Fishing, Foraging and Farming in the Bolivian Amazon On a Local Soci
Empirical in character, this book analyses the society-nature interaction of the Tsimane’, a rural indigenous community in the Bolivian Amazon. Following a common methodological framework, the material and energy flow (MEFA) approach, it gives a detailed
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Lisa Ringhofer
Fishing, Foraging and Farming in the Bolivian Amazon On a Local Society in Transition
Lisa Ringhofer IFF, Institute of Social Ecology Schottenfeldgasse 29 1070 Vienna Austria [email protected]
ISBN 978-90-481-3486-1 e-ISBN 978-90-481-3487-8 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3487-8 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2009942031 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Preface
This book presents the résumé of intensive research of the past 5 years. It is an extension of my PhD thesis, but now placed in the wider context of transition studies. Thematically, this monograph contributes the fourth local metabolic case within the field of local transition studies and may hence be regarded as a follow-up of the three previous local studies carried out. However, the book attempts to explore new territories, too, I hope, by integrating the use of human time into the existing biophysical framework. The foundation for this book was already laid in 2001. I had just come back from a rural development work assignment in Guatemala, an experience which evoked my interest for more theoretical grounding on sustainability of society–nature interactions. The Institute of Latin American Studies at London University proved just the right place to be at the time. Inspired by the intellectual milieu, it was Professor Christian Brannstrom, whose indefatigable lectures on indigenous knowledge and strategies on sustainable resource management in the Amazon, I found most compelling. What I did feel, however, was a lack of specific methods and tools providing concrete indicators on the sustainability of specific resource management strategies; with the underlying idea of integrating these instruments into my world of development projects. I knew then that to this end, I would have to leave the secluded world of social sciences and start interacting more consistently with natural science approaches. But this was not until my return to Vienna in early 2003, when I literally stumbled into a lecture on the social metabolism of societies held by Marina FischerKowalski, Professor at the Institute of Social Ecology in Vienna. What sounded rather peculiar at first, did, however, provoke my interest for more. To me, the borrowing of an originally biological concept made sense insofar as it shows the crucial dependencies between the different biophysical resources that are exchanged between a society and its natural environment. This I found to be particularly interesting when appl
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