Mutunga, John Kanyuithia (2008) Socio-Economic Empowerment of Farmers through Community Based Tourism in Meru South District of Kenya. PhD thesis, Kenyatta University.
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Abstract
Competing demands for livelihood support to the 80% of the Kenyan population dependent on agriculture and the national goal to steer economic growth have increasingly applied pressure, to the already strained sector, thanks to the few available alternatives. Kenya is endowed with immense potential for conventional and other upcoming types of tourism, such as Community Based Tourism (CBT). Like most of the other developing countries, Kenya is yet to exploit this potential. The study therefore came in to evaluate whether people actually know about the existing potential for GBT, why it has been minimally utilized and elaborate how best such potential could be exploited for socioeconomic empowerment of the smallholder farming community. The overriding theoretical orientation applied in the study encompassed stakeholder interactions, promotion and development of social capital and sustainable utilization of available natural and cultural resources through mutually supportive action processes. Though richly supportive, the available relevant literature fell short of explaining the phenomenal interactions between the bio-geophysical resources to bring forth mutual socio-economic empowerment at the community level, which therefore legitimized the principal focus of the investigation. Meru South was chosen as a study district due to the presence of a rich mix of environmental and socio-cultural phenomena, which if adequately exploited could turn the resource poor majority smallholder farmers into socially and economically empowered individuals and groups. The study was conducted in two phases; a qualitative prestudy phase which interviewed 75 public servants as key informants, selected through stratified random sampling at district, division and location levels of Meru South district. The pre study data was collected by use of a researcher administered interview guide. The detailed quantitative study covering eight randomly sampled locations out of the 24 habited ones in Meru South, reached to 400 smallholder farmers as the units of analyses of the study. Smallholder farmers, half of whom were youth aged between 25 and 35 years, were reached out by use of a researcher administered standardized questionnaire/interview schedule. The number of households to be visited was proportionately determined relative to the household population in each location, while specific households were systematically selected. Data from the qualitative study was analyzed using the Non Numerical Data Indexing Searching and Theorizing (NUD*IST) programme, to collect related ideas and formulate broad clusters from which the study later on isolated a total of nine dependent variables. Those variables turned out to be of complex nature, in this study referred to as the drivers for socio-economic empowerment and therefore measured through indicators which ranged between five and nine. The study premised empowerment drivers as those that fuel the processes of attracting tourists, extending their stay and/or increasing the frequency of tourists' visits to a locality for improved socio-economic gain to the host community. Data from the household survey was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS), as to generate inter rater reliability (Kappa coefficient) at the indicator level, then variability analysis by use of means, standard deviations, t-test as well as F-tests all measured at the theme level of the study. Pearson's product moment coefficient was calculated to capture the presence, direction and the significance of the linear relationships between the core variables of the study, in line with the stated hypotheses. Results indicate that besides being highly educated by the national standards, the Meru South smallholder farmers are also entrepreneurial in character as they practice other non-farm income generating activities, with group activity being one of the most important. The two responder categories significantly agreed on most of the key tourists' resources available in the district, all the accruable benefits upon smallholder farmer participation in CBT, and some of the efforts towards utilization of the resources as the means that cumulatively lead to optimization of benefits from bio-geophysical resources relative to the first objective of the study. The study established that the potential for CBT has not been exploited due to the varying levels of commitment of the smallholder farmers to tourism as measured through a variety of indicators, as well as the existing impediments towards exploitation of the same, in which case the two rater categories significantly agreed in most the indicators, thus responding to the second objective of the study. Relative to the third objective, the study
| Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GF Human ecology. Anthropogeography H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory |
| Divisions: | Africana |
| Depositing User: | Mr Patrick Ng'ang'a |
| Date Deposited: | 18 Aug 2017 14:49 |
| Last Modified: | 18 Aug 2017 14:49 |
| URI: | http://thesisbank.jhia.ac.ke/id/eprint/1916 |
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