Design and Implementation of an Adaptive, Integrated Approach to Health and Sustainability in a Smallholder-Dominated Agroecosystem - Integrated Assessment of Health and Sustainability of Agroecosystems - page 37

together as a unit. Village boundaries are defined through different criteria, including
topographical features. It is possible for villages to lie across administrative boundar-
ies. Secondary data listing villages or describing their boundaries could not be found.
Within homesteads and households, systems of management define several farm
enterprises, comprising the lowest rung of the human activity holarchy. For health and
sustainability management of the Kiambu agroecosystem, the village level and the
household level were selected as the most appropriate scales for AESH management.

2.3.2 s t u D y s i t e s

Participatory mapping confirmed the presence of villages as a layer nested within the
sublocation in the human activity holarchy. Sociocultural factors were more impor-
tant in defining the boundaries of the villages. Communities regarded themselves as
belonging to one of these villages, with various sociocultural institutions organized
and functioning at this level.
Githima village has boundaries that are confluent with administrative ones. The
village is described as the area under the administrative jurisdiction of the assistant
chief. Another identity factor was the use of two coffee-processing factories and
three tea-buying centers in the area. People settled in the village prior to 1952, clear-
ing an indigenous wattle tree forest.
Gitangu village derives its identity partly from its historical background (area
inhabited by three subclans) and from administrative boundaries (area under an
assistant chief). The area is an indigenous forest occupied by hunter-gatherers.
Settlement by the current tribe began before the arrival of Europeans. The three
subclans ( Mbari-ya-igi , Mbari-ya-Gichamu, and Mbari-ya-Ngoru ) derive from the
three people who first settled in the area.
Deriving its identity from its geophysical location (a swampy valley bounded
by roads and railway) and its sociocultural history, Kiawamagira is inhabited by
descendants of squatters in the Church Missionary Society Mission in Thogoto.
Elders claimed that during the land demarcation process, those squatters who were
not considered favorably by the mission were allocated land in the valley.
Mahindi village lies on a ridge between two streams and is inhabited by mem-
bers of the Kihara subclan. The name of the village refers to the elephant skeletons
found on the ridge. Settlement started in the 1950s. The boundaries of Gikabu-na-
Buti village of Tigoni Division are socioeconomic. The village adjoins another, and
both are sandwiched within two vast tea estates. The land was part of one of the tea
estates and was sold to a cooperative of its laborers. Settlement began in 1972. Itungi
village consists of 4-acre land parcels, while Gikabu-na-Buti village consists entirely
of half-acre plots, thereby creating a socioeconomic subdivision within what seems
to be a single village. During the initial mapping exercise, participants indicated
that they were one village. In subsequent meetings, it was revealed that the two are
disparate with very few interactions between them. The sixth village, Thiririka, was
described as the area under the administrative jurisdiction of an assistant chief. This
was part of Kinale forest until 1989, when land was allocated to settle squatters from
various forests in the district.