Resilience of small-scale societies’ livelihoods: a framework for studying the transition from food gathering to food production

The origins of agriculture and the shift from hunting and gathering to committed agriculture is regarded as one of the major transitions in human history. Archeologists and anthropologists have invested significant efforts in explaining the origins of agriculture. A period of gathering intensification and experimentation and pursuing a mixed economic strategy seems the most plausible explanation for the transition to agriculture and provides an approach to study a process in which several nonlinear processes may have played a role. However, the mechanisms underlying the transition to full agriculture are not completely clear. This is partly due to the nature of the archeological record, which registers a practice only once it has become clearly established. Thus, points of transitions have limited visibility and the mechanisms involved in the process are difficult to untangle. The complexity of such transitions also implies that shifts can be distinctively different in particular environments and under varying historical and social conditions. In this paper we discuss some of the elements involved in the transition to food production within the framework of resilience theory. We propose a theoretical conceptual model in which the resilience of livelihood strategies lies at the intersection of three spheres: the environmental, economical, and social domains. Transitions occur when the rate of change, in one or more of these domains, is so elevated or its magnitude so large that the livelihood system is unable to bounce back to its original state. In this situation, the system moves to an alternative stable state, from one livelihood strategy to another.

Conservation narratives in Peru: envisioning biodiversity in sustainable development

In the mega-diverse country Peru, a resource intensive development model collides with the interest of conserving biodiversity. Peruvian biodiversity experts have developed different lines of argumentation as to how to integrate conservation into the sustainable development of their country. Applying grounded theory, I define five groups of conservation narratives based on the analysis of 72 qualitative interviews with experts working in areas of biodiversity conservation. I have labeled them: biodiversity protectionists, biodiversity traditionalists, biodiversity localists, biodiversity pragmatists, and biodiversity capitalists. These groups are each discussed in connection with what they have to say about biodiversity in relation to human life, valuation and knowledge systems, participation and leadership, substitutability of natural capital, and its predominant political strategy. In a second step, a comparative analysis of the dominant and diverging political perspectives is made. I argue that by deconstructing underlying premises and ideologies, common ground and possible opportunities for collaboration can be identified. Moreover, although the presented results can serve as a discussion scaffold to organize conservation debates in Peru, this example demonstrates how the terms biodiversity and sustainability are operationalized in conservation narratives.