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Abstract
We use an original geographic framework and insights from science, technology, and society studies and the geohumanities to investigate the development of global environmental knowledge in tropical mountains. Our analysis demonstrates the significant relationship between current agrobiodiversity and the elevation of mountain agroecosystems across multiple countries. We use the results of this general statistical model to support our focus on mountain agrobiodiversity. Regimes of the agrobiodiversity knowledge of scientists, government officials, travelers, and indigenous peoples, among others, interacting in mountain landscapes have varied significantly in denoting geographic remoteness. Knowledge representing pre-European mountain geography and diverse food plants in the tropical Andes highlighted their centrality to the Inca Empire (circa 1400–1532). The notion of semiremoteness, geographic valley–upland differentiation, and the similitude-and-difference knowledge mode characterized early Spanish imperial rule (1532–1770). Early modern accounts (1770–1900) amplified the remoteness of the Andes as they advanced global ecological sciences, knowledge standardization, and racial representations of indigenous people as degraded, with scant attention to Andean agriculture and food. Global agrobiodiversity knowledge increasingly drew on corresponding representations of mountain remoteness. Our integration of the biogeophysical–social sciences with the geohumanities reveals distinctive geographies of agrobiodiversity knowledge. Assumed remoteness of mountain agrobiodiversity is not inherent but rather is actively formed in relation to global societies and knowledge systems and is thus relational. Connectivity and claims to territorial and indigenous autonomy distinguish newly emergent characteristics of agrobiodiversity. The multifunctionality and political geography of agrobiodiversity are integral to current mountain environments, societies, and sustainability.
我们运用科学、科技与社会研究和地理人文学科中原有的地理架构与洞见, 探讨热带山区中全球环境知识的发展。我们的分析証实, 当前农业生态多样性和各国间的山区农业生态系统的高度之间有着显着关联性。我们运用这个一般统计模型的结果来支持我们对山区农业生态多样性的关注。科学家、政府官员、旅行者和原住民与其他人在山区地景互动的农业生态多样性的知识体系, 在指称地理的偏远性上有显着的差异。呈现热带安第斯山在欧洲殖民前的山区地理和粮食作物多样性的知识, 强调其之于印加帝国 (大约在公元 1400 年至 1532 年间) 的重要性。半偏远的概念、地理的谷地—高地差异, 以及相似—差异的知识模型, 是西班牙帝国统治初期 (1532 年至 1770 年) 的特徵。早期的现代性解释 (1770 年志 1900 年), 则在推进全球生态科学, 知识标准化并将原住民族的种族再现视为退化之中, 将安第斯的偏远性放大, 且鲜少关注安第斯的农业与粮食。全球农业生态多样性的知识, 逐渐引用呼应山区偏远性的再现。我们对生物自然地理—社会科学和地理人文学科进行的整合, 揭露出农业生态多样性知识的特殊地理。山区农业生物多样性所预设的偏远性并非是内在固有的, 而是在与全球社会和知识系统的关係中积极建构而成。连结性与领土及原住民自主性的宣称, 辨别了农业生态多样性崭新浮现的特徵。农业生态多样性的多重功能性和政治地理, 是当前山区环境、社会及可持续性的一部分。
Para investigar el desarrollo global del conocimiento ambiental sobre las montañas tropicales, usamos un marco geográfico original y conocimientos generados en estudios de ciencia, tecnología y sociedad, y en las geohumanidades. Nuestro análisis demuestra la relación significativa existente entre la agrobiodiversidad actual y la elevación en agroecosistemas de montaña, a través de múltiples países. Utilizamos los resultados de este modelo estadístico general en apoyo de nuestro enfoque sobre la agrobiodiversidad de montaña. El conocimiento de los regímenes de la agrobiodiversidad de científicos, agentes del gobierno, viajeros y pueblos indígenas, entre otros, en interacción en los paisajes montañosos, varían de manera significativa en lo que concierne a denotar lejanía geográfica. Para el imperio incaico (circa 1400–1532) era crucial el conocimiento que representaba a la geografía de montaña pre-europea y a las diversas plantas comestibles de los Andes tropicales. La noción de semi-lejanía, la diferenciación geográfica valle–tierras altas y el modo de conocimiento de similitud-y-diferencia caracterizan el gobierno español inicial (1532–1770). Los recuentos del período moderno temprano (1770–1900) amplificaron lo remoto de los Andes a medida que se avanzaba en las ciencias ecológicas globales, la estandarización del conocimiento y las representaciones raciales de los pueblos indígenas, caracterizados como degradados, dedicándole mínima atención a la agricultura y a los alimentos andinos. El conocimiento de la agrobiodiversidad global crecientemente se apoyó en las correspondientes representaciones del carácter remoto de las montañas. La integración que hacemos de las ciencias biogeofísicas-sociales con las geohumanidades revela distintas geografías del conocimiento de la agrobiodiversidad. El presumido carácter remoto de la agrobiodiversidad no es inherente sino, mejor, formado activamente en la relación con sociedades globales y sistemas de conocimiento, por lo que es relacional. La conectividad y los reclamos de autonomía territorial e indígena distinguen características de la agrobiodiversidad de reciente aparición. La multifuncionalidad y la geografía política de la agrobiodiversidad son parte integral de los actuales entornos y sociedades de montaña, y de la sustentabilidad.
Acknowledgments
Much of the research and writing of this article was supported through a pair of research fellowships, first in its initial stage at the Agrarian Studies Program of Yale University (2004–2005) and then at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies of Harvard University (Citation2016) where productive conversations, meetings, and colloquia occurred with numerous colleagues. Sabbatical funding for the lead author was received through the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Pennsylvania State University, respectively. Research on earth system models of agrobiodiversity was funded in part through the GeoSyntheSES Lab. Conversations important to this article also occurred in the contexts of 2014 meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Fulbright research in Peru in 2015, and ongoing research collaborations in South America, Africa, South Asia, and Europe (Citation2015–2019). Community and social movement cooperation and NGO, agency, and university affiliations are gratefully acknowledged. Martha Bell produced the map in . The lead author was able to present earlier versions as pieces of keynote presentations to the Melamid Award Colloquium of the American Geographical Society (December 2013); the Altman Symposium on “Rethinking the Anthropocene” at the Humanities Center of Miami University (April 2015); and universities in Lima, Arequipa, and Háunuco in Peru (May 2015, July 2016).
Supplemental Material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher's Web site at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2016.1235482
Notes
1. See also the more comprehensive global data in the Supplemental Material. The data compiled in these tables do not suggest that these mountains are the only globally important sites of concentrated agrobiodiversity.
2. Six additional texts were examined that are not contained in the main article due to space constraints (see Supplemental Material).
3. The seeds circulated through local seed systems include farmer varieties (FVs), which have significantly higher levels of agrobiodiversity than modern varieties (MVs). High-agrobiodiversity varieties known as landraces are a common form of FVs. We ran ordinary least squares regression with continuous and categorical predictors in JMP statistical software Version 11 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC).
4. On this critique see Zimmerer and Bell (Citation2015).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Karl S. Zimmerer
KARL S. ZIMMERER is Professor in the Department of Geography and Director of the GeoSyntheSES Lab, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include the transformative resilience and sustainability of land use and food systems using agrobiodiversity science and political ecology; landscape and territorial analysis and design; and integrated ecological, cultural, socioeconomic, and historical approaches.
Hildegardo Córdova-Aguilar
HILDEGARDO CÓRDOVA-AGUILAR is Executive Director of the Research Center for Applied Geography in the Institute for Research in Nature Sciences, Territory, and Renewable Energies and is Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include sustainability, rural development, resources, urban transport, territory-based land use planning, and the historical and landscape geography of Peru.
Rafael Mata Olmo
RAFAEL MATA OLMO is Professor and Director of the Department of Geography at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include regional geographic analysis, regional and urban planning, landscape and territorial approaches in geography, geographic knowledge systems, environmental conservation, and territorial analysis in sustainable and participatory urban and rural development.
Yolanda Jiménez Olivencia
YOLANDA JIMÉNEZ OLIVENCIA is Professor in the Department of Regional Geographic Analysis and Physical Geography and Director of the Institute of Regional Planning at the Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include regional geographic analysis, regional and urban planning, territorial analysis and governance, landscape geography, spatial restructuring, geographic methods, and environmental governance.
Steven J. Vanek
STEVEN J. VANEK is Research Associate in the GeoSyntheSES Lab and Visiting Scholar in the Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University, University Park PA 16802, and Communities of Practices (CoP), McKnight Foundation, Peru. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include agrobiodiversity, coupled systems of above- and below-ground agrobiodiversity in agroecosystem functions, soil nutrient cycling and regeneration in land use systems, sustainability, and community-based land and resource use and organization.