This analysis fitted well with another tradition of study of agricultural
systems focusing on the vulnerability of the poor, notably Robert Chambers’
‘Rural Development: Putting the Last First’ (1983). Its idea of ‘poverty
ratchets’ (the progressive loss of entitlements over time) highlighted both
the notion of vulnerability and the dynamics of poverty. Vulnerability was a
concept that particularly drew on studies of food insecurity, but Chambers’
analysis took account not just of seasonal or natural disasters but also of
social and political dimensions of the poverty processes. It argued the need
to take account of the role of indigenous knowledge - the understanding that
poor people themselves have of their poverty and vulnerability. In his work
on pastoralist communities in Sub-Saharan Africa, Jeremy Swift (1989)