Hanne Cottyn

Ghent University | UGhent · Department of History

Marie Curie Global Postdoctoral Fellowship, Ghent University (Belgium) & Universidad de Tarapacá (Chile) 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.

In its global strategy to address climate change, the UN deems indigenous knowledges of key importance to develop sustainable responses to environmental change. This fellowship develops an innovative interdisciplinary approach to make sense of the “more-than-human” history of a disappearing highland lake. Lake Poopó made international headlines when its vast body of water dried up late 2015. With the lake, the identity of the Uru-Qotzuñi ethnic minority -“people of the lake”- seemed to evaporate as well. The Lake and Uru-Qotzuñi communities’ dramatic decline has triggered academic interest across disciplines. Existing research recognize that socio-historical factors play a role but thus far, these factors have not been examined in detail. This project builds on ten years of (post)doctoral historical research in Bolivia and on insights from my collaboration with anthropologists in fragile Andean ecosystems. Starting from notebooks left by Uru-Qotzuñi leaders in the late 20th century, I will be able to examine how daily human-environmental dynamics have shaped a historically changing landscape. Approaching the recent events as part of longer processes of landscape transformation, the proposed project will foster the integration of ethnohistory and environmental humanities research. Combining untapped historical source material with ethnographic methods, I develop a methodology that centralizes indigenous communities’ lived experiences and accumulated knowledges regarding the multiple rhythms of environmental change. During an intensive research stay in the department of Oruro (Bolivia), I will undertake historical and ethnographic research in local archives and in collaboration with local NGOs and communities, will seek to contribute new local solutions for vulnerable livelihoods and landscapes. This project is funded through an Independent Research Fellowship from the Independent Social Research Foundation (GB).

The aims of the project are to: (1) examine the socio-ecological system of páramo habitat in Boyacá and Cundinamarca; (2) determine the value of biodiversity in this system to local communities and wider society; and (3) predict the response of páramo ecosystems to environmental change and anthropogenic pressures, including social and political change, in order to inform the development of a sustainable and equitable future for the páramos, and for the communities dependent on these ecosystems. The project particularly emphasizes how history, socio-political context and culture contribute to the current patterns of use of the ecosystem, and how this affects potential future opportunities for new governance systems for the páramo.