In rural districts of Sub-Saharan Africa, livelihoods typically centre around peasant agriculture and herding. While historically effective, changing resource constraints associated with rapid population growth and resource degradation have put these livelihoods under strain. Dramatic shifts over recent years in agricultural policy and the prices of agricultural inputs and outputs have not helped. Together, such changes arguably amount to a set of destabilising influences and a relative paucity of advantageous opportunities. The question is whether local people successfully adapt their land-use strategies to these changing circumstances. 'Sustainable agriculture' technologies such as agroforestry practices represent an obvious means of adaptation to change in low-potential areas, which largely lack access to purchased agricultural inputs. Yet despite the promise these technologies have shown in farm trials, their adoption by farmers has generally been hesitant and limited. This has been widely interpreted as evidence that these technologies do not respond effectively to the needs of target beneficiaries. Based on a household survey from Shinyanga District, Tanzania, the study revisits the issues of adaptation to changing circumstances and technology adoption. It highlights the possibility that some households adapt to change more effectively than others, with some adopting advantageous available technologies while others do not. Its focus is on the differing knowledge and perceptions informing decisions vis-à-vis tree management, with a view to identifying distinct knowledge types within the wider body of local knowledge. The study posits then tests a theoretical model problematising local knowledge. It finds that integrating local knowledge variables into regressions of tree management practice greatly increases their explanatory power, suggesting that these variables do not simply reflect incentives, as suggested by contemporary theory. The implication is that problematic local knowledge may critically constrain rural livelihoods in areas facing unprecedented challenges and opportunities. Finally, diverse associations with observed knowledge patterns are considered, suggesting promising ways to build on this work.

This dissertation examines the realities from the receiving end of short-term volunteer mission projects among the Sukuma people of Tanzania by assessing their outcomes. The work also offers implications for future STM initiatives to assist participants in avoiding pitfalls and implementing an effective strategy for STM. Chapter 1 defines the short-term missions explosion and current issues facing volunteerism in missions. The chapter also provides a definition of church health used in the study. Chapter 2 begins with an overview of theological issues facing short-term missions. Next, the chapter addresses specific missiological and anthropological issues pertinent to the effectiveness of short-term missions in an East African context. Chapter 3 offers a brief historical overview of short-term missions in general as well as to Tanzania specifically. It looks at the practices and perceptions of short-term volunteers involved in Shinyanga, Tanzania. Chapter 4 surveys the components of New Testament church life and practice evidenced among the believers and churches in Shinyanga, Tanzania based on the results of a survey. The chapter examines both the biblical proximity and the indigenousness of the churches in each of the areas of New Testament church life and practice. Chapter 5 presents the outcomes of the STM projects among the receiving churches. The chapter evaluates four specific assumptions made by volunteers concerning the results of their endeavors. It also draws implications for avoiding pitfalls and championing successful methodology in future STM initiatives. These recommendations are made to assist STM to engage the receiving culture effectively. This work contends that short-term volunteers do not always accomplish what is reported. That cultural and anthropological understanding and theological precision is of utmost importance to the preparation of short-term missionaries is made evident. The study seeks to support short-term missions; the conclusions, though critical at times, are intended to construct a more effective short-term missions philosophy and methodology. This dissertation serves as a wake-up call to volunteers, sending organizations, missionary personnel, and national churches alike that more harm than health can result if a biblical, culturally adept approach to the involvement is not embraced and implemented.

AHEAD (Adventures in Health, Education, and Agricultural Development) is a small grass-roots non-governmental organization working in the rural Meatu, District in Northern Tanzania. The AHEAD project employs Tanzanian nurses who provide health education, child weighing and nutritional counseling, family planning, and antenatal services. AHEAD has recently developed a water quality testing initiative in order to combat unsafe water supplies using solar pasteurization. Dr. Robert Metcalf, an AHEAD volunteer offers "expertise" to Meatu through transfer of solar cooking technology. Each summer, AHEAD takes volunteers into this setting who bring with them both "altruistic" and non-altruistic reasons for volunteering, economic and social capital, and a taste of the world beyond Meatu. This thesis looks at the Summer 2001 AHEAD experience ethnographically from three perspectives: 1) as public health practice, 2) in relation to the contested domain of international "development" , and 3) situated within the larger literature of non-profit and volunteer action research. These three snapshots of AHEAD suggest a project of globalization, theorized as the flow of people, goods, and information across boundaries. / Master of Science