Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Reindigenization and in situ Conservation of Crop Diversity in the Andes

University Of Georgia Research Foundation Inc, Athens GA

Investigators

Abstract

University of Georgia doctoral student, Kristine Skarbo, with guidance from Dr. Virginia Nazarea, will undertake research on how sociocultural factors affect the way farmers maintain crop diversity. Her research will focus on the Ecuadorian Andes. The Andean region long has been a center of origin of agriculture, where farmers have domesticated and developed a wealth of varieties with distinct properties and genetic make-ups within a number of crop species. Over recent decades, this diversity has declined, in part because indigenous practices have been devalued and people have turned away from traditional foods. However, recently there have been radical shifts in political as well as social landscapes across the Andean region, sometimes referred to as "reindigenization." By recasting indigeneity in a more positive light, these developments provide a natural laboratory in which to better understand the relationship between social, cultural, and political processes and the maintenance of crop diversity. The researcher will employ a mixture of social science research methods, including participant observation, archival research, focus group discussions, life history interviews, ethnobotanical collection, a seasonal interview survey, and comparison with a crop diversity data set collected in the study area six years earlier. These qualitative and quantitative data will allow her to assess whether the reindigenization process can be linked to changes over time in the symbolic values of food, food consumption patterns, and crop diversity. This research is important because it will produce a detailed measurement of the region's crop diversity and how it has changed over the past six years. By also connecting this changing inventory to cultural and political changes, the research will advance social scientific understanding of the connections between the larger society, farmer management, and plant genetic resources. Thus the research will contribute to both local and global conservation and development efforts, as well as to the education of a graduate student.