensification and promotion of drought tolerant and fast growing species. Our findings, which indicate a rather surprising trajectory of land cover change, highlight the importance of studies that integrate evidence of changes in tree density and species composition to complement our understanding of land use and vegetation change trajectories in the Sahel obtained from satellite images. We conclude that a better understanding of the social-ecological relations and emerging land use trajectories that produce new types of agroforestry parklands in the region is of crucial importance for designing suitable policies for climate change adaptation, biodiversity conservation and the sustainable delivery of ecosystem services that benefit local livelihoods in one of the world's poorest regions.

  Read more about Drought tolerant species dominate as rainfall and tree cover returns in the West African Sahel

• Local gender contract and adaptive capacity in smallholder irrigation farming

  2015. Martina Angela Caretta, Lowe Börjeson. Gender, Place and Culture 22 (5), 644-661

  Article

  This article presents the local gender contract of a smallholder irrigation farming community in Sibou, Kenya. Women's role in subsistence farming in Africa has mostly been analyzed through the lens of gender division of labor. In addition to this, we used the concept of ‘local gender contract’ to analyze cultural and material preconditions shaping gender-specific tasks in agricultural production, and consequently, men's and women's different strategies for adapting to climate variability. We show that the introduction of cash crops, as a trigger for negotiating women's and men's roles in the agricultural production, results in a process of gender contract renegotiation, and that families engaged in cash cropping are in the process of shifting from a ‘local resource contract’ to a ‘household income contract.’ Based on our analysis, we argue that a transformation of the local gender contract will have a direct impact on the community's adaptive capacity climate variability. It is, therefore, important to take the negotiation of local gender contracts into account in assessments of farming communities' adaptive capacity.

  Read more about Local gender contract and adaptive capacity in smallholder irrigation farming

• Participatory Checking and the Temporality of Landscapes

  2015. Camilla Årlin, Lowe Börjeson, Wilhelm Östberg. The Oxford Handbook of Historical Ecology and Applied Archaeology

  Chapter

  Developmental narratives are commonly constructed through statements on directions and drivers of ongoing change. In the process, however, heterogeneous realities and historical trajectories become manicured and truncated due to temporal short-sightedness, misinformation, and the creation of clear-cut categorizations. Based on historical, geographical, and anthropological research on landscape change in East Africa from the nineteenth century to the present, this chapter examines how different types of historical data sources (maps, photographs, remote sensing data, written and oral accounts, as well as the landscape itself) can be used to both interrogate and improve the rigour of narratives that frame concerns for development and conservation. We describe methods of interaction with members of the researched communities over these various data bodies, and summarize this process as ‘participatory checking’. While the focus of this chapter is on landscape change the participatory research methods described are equally relevant to other topics and disciplines.

  Read more about Participatory Checking and the Temporality of Landscapes

• Balancing Ecosystem Services and Disservices

  2014. Tola Gemechu Ango (et al.). Ecology & society 19 (1)

  Article

  Farmers' practices in the management of agricultural landscapes influence biodiversity with implications for livelihoods, ecosystem service provision, and biodiversity conservation. In this study, we examined how smallholding farmers in an agriculture-forest mosaic landscape in southwestern Ethiopia manage trees and forests with regard to a few selected ecosystem services and disservices that they highlighted as beneficial or problematic. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected from six villages, located both near and far from forest, using participatory field mapping and semistructured interviews, tree species inventory, focus group discussions, and observation. The study showed that farmers' management practices, i.e., the planting of trees on field boundaries amid their removal from inside arable fields, preservation of trees in semimanaged forest coffee, maintenance of patches of shade coffee fields in the agricultural landscape, and establishment of woodlots with exotic trees result in a restructuring of the forest-agriculture mosaic. In addition, the strategies farmers employed to mitigate crop damage by wild mammals such as baboons and bush pigs, e. g., migration and allocation of migrants on lands along forests, have contributed to a reduction in forest and tree cover in the agricultural landscape. Because farmers' management practices were overall geared toward mitigating the negative impact of disservices and to augment positive services, we conclude that it is important to operationalize ecosystem processes as both services and disservices in studies related to agricultural landscapes.

  Read more about Balancing Ecosystem Services and Disservices

• Labour, climate perceptions and soils in the irrigation systems in Sibou, Kenya & Engaruka, Tanzania

  2014. Martina Angela Caretta (et al.).

  Report

  This booklet presents the results of a 4 years project (2011-2015) by four geographers from the university of Stockholm. This research took place in two small villages: Sibou, Kenya and Engaruka, Tanzania. The overall project looks at three variables: soil, climate and labor. These aspects can give an indication of the type of changes that happened in these irrigation systems and what have been the triggers behind them. In this booklet results are presented according to location and focus on: agricultural practices, women´s and men´s labor tasks, soil and water characteristics, adaptation weather variability and how all of these aspects have changed over time.

  Read more about Labour, climate perceptions and soils in the irrigation systems in Sibou, Kenya & Engaruka, Tanzania

• Open Access to Rural Landscapes!

  2014. Lowe Börjeson (et al.). Rural Landscapes: Society, Environment, History 1 (1), 1-2

  Article

  The academic study of rural landscapes covers a broad range of academic disciplines and thematic, methodological and theoretical concerns and interests; including questions concerned with resource use (e.g. agriculture, forestry, water and mining), settlement, livelihoods, conflicts, conservation, culture and identity. This diversity is clearly a strength (the rich empirical and intellectual base), but also presents a challenge, as the dissemination of research findings is distributed through a plethora of publishing channels, which do not necessarily encourage exchange of results and ideas that are not already perceived as germane to already established academic networks.

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• The antithesis of degraded land

  2014. Lowe Börjeson. Landesque capital, 251-268

  Chapter

  Read more about The antithesis of degraded land

• Agricultural Intensification

  2010. Lowe Börjeson. Encyclopedia of Geography

  Chapter

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• The development of the ancient irrigation system at Engaruka, northern Tanzania

  2010. Lars-Ove Westerberg (et al.). Geographical Journal 176 (4), 304-318

  Article

  Climate data from Empakaai Crater in northern Tanzania, covering the last 1200 years, are related to the establishment, development and decline of the ancient irrigation system at Engaruka. New dates for the system are linked to reconstructed climatic variations and historical data on long-distance and regional trade and migration patterns. A shift from a comparatively humid climate to drier conditions in the 1400s prompted the establishment of irrigated agriculture at Engaruka, and a flourishing long-distance trade increased its value as a water and food source for passing caravans. Once established, the land-use system at Engaruka was sufficiently resilient to survive and even intensify during much drier climate from c. 1500 to 1670 CE (Common Era) and during the decline of caravan trade between c. 1550 and 1750. The ancient land-use system probably reached its maximum extension during the humid conditions between 1670 and 1740, and was deserted in the early to mid 1800s, presumably as a result of the added effects of climate deterioration, the Maasai expansion, and change of livelihood strategies as agriculturalists became pastoralists. Towards the end of the 1800s irrigated agriculture was again established at Engaruka, in part driven by the transfer from pastoral to agricultural livelihoods caused by the Rinderpest.

  Read more about The development of the ancient irrigation system at Engaruka, northern Tanzania

• Using a historical map as a baseline in a land-cover change study of northeast Tanzania

  2009. Lowe Börjeson. African Journal of Ecology 47 (s1), 185-191

  Article

  Vegetation data in an early 20th century map from northern Tanzania are presented and discussed for its potential of expanding the analytical time-frame in studies of land-use and land-cover change. The starting point is that much research on land-use and land-cover change suffers from a time-frame bias, caused by limitations in remote sensing data. At the same time, the use of historical maps as a complementary data-set is rather insignificant. Can information in historical maps be used to extend the baseline in land-use and land-cover change studies? The historical context of the vegetation data is evaluated, and as an illustration of its potential for interdisciplinary research on land-cover and ecosystems change, a section of the map is juxtaposed with a recent pollen record specifically addressing the impact of a 'large infrequent disturbance' (LID) event at the end of the 19th century. It is concluded that the vegetation data in the map are not likely to be reflecting an extreme situation due to the LID event. Finally, the historical vegetation data were visually compared with a national 1995 land-cover data set, illustrating the possibility of using the map data as a baseline in land-cover change studies.

  Read more about Using a historical map as a baseline in a land-cover change study of northeast Tanzania

• Introduction: Historical and Regional Perspectives on Landscape Transformations in Northeastern Tanzania, 1850-2000

  2008. Mats Widgren, Thomas Håkansson, Lowe Börjeson. International Journal of African Historical Studies 41 (3), 369-382

  Article

  The article focuses on the historical and regional views on landscape shift in northeastern Tanzania from 1850-2000. It highlights several perspectives on the impact of landscape transformation towards the social relation in the northeastern part of the country. Specifically, it discusses how regional historical method to land cover changes offers an analytical field to bridge social gap. It primarily considers the perspectives of a group of scholars, centering on their views on human-environmental relationships and political economy. In addition, it explores the history and spatial interactions in the region, regarding as well the economic determinants of land use.

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• Northeast Tanzania's Disappearing Rangelands

  2008. Lowe Börjeson, Dorothy L. Hodgson, Pius Z. Yanda. International Journal of African Historical Studies 41 (3), 523-556

  Article

  The article focuses on the historical perspectives on the land use change of rangelands in the northeastern part of Tanzania. It traces the influence of colonial policies and precolonial political economic connection on the rapid land cover transformation on the Maasai Plains. Specifically, the authors present a historical narratives of landscape changes in the northeastern part of the country, focusing on land cover and land use change. It cites several areas in the northeast that were affected by landscape change and how these areas were agriculturally converted. Furthermore, the impact on the alterations in landscape that rooted in the colonial and precolonial history in the region is considered.

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• Regional interaction and land use change in northeastern Tanzania 1850-2000

  2008. N. Thomas Håkansson, Mats Widgren, Lowe Börjeson. International Journal of African Historical Studies 41 (3), 369-382

  Article

  Read more about Regional interaction and land use change in northeastern Tanzania 1850-2000

• Boserup Backwards? Agricultural intensification as ‘its own driving force’ in the Mbulu Highlands, Tanzania

  2007. Lowe Börjeson. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 89B (3), 249-267

  Article

  Why do farmers intensify their agricultural practices? Recent revisions of African environmental historiographies have greatly enriched our understanding of human–environmental interactions. To simply point at poor farming practices as the main cause of deforestation, desertification and other processes of land degradation is, for example, no longer possible. The contemporary analytical focus is instead on the complex and often unpredictable set of causal relations between societal, ecological and climatic factors.

  In the literature on agricultural intensification, conventionally defined driving forces, such as population pressure and market demand, remain important explanatory factors despite a growing body of research that suggests more dynamic scenarios of agricultural development and landscape change. This article reports on a case where the common-sense logic of population pressure theory has dominated the historical narrative of a local process of agricultural intensification among an agro-pastoral people in north-central Tanzania. By way of a ‘detailed participatory landscape analyses’ a more complex and dynamic historical process of intensification is suggested, in which the landscape and the process of agricultural intensification itself are in focus.

  It is concluded that the accumulation of landesque capital has been incremental in character, and that the process of agricultural intensification in the study area has largely been its own driving force based on self-reinforcing processes of change, and not a consequence of land scarcity and population pressure. This result demonstrates the possibility and usefulness of reversing the Boserupian argument in analyses of agricultural intensification.

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Show all publications by Lowe Börjeson at Stockholm University