The concept of gender becomes significant when associated with variable and unpredictable effects of climate change. It is important to assess the linkages and outcomes between humans and their environment. I highlight the level of vulnerability and burdens on the different genders and discuss how these environmental influences are shifting what we will considered “traditional” social norms and responsibilities within rural households of Kenya and Tanzania. For agricultural and pastoral communities in eastern Africa, drought triggers many socio-economic alterations that lead to great shifts in traditional roles and daily duties especially for women. The key focus of this study relies on changing gender dynamics as a result of intensified and prolonged episodes of drought, considering male and female interactions and coping strategies. Using my case study of Ayalaliyo, Tanzania as a springboard, I will be analyzing women’s vulnerability, increased workloads, health implications, and alternative incomes as well as male disempowerment in the rural communities of Kenya and Tanzania. I aspire to find the connections between women and the environment and detect whether or not there have been similar changes in gender roles as a result of climatic changes throughout the rest of East Africa’s farming communities. I will be concluding by tying these effects to a more global perspective on the importance of gendering climate change adaptations.

Dans l’ensemble des cinq massifs préalpins français septentrionaux auquel il appartient, le massif des Bornes-Aravis présente un trait distinctif qui intrigue : celui de ne comporter qu’une réserve naturelle très restreinte, située sur la marge lacustre. En cela, il se démarque de ses homologues et voisins, dotés de vastes parcs naturels régionaux et de géoparcs, garants du maintien d’un cadre de vie de qualité. Rétifs à toute mesure de protection territoriale, les élus locaux affirment que l’empirisme guidé par la sagesse, ainsi que le savoir-être traditionnel des populations locales, se substituent avantageusement à l’établissement d’espaces protégés dont les effets seraient, à leurs dires, préjudiciables au développement économique. Dans ce contexte, on est fondé à éprouver quelques craintes quant à la pérennité de l’esthétique paysagère, qui constitue le facteur indispensable à l’attractivité touristique, moteur essentiel de l’économie alpine. On peut aussi s’interroger sur les chances de voir se maintenir une situation de « double mise en valeur équilibrée » (Bätzing, Rougier, 2006). Bien que s’adaptant volontiers aux impératifs de l’économie contemporaine, la société locale a su jusqu’ici limiter l’altération de sa culture et de son patrimoine naturel. En témoigne un système agro-pastoral dynamique et relativement prospère, indispensable au maintien de la qualité du cadre de vie. Les habitants des Bornes-Aravis déclarent vouloir éviter que leur massif ne devienne un espace de loisirs pour citadins. Les schémas de cohérences territoriales récemment élaborés prennent en compte ces enjeux.L’analyse menée tout au long de cette étude portera une attention toute particulière à l’évolution des dynamiques spatiales influant sur le devenir de la beauté paysagère, qui constitue la richesse essentielle de ces montagnes de moyenne altitude. Celle-ci devrait être valorisée notamment par une médiation scientifique non pas sporadique et fragmentaire telle qu’elle l’est actuellement, mais conçue selon une cohérence en lien avec l’identité du territoire. / Of the five northern french pre-Alpine ranges to which it belongs, the mountains of Bornes-Aravis has a distinctive feature that is intriguing: it has only a very small nature reserve situated on the fringes of Lake Annecy. In this it differs from larger neighboring parks, and more recently, geoparks, all guarantee of maintaining a high quality of life.Reluctant to adopt any measure of territorial protection, local officials say that empiricism guided by wisdom, and traditional know-how of native populations, outweigh the establishment of protected areas whose effects would be prejudicial to their priority of economic development. In this context, it is reasonable to harbour fears about the sustainability of landscape aesthetics, which is an essential factor attracting tourists, a key driver of the alpine economy. Native societies readily adapting to the demands of the modern economy, whilst limiting alterations to their cultural and natural heritage. As a result of that process, one can notice the existence of a dynamic and relatively prosperous agro-pastoral system, essential to maintaining the quality of life. The inhabitants of the country say they want to prevent it forbecoming a land of leisure for city dwellers. However in the absence of specifically protected areas guaranteeing environmental quality, one can only wonder about the chances that the « dual balancing improvement » (Bätzing, Rougier, 2006) will be maintained. Patterns of territorial coherence that have recently been developed aware of these stakes. That is why the analysis conducted throughout this study will pay particular attention to the evolution of spatial dynamics affecting the future of scenic beauty, which constitues the essential richness of these highlands. This matter should be valued notably by a scientific mediation not sporadic and fragmentary such as it is it at present, but conceived according to a coherence in link with the identity of the territory.

Grounded in multi-sited fieldwork within an agro-pastoralist highland village in Southwest Angola and in ethnology museums in Europe, Angola and Namibia, my research interweaves an ethnographic and a historical approach to better understand the meanings and social relationships generated by what I call “elusive dolls”: dolls that are difficult to find and slippery when encountered. The study explores postcolonial significances of African dolls, made by agro-pastoralist people, which have been sparsely collected for display in museums since colonial times. Using multiple field methods such as participant observation, archival research, photo-elicitation, and filmmaking, I trace the social relationships involved in the making of dolls in Southwest Angola and in the housing of the same kind of dolls in ethnology museums, paying particular attention to the material and social networks established around the practices of making and collecting them. Following the logic of local languages (olunyaneka, oshikwanyama), I use the notion of “crafted ‘children’” to define handcrafted dolls made of different materials, and address the meanings these dolls embody for makers, collectors and museum curators. I take a historical perspective to examine the dimensions of storage, research and display and address contrasting curatorial approaches to dolls in museums. While most curators have tended to focus on dolls and their supposed functions, a few have engaged with dolls in relation to other domains of the lifeworlds of rural makers and their skilled practices. Examining the limits of historical ethnographic research about local doll-usage, I build upon these alternative approaches by curators and ethnographically explore the relational dimensions of these dolls in two worlds in which they have material and social lives: Southwest Angola and ethnology museums. Firstly, I examine the regional diversity of these dolls, as crafted “children”, in the rural context through a situated understanding of ethnic and ecological diversity and rural-urban relations. Secondly, I explore the twofold notion of labour – that is, the labour in crafting and the labour in making a living - in the regional domestic economy of agro-pastoralist populations, showing how a resilient rural lifestyle, local and urban resources, seasonal demands, and personal skills linked to age and sociality generate and shape the practices of doll-making. Finally, I examine drawing and photography in published and unpublished material about dolls and show how the visual connects the worlds of curators, field-collectors, makers and ethnographers. A large part of the literature on ethnology museum collections tends to focus on “repatriation”, discussing relations between museums and “source communities”. By contrast, an analytical framework connecting doll-making and collecting, the regional conditions of a crafting practice and its local immersion in rural everyday life, appears only marginally in the literature - this is where my research makes a significant contribution. My thesis contributes to critical museology research, Africanist studies, and visual anthropology and engages with debates on materiality and skill. The film that accompanies the thesis, Making a Living in the Dry Season, is grounded in a long-term stay in a village, and examines the twofold notion of labour mentioned above through the practice of doll-making. I recommend first reading the thesis up until Chapter three, followed by watching the film, and then turning to the remaining chapters.

The Jiroft valley, in southeastern Iran, was an important agricultural centre since the Early Bronze Age (3rd millennium BCE). The valley is characterized by harsh environmental settings: hot climate with poor rainfall. However, more optimal conditions may have prevailed earlier that supported ancient settlements. A 250-cm sediment core was retrieved from a peat-land at Konar Sandal, a major archaeological find attributed to Jiroft culture. The palynological data from this core was combined with geochemical and sedimentological proxies aimed at establishing the human-environment interactions in the area. The study focus was directed at vegetation history and landscape evolution, hydroclimatic changes and past human activities, that started just after the projected collapse of the Jiroft (4 ka) and extended all the way from the late Bronze Age to the Mongol invasion (0.6 ka). The results indicate that the valley was dominated by Saharo-Sindian open pseudo-savannah vegetation for the last 4000 years. However, due to anthropogenic clearance and intensified agro-pastoral activities, and also climatic factors, the land cover shifted from open xeric scrubland forests to more open, degraded landscapes. The principal human practice in these early settlements was cereal cultivation. But it is likely that during the more arid periods, communities retreated and abandoned agriculture, facilitating successional processes. Such droughts occurred in 4-3.8 ka and 3.4-2.8 ka and were supported by palynological data, C/N and Fe2O3 content. Peat formation was characteristic to the wetland during these arid periods. These droughts corresponded to drought phases detected in other studies, and were attributed to changes in Siberian Anticyclones. Dynamics of Artemisia and desert shrubs indicate milder climate around 3.8-3.4 ka and 2.8-0.6 ka. In the latter episode, during the rule of Persian Empire (ca. 550 BCE-650 CE) and Islamic epoch, the highest vegetation degradation state and most intensive human activities were observed. Some inconspicuous human practices, such as date cultivation, may have occurred on site as an adaptation to extreme environmental conditions. / High-resolution paleolimnological records from Lake Jazmurian: Climate-culture evolution at Jiroft in southeast Iran during the Holocene

La présente thèse est une étude ethnographique qui examine le savoir en tant que pratique située au Ladakh, dans l’Himalaya indien. Elle analyse les implications socioculturelles des deux moteurs de changement en jeu au Ladakh: l’un est d'origine socio-économique et lié à la production du Ladakh en tant que zone frontalière, tandis que l’autre est de nature environnementale et entrainé par les changements climatiques. Alors que le Ladakh est demeuré hors de la portée de l’État bureaucratique pendant l’administration coloniale britannique, la région s’est trouvée reconfigurée en zone frontalière stratégique après l’indépendance de l’Inde des suites des guerres successives avec le Pakistan et la Chine. L’Indépendance a mené à la partition de l’Inde et du Pakistan en 1947; cette thèse examine la portée à long terme des évènements traumatisants de la partition tels qu’ils se sont déroulés au Ladakh et comment les Ladakhis établissent des liens entre ces évènements et les changements climatiques. L’État indien s’est produit dans la région à travers une volonté de dominer les montagnes, principalement par le développement d’infrastructures et par l’intégration du savoir local des Ladakhis dans l’appareil militaire. La militarisation a restructuré l'économie du Ladakh, redéfini la structure des ménages, contribué à l’exode rural, déplacé la centralité des activités agropastorales et, tel que la dissertation le soutient, altéré de manière significative la connexion de la population locale avec l'environnement. La rationalisation croissante de la perspective sur l’environnement aujourd'hui contribue à la fragmentation des liens qui unissent les domaines naturels et humains dans la cosmologie locale de même qu’à l'abandon des pratiques rituelles connexes. Parallèlement, la région est touchée par des effets distincts des changements climatiques, en particulier la récession des glaciers. La thèse juxtapose l'expérience subjective de ces vastes changements dans la vie quotidienne des villageois de la Vallée de Sham avec les faits historiques environnementaux, démontrant ainsi que les événements historiques locaux influent sur les perceptions des changements environnementaux. L'analyse démontre qu’un phénomène objectif tel que la récession des glaciers est interprété à travers des réalités locales. Plus précisément, selon la conception du monde locale, un glacier en retrait est une figure rhétorique d’une transformation de la condition humaine. Comme le fait valoir la dissertation, l’interprétation culturelle ne constitue pas un obstacle à l'objectivité de l'histoire naturelle de la cosmologie locale. L’interprétation culturelle et l'expérience empirique s’avèrent par ailleurs essentielles à la vitalité des connaissances locales sur l'environnement et à la performance des pratiques associées. / The dissertation presents an ethnographic study that examines knowledge as a situated practice in Ladakh, in the Indian Himalayas. It analyzes the sociocultural implications of two drivers of change at play in Ladakh: one is of socioeconomic origin and linked to the production of Ladakh as a border area, while the other is environmental and driven by climate change. Ladakh, which remained outside the scope of the bureaucratic state during the British colonial administration, found itself refashioned into a strategic border area following India’s independence and successive wars with Pakistan and China. Independence led to the partition of Indian into India and Pakistan in 1947; the dissertation examines the long-term, traumatic events of the partition in Ladakh, tracing connections to current perceptions of climate change. The independent Indian state has produced itself in the region through the taming of its mountains, primarily through infrastructure development and the co-optation of Ladakhi knowledge of the environment by the military apparatus. Far-reaching militarization has restructured Ladakh’s economy, consequently redefining household structure, contributing to village depopulation, displacing the centrality of agro-pastoralist activities and, as the dissertation argues, significantly altering the local population’s engagement with the environment. The increasing rationalization of the outlook on the environment today contributes to the fragmentation of links between the natural and human realms within the local cosmology and the abandonment of related ritual practices. Concurrently, the region is impacted by distinct effects of climate change, in particular glacier recession. The dissertation juxtaposes both the subjective experience of wide-ranging environmental changes and changes in everyday village life with historical facts, showing that local historical events influence perceptions of glacier recession and the depletion of natural resources. The analysis demonstrates that objective phenomena such as glacier recession are interpreted through local realities. Specifically, in the local worldview, a vanishing glacier is a trope for changes in the human condition. Yet, as the dissertation further argues, such cultural framing does not preclude the objectivity of natural history in local cosmology. Moreover, cultural framing and empirical experience, therefore, are shown to be essential to the vitality of local knowledge about the environment and to the performance of associated landscape practices.