Geoforum 30 (1999) 249±261
www.elsevier.com/locate/geoforum
The political ecology of ¯ood hazard in urban Guyana
Mark Pelling *
Department of Geography, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, UK
Received 11 August 1998; in revised form 25 February 1999
Abstract
Some 90% of the Guyanese population are at risk from contemporary ¯ood hazard and the potential impacts of climate change
and sea-level rise. Such risks are not the product of physical systems alone, and by using a political ecology frame the geography of
¯ood hazard in urban environments can be seen to coevolve with political, social and economic systems. These systems are explored
by a historical review which traces the roots of present vulnerability to the colonial experience, and an analysis of contemporary
vulnerabilities which draws from a peri-urban and an urban case study. The case studies show that the current fashion in
international donor agencies to fund Ôcommunity sponsored developmentÕ has missed an opportunity to enhance security
through grassroots empowerment, and rather that those community organisations associated with this system have been co-opted by political elites reproducing embedded distributions of power and vulnerability. Ó 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights
reserved.
Keywords: Political ecology; Vulnerability; Urbanisation; Guyana; Flooding
1. Introduction
``The two-fold problem of the sea and the ¯oods is
still with us (but) the problems of the world market
have proved the more intractable'' (Anonymous, in
Rodney, 1981:29).
This re¯ection on the circumstances of sugar production was made in the 1880s by a spokesperson for
Booker Brothers, a major investor in British GuianaÕs
sugar industry. More than a century later it equally
describes much of the present tension between the global
political-economy and local environmental systems and
development planning.
This paper focuses on the production and maintenance of GuyanaÕs hazardous coastal environment and
interprets environmental hazard as a product of risk and
human vulnerability, with vulnerability being ``intimately connected with the continuing process of underdevelopment recorded throughout the world''
(OÕKeefe et al., 1976, 560). The work responds to a gap
in the political ecology literature which, with a few exceptions (Swyngedouw, 1995, 1997), has tended to
*
E-mail: [email protected]
concentrate on land resources and rural societal contexts
(Bryant, 1998).
Some 90% of GuyanaÕs population and 75% of its
GNP producing activities are situated on the North
Atlantic coastal plain, seldom more than 15 km wide
and around 200 km long. The plain lies at about mean
sea-level and is composed of Amazon clay deposits
(Abernethy, 1980) producing a ¯at and easily waterlogged topography. Coastal geomorphology is dominated by the westward moving Guiana current which
transports up to 25 million tons of sediment per month
in mudbanks with wavelengths of about 40 km
(NEDECO, 1972); Abernethy, 1980; Allersma, 1990).
The passage of these mudbanks creates a cyclic pattern
to coastal erosion and accretion, though the process is
disturbed by the out¯ows of major rivers such as the
Essequibo.
GuyanaÕs colonial experience and post-colonial
modernisation projects have transformed the coastal
environment. The coastal mangrove swamps have been
drained, and mangrove wood extracted and replaced by
sea-walls, irrigation canals, polders and human settlement (FAO, 1990; Bynoe, 1996; Williams, 1997). This
has created a Ôsecond natureÕ (Smith, 1984) requiring
high levels of human inputs (labour and ®nancial) to
maintain. The failure of the coastal political economy to
0016-7185/99/$ - see front matter Ó 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 0 1 6 - 7 1 8 5 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 1 5 - 9
250
M. Pelling / Geoforum 30 (1999) 249±261
produce, or access from external sources, the inputs
required for its maintenance has made the settled coast
vulnerable to environmental hazard and the potential
impacts of climate change (drought, ¯ooding and sealevel rise).
2. The political ecology of hazard
Hazards exist both as discursive constructs and as
actually felt phenomena. This necessitates conceiving of
hazard as operating at the level of political discourse as
well as political action. Such a view is not new to political ecology (Peet and Watts, 1996), but it is to hazards analysis. This paper deals with the institutional
structures and cultural norms which shape negotiations
between political actors for control over urban development resources, and the geography of vulnerability
that is produced.
Although much of the debate on vulnerability has
taken place within the contexts of famine and rural society (Devereaux, 1993), analyses have begun to apply to
a broader range of hazards and societal circumstances.
Moser et al. (1994) argue that urban societies have different sources of vulnerability to rural societies, because
of commoditization (integration into a cash economy),
additional sources of environmental danger (poor
housing and infrastructure and industrial pollution),
and social fragmentation (loss of supportive social networks, greater social problems). In contrast, previous
analysis had considered rural populations as most at
risk, because of the greater availability of services, infrastructure and economic resources in urban areas
(Dreze and Sen, 1991). Clearly the context of risk is
critical for the production of relative vulnerabilities. The
comparison of peri-urban and urban vulnerabilities below adds to this discussion.
Vulnerability for individuals and social groups has
three components; exposure, resilience and resistance.
These components are simultaneously the products of
political and socio-economic structures and the capacity of individual actors and social institutions to adapt
to hazard stress. This capacity is rooted an agentÕs
ability to compete for access to rights, resources and
assets (Sen, 1981; Blaikie et al., 1994), and takes on
their ¯uctuating status. In any social setting, poverty
and vulnerability are often closely linked ± but they are
not equivalent terms. Poor households are constantly
having to Ôplay o€Õ poverty and vulnerability (Swift,
1989), invariably ÔchoosingÕ to accept greater vulnerability in their battle against daily poverty (Chambers,
1995).
Decision-making power is central to the distribution
of di€erential vulnerabilities, and is negotiated between
institutions which di€er in their scales of in¯uence, access to information and resources, and legal and cultural
rights and responsibilities. For institutions such as
households, public agencies and private organisations it
is information and cultural norms, in¯uenced by expectations, historical experience and political context,
that shape the development discourse in which understandings of a hazard or resource are embedded (Pelling,
1998a). This can be seen in the di€erent perspectives
held for elements of the anthropomorphised environment, which may be variously described as hazards, as
resources or considered benign. Competing views can be
held by di€erent actors for the same environmental element or phenomena, as has been shown by the debate
over solid waste as a resource or hazard. Such di€erences of perception are often experienced as a con¯ict
between grassroots knowledge and expert knowledge
systems (Grove-White, 1996) both of which need to be
recognised for mechanisms which reproduce risk, vulnerability and hazard to be more fully understood
(Pugh, 1996).
3. Historicising power and vulnerability
In Eurocentric discourse the low-lying mangrove
coast of Guyana changed from an inhospitable and
hazardous barrier to trade, the ÔSavage CoastÕ of the
17th and 18th centuries, to a fertile resource for plantation agriculture, the ÔRice Bowl of the CaribbeanÕ, in
the 19th and 20th centuries. This transformation of the
imagination, underpinned by the political and economic imperatives of the time, has been inscribed onto
the Guyanese natural and human landscape through
the drainage, empoldering and permanent settlement of
the coast ± its capture and incorporation into the
national and global capitalist productive systems.
However, the fragile and super®cial nature of this
transformation has been made apparent through the
resurgence of the coast as a hazard, as levels of human
resilience (the ability to manage water resources) ¯uctuate in the face of environmental and economic
stresses with their roots in the historical development of
the national and international political-economy (Pelling, 1996).
Permanent European settlement of Guyana occurred
in the 1600s. Little is documented from before this time,
although it is reckoned that some 160,000 Amerindians
from the Warao and Arawak nations inhabited the
coast and coastal rivers at the time of the ®rst European
encounter (Colchester, 1997). The period from 1600 to
the present day can be divided into three principal
phases of development; the colonial period from 1600
to 1965, the immediate post-colonial period from 1966
to 1985 and an ongoing period of liberalisation from
1986.
Initial European settlement at interior, riverine sites
enabled mercantile trade with the indigenous population
M. Pelling / Geoforum 30 (1999) 249±261
(Fig. 1). However, by the late 1700s the locus of production and settlement had shifted to the coast (Glasgow, 1970; Latchmansingh, 1994). This change had its
roots in the dynamic European political-economy which
manifest locally in a movement in the productive base
from mercantile trade to direct production through
co€ee and cotton plantations, requiring the fertile soils
of the coast (Daly, 1974; Rodney, 1981; Spinner, 1984).
Clearing the coastal mangrove forest and establishing
plantations required massive labour inputs, provided by
slave labour, and access to investment capital and
technological expertise. This was facilitated in 1746 by
the passing of a policy in which Dutch Guiana opened
its borders to settlers and investors of any nationality.
British Guiana was constituted in 1831, the century
which followed was a period of consolidation for
coastal settlement and plantation production. The
coastal environment became increasingly anthropomorphised with the construction of the East and
West Demerara Water Conservancies in the 1840s to
provide irrigation water and ¯ood control for the
coastal plantations (Fig. 1). Until 1941 ¯ood protection
was a private responsibility, and there were great disparities in the capacity of private land-owners to provide for this. Independent villages founded by
emancipated Africans from 1839, and by ex-indentured
Indian, Chinese and Portuguese migrants from 1873
were most at risk (Rodney, 1981; Baber and Je€rey,
1986; Lakhan, 1994; Williams, 1997). Social control in
this period was based on a local variant of the British
doctrine of Ôdivide and ruleÕ, in which di€erent ethnic
groups were a€orded legally de®ned privileges control-
251
ling access to di€erent economic sectors. Williams
(1991) argues that the roots of contemporary ethnic
tensions can be traced back to this period.
It was during the colonial period that Georgetown
emerged as the capital city and one with high vulnerability to ¯ood risk. Despite some major public and
private investments Georgetown su€ered from large
scale ¯ooding in 1855 and 1872 (Latchmansingh, 1994).
As GeorgetownÕs population grew so did the health
risk and sanitation schemes for Georgetown were
proposed as early as 1854, however it was only in 1924
that work on an urban sewerage system was commenced. The delay in public spending contrasts with
other South American cities in which municipal water
utilities were established in the second half of the
nineteenth century. This can be explained by the peripheral status of the Caribbean territories within the
British Empire at this time, also more locally by political domination of the planter class over any urban
bourgeois class, and the economic crisis from 1883 to
1902 brought about by competition from European
sugar beet producers.
In 1966 Guyana gained independence, though in the
process a once ethnically united independence movement was fractured in two: the PeopleÕs Progressive
Party (PPP) with rural and Indo-Guyanese support, and
the PeopleÕs National Congress (PNC) with a more urban and largely Afro-Guyanese constituency. The PNC
remained in power from 1966 until 1992 with a single
leader, Forbes Burnham, until his death in 1985. The
Burnham era of so-called Ôco-operative socialismÕ was
characterised by electoral fraud and political violence
Fig. 1. A Sketchmap of the Guyanese coastal plain.
252
M. Pelling / Geoforum 30 (1999) 249±261
creating a de facto one party state which became
increasingly isolated internationally. By the 1980s political closure, suppression of civil society, under-development of the private sector, co-option of the labour
and womenÕs movements and political rent seeking on a
grand scale were being translated into economic crisis
and outmigration. This culminated in the withdrawal of
World Bank/International Monetary Fund recognition
in 1982.
Over this period poverty and vulnerability became
increasingly widespread, and risk grew with a reactive
strategy in ¯ood control of Ôcrisis managementÕ (Camacho, 1988). The rural areas, predominantly settled by the
Indo-Guyanese were most at risk with large areas of
cultivable land becoming salinated or eroded. Although
a secure sea-wall was built to protect Georgetown
shortly after independence, the city's inhabitants received little more support than in rural areas (Halcrow,
1994b).
With the death of Burnham in 1985, leadership of the
PNC transferred to Desmond Hoyte. Responding to
local and international pressures, Hoyte embarked upon
a project of liberalisation, privatisation and democratisation with the International Monetary Fund renegotiating a structural adjustment programme (SAP) with
Guyana in the late 1980s (Ferguson, 1995). Free elections held in 1992 and 1996 were won by the PPP,
however to a large extent broad policy for this period to
the present day is shaped by requirements of the SAP
(Grith, 1997). Indeed throughout the 1990s real
earnings have declined hitting hardest in the urban
centres and amongst the Afro-Guyanese community
many of whom have been retrenched from down-sizing
in the public sector. Consequently, Georgetown has resurfaced as a centre of extreme vulnerability to coastal
¯ood hazard.
Associated with the SAP is the creation of a ÔparticipatoryÕ or community sponsored development programme. For local communities it provides a second
route of resource distribution in parallel with government line ministries and local government. The funds
are targeted for projects which have been proposed by
ocially recognised community groups, which, as a
response have also risen greatly in number since 1990.
There is, however, some considerable doubt over the
meaningfulness of the participation associated with
this programme, so that notwithstanding super®cial
decentralisation in decision-making, deeper structures
of political patronage and information asymmetries
continue to in¯uence the distribution of resources between and within communities and so to a€ect the
production of vulnerability to ¯ood hazard (Pelling,
1998b).
Despite the continuing vulnerability of this coast to
¯ood hazard, at the time of this study there remained no
organised disaster response mechanism. Spring high tide
warnings posted in the national press and state radio
constitute the only disaster preparedness programme. A
National Relief Commission, the Guyana Red Cross,
the Salvation Army and the Social Impact Amelioration
Project have all been active in providing relief aid, but
there is no established co-ordinating unit for disaster
preparedness, relief or post disaster planning. No independent assessment of the methods used for identifying
bene®ciaries of disaster relief or of the appropriateness
of this relief and extent of post disaster planning has
been made (Swedeplan, 1995).
4. Contemporary vulnerabilities in the urban environment
The historical review above demonstrates the key role
played by political power in the shaping of vulnerabilities. This position is supported below by a ®eld study
examination of the contemporary geography of vulnerability. The study looked at two sample areas in which
¯ood risk, exposure, vulnerability and impact were assessed. Both areas, one urban and one peri-urban, fall
within the hydrological regime of the East Demerara
Water Conservancy and are considered to be at high risk
from ¯ooding (Halcrow, 1994b; Pelling, 1996). The periurban case study of 569 households was drawn from six
neighbourhoods in a village on the coast some 16 km
east of the capital, the urban study of 240 households
was drawn from four neighbourhoods in Greater
Georgetown.
At present, with the exception of Georgetown, the
east Demerara coast is poorly defended against coastal
erosion (DHV, 1992; World Bank, 1993). Sea-defences
are under most pressure between October and March
when spring high tides coincide with afternoon onshore winds. The coastline to the north-east of
Georgetown has experienced great change since settlement in the mid 1700s with two estates being lost before the present seawall was constructed in the
twentieth century (James, 1920). More recently,
Singhroy (1997) shows coastal retreat along the coast
by comparing photographic images of the coast from
1972 and 1992.
Rainfall and land-drainage are additional sources of
¯ood hazard on the coastal plain. There are two wet
seasons (May±July and November±January) with mean
annual precipitation of 2500 mm at Georgetown
(NEDECO, 1972). Numerous small rivers (discharge
250±1000 m3 /s) enter the coastal plain at which point
many of their waters are captured by the East Demerara Water Conservancy which acts as a ¯ood
control reservoir. Overland drainage is facilitated by a
gravity system of drainage and irrigation (D and I)
canals running from the water conservancy dam to
ÔclokersÕ at the sea or river defenses many of which are
only open to discharge for 7±14 h in 24. Settlements
M. Pelling / Geoforum 30 (1999) 249±261
253
have residential drainage systems which are integrated
with the main drainage canals. The East Demerara
Water Conservancy dam and much of the major D
and I infrastructure and has su€ered from inadequate
maintenance resulting in overtopping, the threat of
dam breaching (Camacho, 1994), and a reduction in
the capacity of the drainage system to store or discharge ¯ood waters. Highest ¯ood risk is experienced
adjacent to the sea-wall where threat of overtopping
and sea-wall breaches coincides with the run-o€ accumulation. Throughout the coastal plain most residential land-use is located in this zone of maximum
hazard.
5. The peri-urban study
The Social Impact and Amelioration Programme
(SIMAP) identi®ed 18 villages with a total population of
26,673 in immediate need of improved residential
drainage to prevent run-o€ ¯ooding (1991). No formal
data exists on ¯ood frequency, between February 1990
and June 1996 seven events were reported in the press.
In these cases direct economic losses incurred by pettyagriculturists were estimated to be around US$1000 to
US$50,000 per village (Pelling, 1996).
In the peri-urban study households were at risk from
everyday ¯ood events as a result of rainwater or irrigation water accumulating behind the sea-wall and
over¯owing drainage canals during high tide when
gravity drainage was inoperable, and from sea-wall
overtopping; and also from higher magnitude, episodic
events due to high rainfall or sea-wall breaches. At the
time of the study, the most recent episodic event to
impact directly upon this community was a sea-wall
breach in 1993 which was linked to two mortalities from
typhoid. The presence of this risk is also shown in
comparatively high values for costs of opportunities
lost, around one quarter of respondents had given up
petty-agriculture because of the threat of ¯ooding. In a
similar fashion to ChamberÕs ratchet e€ect of vulnerability, reducing livelihood options narrows scope for
responding to external economic pressures and so increases household vulnerability overall. The locations of
the neighbourhoods are shown in Fig. 2 and their
characteristics in Table 1.
5.1. Observed vulnerabilities
Whilst high income was associated with greater security (home ownership, dwelling security, less household density) it was also linked to higher incidences
of ¯ood losses (75% of households with less than
G$30,000/month; and 82% of households with more
than G$30,000/month su€ered direct economic losses).
Fig. 2. A Sketchmap of the Peri-Urban samples.
However, in absolute terms it is likely that higher income households were more able to absorb such losses
than lower-income households.
A clearer indicator in the peri-urban analysis was
household tenure. Renter households tended not to live
in adapted dwellings (64%, compared to 80% of owners
and 87% of squatters) or to take part in communal
action to improve the local environment (9%, compared to 14% of owners and 23% of squatters) and so
became vulnerable to ¯ood risk. Owners had most access to septic tanks (11%, compared to 4% of renters
and 0% of squatters), though throughout the village pit
latrines were the usual form of sanitation so that individual household security to the health impacts of
¯ooding is unlikely to have been greatly enhanced.
Squatter households were the most vulnerable group
with many squatters having little access to economic
resources and through living in overcrowded households and neighbourhoods lacking sanitary infrastructure. Some security had been gained by individual
adaptation through raising dwellings and opportunities
to mobilise social assets shown by the high proportion
of respondents with relatives also living in the village
(72%, compare to 66% of renters and 67% of owners)
and participation in community action. As Fig. 2
shows, many squatters also lived in a site away from
the sea-wall with lower risk of ¯ooding. Hence, locational assets, coupled with individual and collective
adaptive action reduced risk of ¯ooding in this highly
vulnerable group.
Households in this predominantly Indo-Guyanese
peri-urban village with female or male/joint headship
showed very similar patterns of vulnerability, risk and
¯ood impact. Female headed households were di€erentiated only by a lower likelihood of participation in
community based action (9%, compared to 25% of male/
joint households) and by a lower proportion of respon-
254
M. Pelling / Geoforum 30 (1999) 249±261
Table 1
Neighbourhood characteristics
Neighbourhood
Characteristics
Plaisance south
Plaisance north
Plaisance pasture
Towler town
Bellview
Charity
Core settlement, middle income, low ¯ood risk, council representation.
Middle/low income, high ¯ood risk, council and community group representation.
Low income, many petty-agriculturalists, high ¯ood risk, council and community group representation.
Low income, squatter settlement, very high ¯ood risk, no political representation or community organisation.
Low income, squatter settlement, medium ¯ood risk, informal community representation.
Low income, re-settlement from Towler Town, medium ¯ood risk, informal community representation.
dents with relatives living in the village (66%, compared
to 73% of male/joint households), both indicating that
social isolation was experienced by this group.
6. The Georgetown study
Georgetown is protected from seawater intrusion
but remains at risk from run-o€ accumulation. Since
no recent change in annual rainfall patterns have been
noted (Kemp, 1993, 1994), the observed increase in
¯ooding has been associated with a range of human
processes. Impervious areas within Georgetown increased by 50% between 1963 and 1993, raising the
volume of run-o€ channeled through GeorgetownÕs
drainage system. At the same time, drainage capacity
has been reduced due to the in®lling of drains, inadequate maintenance of existing drainage, the use of
drains for informal refuse disposal and the use of
drainage reserves for informal housing and petty-agriculture. Since 1989 uncontrolled urban expansion
into unserviced areas has similarly increased city vulnerability to ¯ooding from high rainfall events (Halcrow, 1994a). Sea-level rise will further reduce the
eciency of the cityÕs gravity drainage (Camacho,
1994; Swedeplan, 1995) and may induce a rise in
ground-water level. Climate change adds further uncertainty to hydraulic systems, with global warming
being associated with increased precipitation (Fowler
and Hennessy, 1995). The locations of the four study
areas are shown in Table 2 and their locations in Fig.
3. All sites were classi®ed as being at high risk of
¯ooding (Halcrow, 1994b) despite their varied char-
acteristics which were derived from 1991 census data
and ®eld observation.
6.1. Observed vulnerabilities
The ®rst records for Georgetown (Stabroek) in 1781
put the population at 780, this increased to 8810 in 1820;
48,828 in 1911 and peaked at 174,000 in 1980. Since then
population has stagnated which places Georgetown in
the unusual position of being a city su€ering from environmental hazard and economic hardship but without
the high rates of population growth with which such
conditions are usually associated (Chan and Parker,
1996). In this case it is a failure in service provision rather
than increased demand that has led to a worsening of
environmental quality and increased environmental
hazard. This is demonstrated by high infant mortality
rates, estimated to be 70/1000 in under one-year olds and
73/1000 in children under ®ve years of age. Intestinal
infectious diseases, which can be attributed to GeorgetownÕs deteriorated environment account for about 25%
of recorded infant deaths (PAHO/WHO, 1993).
Several localised ¯oods occur in Georgetown each
year with press reports mentioning 21 between January
1990 and June 1996 (Pelling, 1997), and it has been estimated that 30% of GeorgetownÕs population su€er
¯ooding at least once a year (Halcrow, 1994a). Because
¯ooding was imposed upon a largely pre-existing urban
structure, all social classes and urban environments had
become potentially vulnerable to ¯ood hazard and its
impacts. Following 153 mm of rain recorded over 24 h
on 12 November 1995 a ¯ood impact assessment was
undertaken (Pelling, 1997).
Table 2
Neighbourhood characteristics
Neighbourhood
Characteristic
Wortmanville
West Ruinveldt
West Sophia
Inner-city, low income, limited service provision, no community organisation.
Suburban, low income, very limited service provision, no community organisation.
Suburban, squatter settlement with many dwellings less than 5 years old, mixed income, no service provision,
community organisation.
Suburban, high income, limited service provision, community organisation.
Bel Air Park
M. Pelling / Geoforum 30 (1999) 249±261
255
Fig. 3. Urban neighbourhoods and ¯ood risk, Georgetown. Redrawn from Halcrow (1994b), Fig. 3. `Areas a€ected by improper drainage',
Georgetown Water and Sewerage Masterplan Part IV ± Primary Drainage System, Volume 1, Existing Services.
A high proportion of low-income households lived in
squatter dwellings (35%, compared to 18% of households with incomes above G$30,000/month) and used
pit latrines (47%, compared to 22% of households with
incomes above G$30,000/month), they were more often
headed by women (35%, compared to 16% of households with incomes above G$30,000/month), but more
active in community based action (34%, compared with
25% of households with incomes above G$30,000/
month) than higher income households. This group recorded a high proportion of ¯ooded dwellings (30%,
compare to 21% of households with incomes above
G$30,000/month), but a similar pattern of impacts
compared to the higher income group.
Household tenure revealed a continuum of increasing
vulnerability from owners through renters to squatters
based upon reported access to economic and infrastructural resources. However, the urban squatter group
had reduced risk by engaging in household adaptation
(66%, compared to 48% of owners and 28% of renters)
and participation in community action (49%, compared
to 20% of renters and 7% of owners) to enhance local
environmental conditions. It is perhaps partly because
of this communal action that the squatter community
included in this study did not ¯ood on 12 November.
There was little di€erence between renters and owners in
the likelihood of ¯ooding or su€ering direct economic
losses or health impacts.
Female headed households in the mixed Indo- and
Afro-Guyanese urban samples were marked by their low
access to economic resources (25% had incomes above G
dollars 30,000/month, compared to 48% for male/joint
headed households). Rental accommodation was the
most common form of tenure which in part explains
why individual dwelling adaptation was low (33% had
yard or dwellings raised, compared to 43% of male/joint
headed households). In contrast to the peri-urban sample, urban women headed households were, however,
active in community based action (20%, compare to 13%
of male/joint households).
Further analysis at the neighbourhood level found
that high income households (for example, in Bel Air
256
M. Pelling / Geoforum 30 (1999) 249±261
Park) were exposed to ¯ooding but had been able to
manage vulnerabilities to some extent through the
transfer of ¯ood impacts from health to economic investment and loss. Similar avoidance of ¯ood impacts
(though from a very vulnerable base) was identi®ed for
low-income households living in recently constructed
self-help dwellings (West Sophia) who had responded to
contemporary environmental conditions and so reduced
individual vulnerabilities. Such ¯exibility was not encountered in formal housing areas within the urban or
peri-urban studies where dwelling form and drainage
infrastructure were more ®xed and responsibility for
living environments was less clear, being shared between
house owners, landlords, tenants and municipal authorities.
Tenure was a key indicator of vulnerability at the
aggregate level, with squatters showing the highest vulnerability to ¯ood impacts, although risk of ¯ooding
was reduced in this group. In Guyana squatting has
been historically a rural or peri-urban phenomena.
However, the proportion of households living in
squatter dwellings in urban Georgetown has grown at
an increasing rate throughout the 1990s, from 1 household/1000 in 1980; to, 35 households/1000 in 1990; and
70 households/1000 in 1995 (Pelling, 1992; Payne, 1996).
Despite some individual and communal success at risk
management, squatter households displayed very high
vulnerability to potential ¯ood impacts. The continuing
shortfall in formal public and private housing provision
clearly represents a major environmental problem in
Georgetown.
Some 25% of the households in Region 4 are headed
by women (IICA/FAD, 1994) and women are known to
be disproportionately a€ected by inadequate infrastructure since their labour time is increased by having
to acquire water or dispose of waste (Peake, 1993).
Furthermore, women are made vulnerable to the loss of
economic and social assets following divorce or separation from long-term partners. Legal protection is
available, but those women most in need of support ±
those with least assets ± are likely to be those least aware
of their legal rights or are those most alienated from the
legal system (Trotz, 1995). Household data also indicated that even within long-term unions, some women
were prevented from active participation in community
organisation, thus increasing the marginalisation of
women and reducing the representativeness of community organisation. This study also highlighted the importance of ethnicity in the production of vulnerability
in female headed households.
The aggregated results are somewhat limited in that
they masked the negotiation of asset accumulation and
expenditure which took place within individual households, and the complexity of decisions to be made by
households weighing up risks from social and economic,
as well as environmental hazard. In particular, social
assets were important for managing vulnerabilities
within low-income and squatter groups. However, it
was amongst these groups, that social resources were
least developed outside the family or household with
households preferring to invest social capital in the
household or family. It is to a discussion of the role
played social assets, and of the interaction between
households, public agents and community organisations
in the distribution of information and resources and
hence in the reproduction of vulnerability that we now
turn.
7. Power, resistance and vulnerability
For a democratic polity to function meaningfully it
requires political competition and popular participation. Neither of these conditions are met in the Guyanese case. Despite the apparently far-reaching
political and economic reforms made in Guyana in the
1980s and 1990s, decision-making power continues to
be held centrally by national political elites that draw
upon racially de®ned constituencies. The racial bias in
voting patterns together with the demographic structure of the electorate and the current electoral system
undermine meaningful political competition. Similarly,
whilst popular participation is often lauded in policy
documentation and political rhetoric it is less easy
to identify in the structures of everyday decisionmaking.
The participatory model supported by the international donor agencies was the most conspicuous
mechanism for participation in decision-making for
environmental management. It had been principally
applied in peri-urban settlements. Because of an ongoing
IDB Urban Rehabilitation Programme funding agencies
were reluctant to fund urban based projects.
In the peri-urban communities grassroots participation in decision-making through this model was seen to
have been undermined from initiation by the top-down
construction of ÔcommunityÕ groups in which leaders
and members were self-selecting from within established elite groups. In this local political environment
the new Ôcommunity leadersÕ were closely associated
with local government e€ecting the co-option of community organisation by political elites at the local level.
In this way local elites were able to retain local decision-making power and control over (and possibly rent
from) environmental rehabilitation projects (Pelling,
1998b).
As with the peri-urban groups, it was common for
community group leaders in the urban sample to have
direct links with political parties. Indeed, there was evidence of political activists being a dominant force in
social organising at the grassroots level in Georgetown
(UNDP, 1995), though these groups were presented as
M. Pelling / Geoforum 30 (1999) 249±261
community based rather than branch groups of political
parties. This brings into question the extent to which the
aims of the political activists and the community can be
reconciled, and the contradictory nature of leadership
which lies at the heart of leadership/community relations
in both urban and peri-urban communities (Pelling,
1998b).
In the majority of urban and peri-urban neighbourhoods respondents acknowledged that the aims of local
leaders dominated the wider interests of the host community, and that the community advocate role of leaders was often left unful®lled. A prime example of this
con¯ict of interest is seen in one peri-urban leader whose
®rst project was to re-surface an access road to his
property and workplace. However, for communities
with insucient economic resources to access goods and
services from the private sector, leadership with political
contact or even political aliation was likely to be the
best means of accessing external support of any kind,
whilst minimising risk taking and resource expenditure
for the individual household. As has been found elsewhere (Desai, 1995), patronage can be a useful resource
for marginalised and otherwise excluded groups to access decision-making power.
The problematic nature of the present system of
environmental management was demonstrated further
by community ÔresistanceÕ (Scott, 1985, 1990) to the
form of community participation operationalised in
Guyana. Public forms of resistance were uncommon
but had been observed; Plaisance North formed its
own Ôlocal community groupÕ with the hope of dislodging an imposed Ôcommunity groupÕ which was
controlled by a senior local government member, and
in Plaisance Pasture a letter was sent to the national
press openly criticising the disbursement of community
funds within the local authority area. Resistance to
structures of political authority can also be read into
the high non-payment of local government property
rates 33% in Georgetown, 1992 and also in the increasing reluctance for grassroots actors to volunteer
labour or resources for ÔparticipatoryÕ development
works. The contradictory relationship between leaders
and community is best shown here, with one leader
responding to low community participation rates by
suggesting his perceived role of directing local environmental rehabilitation schemes would be made more
e€ective if the requirement for active community support for projects was dropped from funding agency
requirements.
A further, concealed, but direct, expression of resistance came from respondents during questionnaire interviews. Although supportive of, or ambivalent
towards community leadership during formal questionnaire interviews, during more informal conversations
distrust of leadership and feelings of exclusion from the
decision-making process which was felt to have been
257
captured by the local political/economic elite were
commonly expressed.
Resistance was accompanied by withdrawal from
community action and a retreat into the household or
family. Withdrawal needs to be seen in the context of
recent Guyanese political history which promoted a
tendency for grassroots actors to be dependent upon
socially or spatially external agents for local environmental decision-making. It also re¯ects contemporary
risk aversion and a wariness of, and uncertainty in, the
social and economic costs and bene®ts that participation
might bring to an individual or community. In hazard
management withdrawal was best seen in a preference
for household centred adaptation (raising yards or
modifying dwellings) over communal action (drain
cleaning, garbage collection) which took place despite
the greater security gains to be made from communal
action.
Guyanese society, and in particular the status of local
ÔconstructiveÕ social capital (social networks underpinned by cultural norms that promote horizontal integration and inclusivity with accountability to the wider
community), continued to be deeply in¯uenced by the
legacy of the centralised and oppressive political regime
of the 1970s and 1980s, which eroded civil society to its
most basic elements of social organisation (the household and family). The suppression of the private sector
and civil society over this period put the public sector
and hence political decision-makers centre stage in the
distribution of resources for environmental management. Restructuring decision-making networks to enhance grassroots participation has, therefore, to
overcome both a withdrawal of civil society and an entrenched (and adaptive) political elite. With this in mind,
it is not surprising that the super®cial and quick ®x
approaches to the ÔconstructionÕ (Evans, 1996) of bene®cial social capital which have been employed in the
present ÔparticipatoryÕ mechanisms have failed to make
decision-making more inclusive, to empower grassroots
actors or to strengthen horizontal social linkages between grassroots actors.
In both studies it was those neighbourhoods characterised by high vulnerability to ¯ooding (low-income,
agricultural livelihoods, rental and squatter households,
inadequate physical infrastructure) where leadership
from community based organisations or patronage
based local authority representation was most absent
(Tables 1 and 2). Even within those peri-urban neighbourhoods with formally recognised community organisations, vulnerable individuals (low-income
householders, renters, petty-agriculturalists, femaleheaded households, the young and old) were excluded
from the decision-making networks which were composed of house owning businessmen with relatively
high socio-economic status. Earlier studies have found
a similar disjuncture between the characteristics of a
258
M. Pelling / Geoforum 30 (1999) 249±261
heterogeneous community and its homogeneous and
exclusive leadership (Verba, 1978; Desai, 1995). In this
way, the community sponsored development of the
donor agencies can be seen to have been subject to cooptation by an entrenched and politicised elite which
was able to adapt to changing mechanisms of resources
disbursement and so resist challenges to its control over
local resource expenditure decision-making. The most
vulnerable communities were not served by this system.
Neither the self-help nor the empowerment that might
have provided bases for social development and the
strengthening of local social capital as precursors for
more representative community organisation were apparent, and consequently an e€ective mechanism for
the distribution of development resources to reduce
vulnerability was lost (Pelling, 1998b). In addition, the
local knowledge held by the most vulnerable groups
was not brought into the project process.
Despite a contrasting structure of local governance
and a di€erent set of political actors, very similar
problems were identi®ed in the Georgetown study:
structural resource scarcity and inecient management
in the public sector undermined e€orts to bring decisionmaking closer to the local level (decentralisation and
democratisation), and the historic marginalisation
and ongoing underdevelopment of the private sector
and civil society prevented a mixed framework for resource distribution of public, private and civil society
mechanisms from evolving. Here, politicisation was not
only a characteristic of emerging grassroots organisation
(UNDP, 1995), but also of relations between di€erent
scales of government bureaucracy (Guyana Review,
1997), and in this sense ¯ooding and vulnerability were
outcomes of a political discourse as well as environmental change.
In both case studies, community based organisations
re¯ected the partisan political landscape of Guyana.
Horizontal linkages between grassroots actors remained
undeveloped, and may even have been weakened by
recent participatory projects (NDI, 1995), and vertical
linkages were underdeveloped or had been incorporated
into systems of patronage. It is this legacy which allowed the capture of community leadership by political
elites in the peri-urban case, and explains the preference
expressed, in particular by squatter groups, in
Georgetown to make alliances with the dominant political party of the day. There remains a gap between
the lowest levels of government (municipal, local) and
host communities, and similarly in Georgetown a gap
between the municipal authority and the national government. The size of these gaps allowed inecient
governance to operate, and opened resource distribution for environmental management to rent seeking and
partisan political in¯uence (van der Linden, 1997). This
shaped the distribution of environmental infrastructure
and services and allowed political power to produce
distorted geographies of neighbourhood vulnerability to
¯ood hazard.
8. Political ecology and hazards revisited
Hazard analysis typically looks retrospectively at
social relations in the context of a single event, justifying this because of the extreme magnitude of the
physical or human impacts. This study took a somewhat di€erent approach, conceiving of ¯ood hazard as
an ongoing, everyday state in which extreme, episodic
¯ood events were embedded. This made the process of
vulnerability more visible. Because societies in the
South are experiencing rapidly changing socio-economic and political in¯uences (e.g. structural adjustment, democratisation and war), it is the processes by
which individuals and collective groups are made vulnerable, rather than the explicit vulnerabilities themselves which will be of most bene®t in formulating
mitigation strategies.
It should be noted that environmental hazard provided opportunities as well as constraints for those affected. The focus of this study was on providing an
analysis of the distribution of constraints imposed upon
human activity through ¯ood hazard. But there were
bene®ciaries of ¯ood hazard. In particular, ¯ooding and
more importantly the resources it attracted, were a potential source of rents for institutions at the national and
local level, as well as for individuals and private sector
entrepreneurs. Amongst the private sector many petty or
informal workers occupied the service provision roles
abdicated by the state, and bene®ted ®nancially as labourers contracted to raise yards, clear drains, collect
garbage or sell drinking water. However, the underdevelopment of the private sector meant that most entrepreneurial activity in this sector was informal so that in
contrast to the Ôwater speculatorsÕ of Guayaquil
(Swyngedouw, 1995) the gains made by petty-capitalists
were modest and not sucient to raise these individuals
out of poverty. Rather, it was the local and national
political and economic elites that had the most to gain
from the present institutional framework for resource
distribution.
Despite a rhetoric of participation and inclusivity,
managerialist perspectives of society/environment relations dominated decision-making discourse. This was
seen in the ÔblamingÕ of popular, informal social institutions (cultures, norms and practices) for local, though
widespread, environmental degradation. Labelling of
the poor and politically voiceless has parallels with
early research in rural political ecology where, for example, it was at the grassroots level, in this case peasant
farmers, that blame was ®rst placed for soil loss in the
Sahel. More recent work (Blaikie and Brook®eld, 1987;
Leach and Mearns, 1996) has reconstructed conceptu-
M. Pelling / Geoforum 30 (1999) 249±261
alisations of environmental change, placing more emphasis on the reasons for practices resulting in soil loss,
and indeed questioning that soil loss has been occurring
at all. That the practices of the impoverished can be
straightforwardly linked to degraded environments (in
which the poor must live) continues to linger in constructions of urban socio-environmental relations.
Here, Ôbad citizensÕ are blamed directly for dumping of
garbage and waste into drainage canals, for failing to
enter into the Ôpublic spiritÕ of municipal city cleaning
days, of contaminating canals with human and household waste, of allowing cattle to roam the city and for
creating their own vulnerability (and societal costs
through health care or eviction expenditure) by colonising seawall or canal reserves for informal housing.
In this way the structural problems underlying individual acts are overlooked and proximate causes of
vulnerability and risk too easily become the core concern of management discourse.
9. Conclusion
Political ecology puts explanatory emphasis on political power and social organisation in the shaping of
the ÔnaturalÕ environment, and encourages an historical
examination of the processes that produce geographies
of environmental and social distress. At ®rst glance the
built environment appears to fall outside of such a
conceptualisation, with ÔnaturalÕ processes being apparently subjugated by human agency. However, the
domination of nature, even in cities, is only partial.
Cities are constrained, for example, by their lack of
capacity to manage water and air resources and cope
with the production of waste. At times, and in places of
social vulnerability these constraints can manifest as
environmental hazard.
The development history of Guyana shows the in¯uence of local agency, as well as of dynamic pressures
in the core regions of the global political-economy, for
shaping society/nature relations and experiences of environmental hazard. Within Guyana these pressures
manifest as local conditions which characterise vulnerability to urban ¯ood hazard, they include: reduced
access to economic assets for the poor majority, inadequacy in infrastructure provision, the gendered and
ethnic nature of social systems, partisan politics and an
underdeveloped civil society. Those social groups most
likely to experience vulnerability were found to be: lowincome households, renters, squatters, female-headed
households, the young, the old and the in®rm. However
between urban and peri-urban households, vulnerability
was found to be di€erentially constructed according to
livelihood, the cultural norms of di€erent ethnic groupsespecially in relation to female participation in the labour market and community activities, and the mecha-
259
nisms of infrastructure provision. Consequently in the
urban sample it was inner-city residents using bottom
houses that endured greatest vulnerability, whilst in the
peri-urban sample petty-agriculturalists were most at
risk.
Whilst global pressures may be outside the scope of
national planning, the political-ecology approach has
allowed social capital and institutional organisation to
emerge as important local elements in shaping the distribution of assets and hence the production of geographies of vulnerability in urban Guyana. Weaknesses in
these elements of the political-economy point towards
the need for reform in the institutional framework
within which decision-making for environmental management is conducted. This may best be achieved from a
polycentric or Ômulti-institutionalÕ perspective which recognises the value of public, private and civil society
involvement in the provision of goods and services. In
this way, reducing urban vulnerability will not be tackled in isolation but as part of the broader development
process.
Acknowledgements
Funding for this research was provided within the
Global Environmental Change Programme of the Economic and Social Research Council.
References
Abernethy, C.L., 1980. Guyana Coast: Recommendations for a Future
Sea Defence Strategy, Report OD 30, Hydraulics Research Station,
Wallingford.
Allersma, E., 1990. The Savage Coast of Guyana. In: Schroder, P.C.
(Ed.), Sea-Level Rise: A Selective Retrospective, Delft Hydraulics,
The Netherlands.
Baber, C., Je€rey, H.B., 1986. Guyana: politics economics and society:
Beyond the Burnham era, Pinter, London.
Blaikie, P.M., Brook®eld, H. 1987. Land Degradation and Society,
Longman, London.
Blaikie, P.M., Cannon, T., Davis, I., Wisner, B. 1994. At Risk: Natural
Hazards, Peoples Vulnerability and Disasters, Routledge, London.
Bryant, R.L., 1998. Power, knowledge and political ecology in the third
world: a review. Progress in Physical Geography 22 (1), 79±94.
Bynoe, M.L. 1996. Managing the mangroves. In: Guyana Review 38,
26±29.
Camacho, F., 1988. The Implications of Sea Level Rise For the
Coastlands of Guyana, Camacho Environmental Consultants,
Devizes, UK.
Camacho, R.F., 1994. Policy and Environmental Aspects of Water
Control Schemes, Camacho Environmental Consultants, Devizes,
UK.
Chambers, R., 1995. Poverty and livelihoods whose reality counts.
Environment and Urbanisation 7 (l), l73±204.
Chan, N.W., Parker, D.J., 1996. Response to dynamic ¯ood hazard
factors in peninsular Malaysia. The Geographical Journal 162 (3),
313±325.
Colchester, M., 1997. Guyana, fragile frontier: Loggers, miners and
forest peoples, Latin American Bureau, London.
260
M. Pelling / Geoforum 30 (1999) 249±261
Daly, V.T., 1974. The Making of Guyana, Macmillan Caribbean,
London.
Desai, V., 1995. Community Participation and Slum Housing: a study
of Bombay, Sage, London.
Devereaux, S., 1993. Theories of Famine, Harvester Wheatsheaf,
Hemel Hemstead.
DHV Environment and Infrastructure (DHV), 1992. Report on
Morphological Aspects, Ministry of Finance, Government of
Guyana.
Dreze, J., Sen, A., 1991. Public Action for Social Security: Foundations and Strategy, In: Ahmed, E., Dreze, J., Hills, J., Sen, A.
(Eds.), Social Security in Developing Countries, Clarendon,
Oxford.
Evans, P., 1996. Development strategies across the public±private
divide. World Development 24 (6).
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), 1990. Restoration and
Expansion of the Mangrove Belt in Guyana, TCP/GUY/8953,
United Nations, Guyana.
Ferguson, T., 1995. Structural adjustment and good governance: the
case of Guyana, Guyana National Printers, Guyana.
Fowler, A.M., Hennessy, K.J., 1995. Potential impacts of global
warming on the frequency and magnitude of heavy precipitation.
Natural Hazards 11, 283±303.
Glasgow, R.A., 1970. Guyana: Race and Politics Among Africans and
East Indians, Martinus Nijo€, The Hague.
Grith, I.L., 1997. Political change democracy, and human rights in
Guyana. Third World Quarterly 18 (2), 267±285.
Grove-White, R., 1996. Environmental knowledge and public policy
needs: on humanising the research agenda. In: Lash, S., Szerszynski, B. Wynn, B. (Eds.), Risk, Environment and Modernity:
Towards a New Ecology, Sage, London.
Guyana Review January, 1997. Capital Punishment, 17±18.
Sir William Halcrow and Partners plc. Halcrow, 1994a. Household
Surveys, Georgetown Water and Sewerage Master Plan, TN/GMP/
09, Burdrop Park, Swindon.
Sir William Halcrow and Partners plc. Halcrow, 1994b. Sewerage
System Report, Georgetown Water and Sewerage Master Plan,
Part III, Volume I, Burdrop Park, Swindon.
Inter-American Institute for Co-operation on Agriculture/International Fund for Agricultural Development (IICA/IFAD), 1994. Results
of Socio-Economic Survey in Coastal Areas of Guyana, IICA,
Guyana.
James, R., 1920. The Story of Georgetown, The Argosy Company,
Georgetown, Guyana.
Kemp, S., 1993. A Statistical Analysis of Georgetown Rainfall: a
proportionate approach, Ministry of Agriculture, Guyana.
Kemp, S., 1994. Observed Climate Trends in Guyana, paper presented
at the Climate Change Conference, 12 September 1994, Ministry of
Agriculture, Guyana.
Lakhan, V.C., 1994. Planning and Development Experiences in the
Coastal Zone of Guyana. Ocean and Coastal Management 22,
169±186.
Latchmansingh, 1994. Sea Defence Construction in Guyana: Models
Adopted and Diculties Experienced, Caribbean Engineering and
Management Consultants, Guyana.
Leach, M., Mearns, R., 1996. The Lie of the Land, James Currey,
London.
Moser, C., Gauhurst, M., Gonan, H., 1994. Urban Poverty Research
Sourcebook, Module II: sub-city level research, World Bank,
Washington DC van der Linden, J. 1997. On Popular Participation
in a Culture of Patronage: Patrons and grassroots organisations in
a sites and services project in Hyderbad, Environment and
Urbanisation, 9 (1), 81±90.
National Democratic Institute (NDI), 1995. Local Democracy in
Guyana, Georgetown, Guyana.
Netherlands Engineering Consultants (NEDECO), 1972. Report on
Sea Defence Studies, Netherlands Engineering Consultants, The
Hague.
O'Keefe, P., Westgate, K., Wisner, B., 1976. Taking the naturalness
out of natural disasters. Nature 260, 566±567.
Pan American Health Organisation/World health Organisation
(PAHO/WHO), 1993. Health in the Americas: Guyana, WHO,
Washington DC.
Payne, G., 1996. Shelter Sector Diagnositc Guyana, Inter-American
Development Bank, Guyana.
Peake, L., 1993. The development and role of womenÕs political
organisations in Guyana. In: Momsen, J.H. (Ed.) Women and
change in the Caribbean, London, James Currey.
Peet, R., Watts, M. (Eds.), 1996. Liberation Ecology: Environment,
Development, Social Movements. Routledge, London.
Pelling, M., 1992. Housing Strategies Employed by Lower-Income
groups in Greater Georgetown, Guyana, occasional paper, Department of Geography, University of Guyana.
Pelling, M., 1996. Coastal ¯ood hazard in Guyana: environmental and
economic root causes. Caribbean Geography 7 (1), 3±22.
Pelling, M., 1997. What Determines vulnerability to ¯oods: a case
study in Georgetown, Guyana. In: Environment and Urbanisation,
9 (1), 203±226.
Pelling, M., 1998a. Social Power, Politics and vulnerability in
globalising societies: experiences from the urban South, paper
presented at the Workshop on Sustainability, Globalisation and
Hazard, Middlesex University, 20±22 May.
Pelling, M., 1998b. Participation, social capital and vulnerability to
urban ¯ooding in Guyana. J. International Development 10, 469±
486.
Pugh, C. (ed.), 1996. Sustainability, the Environment and Urbanisation. Earthscan, London.
Rodney, W., 1981. A history of the Guyanese working people, 1881±
1905, John Hopkins University Press, London.
Scott, J.C., 1985. Weapons of the weak: everyday forms of peasant
resistance, Yale University Press, London.
Scott, J.C., 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: hidden
transcripts, Yale University Press, London.
Sen, A., 1981. Famines and Poverty, Oxford University Press, London.
Singhroy, V., 1997. Interpretation of SAR images for coastal zone
mapping in Guyana. In: Williams, P.E., Parry, J.T., Eden, M.J.
(Eds.) Land use, land degradation and land management in
Guyana, Commonwealth Geographical Bureau, Royal Holloway
University of London, 32±41.
Smith, N., 1984. Uneven Development, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Spinner, J.T., 1984. A Political and Social History of Guyana,
Colorado, Westview.
Swedeplan, 1995. Guyana Shorezone Management Program, Report
No. 6948-4, Swedeplan, S-400 Goteborg, Sweden.
Swift, J., 1989. Why are rural people vulnerable to famine? IDS
Bulletin 20 (2), 8±15.
Swyngedouw, E.A., 1995. The contradictions of urban water provision: a study of Guayaquil, Ecuador. Third World Planning
Review 17, 387±405.
Swyngedouw, E.A., 1997. Power, nature and the city: the conquest of
water and the political ecology of urbanisation in Guayaquil,
Ecuador: 1880±1990 Environment and Planning A 29, 311±332.
Trotz, D.A. 1995. Gender, Ethnicity and familial ideology: household
structure and female labour force participation in Guyana,
unpublished PhD, University of Cambridge.
United Nations Development Project (UNDP), 1995. Squatter Settlements and Depressed Areas Upgrading Project Document, UNDP,
Georgetown.
van der Linden, J., 1997. On popular participation in a culture of
patronage: patrons and grassroots organisations in a sites and
M. Pelling / Geoforum 30 (1999) 249±261
services project in Hyderbad. Environment and Urbanisation 9 (1),
81±90.
Verba, S., 1978. Participation and Political Equality, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press.
Williams, B.F., 1991. Stains on my Name, War in my Veins: Guyana
and the politics of cultural struggle, Duke University Press,
London.
261
Williams, P.E., 1997. Land use and land degradation in Guyana. In:
Williams, P.E., Parry, J.T., Eden, M.J. (Eds.) Land use, land
degradation and land management in Guyana, Commonwealth
Geographical Bureau, Royal Holloway University of London,
1±19.
World Bank, 1993. Guyana: Public Sector Review, World Bank,
Washington DC.