HSD: Global Markets, Regional Landscapes, and Household Decisions: Modeling the History of Transformation of the Amazon Estuary

Columbia University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Shifts among agriculture, cattle production, and extraction of forest and river products as well as changes in residence between rural and urban sites have long characterized life in Amazonia. These shifts are particularly apparent near the Amazon estuary, where local realities have historically intersected with global economic processes. The objectives of this interdisciplinary project are (1) to demonstrate the complexity of social and environmental changes associated with economic shifts; (2) to reconstruct the history of biophysical change in the region associated with economic and demographic change; (3) to identify the functions of local institutions in rural and urban areas under changing conditions; and (4) to develop an agent based model to examine how economic processes and local conditions intersect to influence socio-environmental change. Ethnographic methods and longitudinal research coupled with historical remote sensing and archival data will be used to understand, map, and model migration and residence patterns, economic changes, land-use decisions and actions of estuarine residents over the last three generations. Attention will be paid to sampling local realities in the context of regional variability. Agent-based modeling techniques will be used to understand how decisions at the local level are affected by macro-scale processes and interact with environmental conditions to produce broader patterns on the landscape. This project will contribute to research in the anthropology, geography, economic development, and ecology of the region and will enrich the understanding of Amazonian responses to global economic shifts by adding a contrasting, socially and historically informed examination to widely discussed cases of deforestation. The project will enrich global studies of rapid change in agrarian societies by adding a detailed examination from a little explored region and will contribute to a new generation of models focusing on multi-sited and movement bounded agents, who are part of and who are influenced by social networks. The research team has long-established institutional collaborations and field experience in the region. This project will be closely linked to global initiatives on capacity development and poverty reduction of the United Nations University, the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and research centers at Indiana University. The project will contribute to more effective efforts to limit resource degradation in the Amazon. It also will help document land management important to establishing ownership in communities where records are lacking. Most of the residents of the villages studied are Afro-Brazilians, a traditionally disempowered group. The project will focus on training U.S. and Brazilian researchers, students, and technicians in scientifically sound and multidisciplinary approaches to studying human and social dynamics at the rural/urban interface. An award resulting from the FY 2005 NSF-wide competition on Human and Social Dynamics (HSD) supports this project. All NSF directorates and offices are involved in the coordinated management of the HSD competition and the portfolio of HSD awards.