| This thesis examines livelihood strategies of small farmer/settler households in the context of a planned irrigation settlement scheme. The differential response of settler households to changing agricultural conditions and the process of livelihood successes and failures are examined within a framework of household "resource ability", which integrates structural and individual paradigms at the level of the household as a unit. The resource framework incorporates the material and non-material endowments of the households at the beginning of the project. The central focus was to explore and examine the specific factors that shaped settler livelihood and to document the diverse strategies employed by households to adapt to life situations. A special effort is made to demonstrate the relevance of nonmaterial factors in influencing differential response.;The findings show a strong relationship between the high initial resource conditions of the households and livelihood success. However, the individual ability to manipulate available resources was concluded as crucial for success and survival. With the exception of inter-ethnic and inter-village differences, the successful households employed a combination of strategies such as joint production and use of kinship network, accumulation and surplus extraction, intensive use of female labor, income diversification and manipulation of power linkages for success. The unsuccessful households diversified activities and intensified family labor application in order to survive rather than to succeed. Most of the resource-poor households failed to withstand unexpected misfortune.;The study concludes that the individual resource conditions and abilities of the rural households, along with the diverse cultural and gender related factors are extremely critical in planning rural/agricultural development. It argues that special measures should be taken to assist the failures, but not by curtailing the opportunities for and benefits deriving from individual entrepreneurship.;Field work for the thesis was carried out in the H7 area of System H of the Mahaweli Irrigation Scheme in Sri Lanka. Of the three communities chosen, two were Sinhalese, an old (purana) village and a newly settled village. The third hamlet was an old Muslim village. Information was collected from households using a combination of methods including participant observation, structured and non-structured interviews, case histories, informant surveys and review of documented sources. The final analysis is based on a purposive sample consisting of success and failure extremes. |
