Toward an Historical Agroecology: an academic approach in which time and space matter

Abstract

ABSTRACT We pose that Agroecology, which is already a hybrid science, is further overcoming disciplinary isolation and stagnation through explicit processes of interdisciplinary recombination, in what might be termed “second generation hybridization”. We refer to the intellectual contact zone of Agroecology – mainly with Cultural Geography, Historical Ecology, Archeology, Ecological Anthropology, and Ethnoecology – as “Historical Agroecology”. We discuss the following five theoretical methodological foundations of our proposal toward an Historical Agroecology: (1) regional agroecological histories, (2) agroecological landscapes as palimpsests: human-mediated disturbances and their cumulative effects, (3) alpha and beta as agrobiodiversity on the table: manifestations of human niche construction, (4) agroecological ethos as landscapes of knowledge, and (5) infrapolitics and collective action as other forms of agroecological resistance aside from social movements. We illustrate these points through case studies based on our research in peasant communities of the Maya lowlands in the Mexican states of Yucatan, Chiapas, and Campeche. We conclude by reflecting on the need to further develop historical agroecological perspectives in those regions with agricultural systems that have resulted from profound diachronic legacies that are spatially rooted in broad geographical areas.