Project description
A more-than-human perspective on the transformation and governance of rural landscapes
Human and nonhuman actors have contributed to global socio-environmental transformations of rural landscapes. Based on two case studies in indigenous communities of the Bolivian-Chilean highlands, the HI-LANDeS project, which is funded under Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, aims primarily to develop a more-than-human approach to investigate the role of communal practices and knowledge production around water and land in the transformation and governance of rural landscapes. The project implementation is based on archival research, fieldwork, and community workshops, analysed within a global framework and a transdisciplinary collaboration. Through knowledge transfer between historical research and environmental governance, the insights to be gained could facilitate the adoption of more inclusive conservation and rural development policies both at local and global levels.
Objective
HI-LANDeS develops a conceptually innovative and empirically grounded historicising approach to the transformation and governance of rural landscapes. In the face of planetary-wide anthropogenic change, new knowledge and methods are required to better grasp how human and nonhuman lives co-produce socio-environmental transformations through “more-than-human” histories. Strategic sites for carbon storage, water sources, and biodiversity, as well as home to resilient indigenous communities, Andean wetlands offer a unique case-study to examine “more-than-human” landscape histories, and how these can inform contemporary socio-environmental challenges.
The main objective of HI-LANDeS is to construct and apply an analytical framework that integrates a historicising, systemic, and more-than-human perspective on rural landscapes to investigate the role of communal practices and knowledge production around water and land in the transformation and governance of rural landscapes. HI-LANDeS departs from two case studies in indigenous communities of the Bolivian-Chilean highlands, based on archival research, fieldwork, and community workshops, analysed within a global framework and a transdisciplinary collaboration. HI-LANDeS will produce new empirical knowledge, critical theoretical insights, and innovative co-creational methods that can contribute to more inclusive conservation and rural development policies, in the Andes, Europe but also more globally.
This global fellowship facilitates a three-way transfer of knowledge between expertise in rural history, world-ecology, and rural development at UGent (Belgium), a strong tradition in Andean historical anthropology at UTA (Chile), and the fellow’s trajectory in environmental humanities. Through an intersectoral secondment at NGO Agua Sustentable (Bolivia), the fellow will enable a knowledge transfer between historical research and environmental governance.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-GF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global FellowshipsCoordinator
9000 Gent
Belgium