Ismael Vaccaro

Spanish National Research Council | CSIC · Departamento de Arqueología y Antropología

This article develops a methodology aimed at generating a systematic social diagnosis of social and natural landscapes. The analytical process is divided into six easily replicable and causatively connected steps. The goal is two-fold: first, to present the inextricable connections between physical landscapes and the communities that occupy them. A...

This article explicitly connects a growing body of specific literature, the political ecology of conservation, to some of the often overlooked, main conceptual components emerging from political anthropology and geography (sources of legitimacy, governmentality, territoriality, or state making), political economy (commoditization, market integratio...

In this article we discuss the process by which the upper areas of the Alt Urgell, in Northern Spain, are redefining themselves in order to survive in the new postindustrial order. These communities, during the twentieth century, witnessed a steady demographic and economic collapse that resulted in a progressive decline of agricultural activities a...

Over the last 20 years the theoretical concept of the commons has come to be used not only in the field of natural resources management, but also as a key notion in domains as diverse as the digital economy and alternative politics. The wide use of the term has, however, led to a loss of specificity in the way it is used. Across several disciplines...

As a result of the financialization of household and national economies, indebtedness has become a system of domination shaping the making of contem- porary subjects. This sort of governmentality through debt is a multifaceted phe- nomenon affecting people’s economic and political behavior in both the North and the South. Disguised and legitimized...

This perspective piece discusses the history of the use of the term ‘reciprocity’ across environmental social sciences in the analysis of the interactions between the social and the natural systems. Reciprocity, as a concept, these days, seems to be used in a rather uncritical fashion. These pages do not intend to be exhaustive, instead they focus...

Articles: "Thinking through ruination: an introduction", Anna Clot-Garrell; "The decaying stuff of the Anthropocene: exploring contemporary trashscapes through ruination, Olli Pyyhtinen ; Stylianos Zavos; Alma Onali; Ulla-Maija Sutinen; Niina Uusitalo; "Paisatges antropocènics, paisatges enrunats: expectatives de passat i de futur a les muntanyes c...

Resum Les runes perviuen en el temps i l’espai, com el temps i l’espai semblen perviure en les runes. No es tracta, però, d’una pervivència estàtica ni unívoca. La presència de runes sempre evoca transformacions paisatgístiques, percebudes, representades i valorades de manera canviant segons les vivències i els records que n’emanen. Centrant-se en...

Since at least the 1970s, the countryside of Western Europe has been the site of a myriad of “new” communal initiatives. Rural areas that were abandoned during the last century have witnessed the arrival of new inhabitants. These newcomers often flock to the mountains escaping urban lifestyles characterized by individualism, mass-oriented livelihoo...

La conservació moderna de la natura, en la qual té un protagonisme destacat la creació d’àrees protegides per a la preservació dels seus valors naturals, ens ofereix una modalitat radical i relativament recent d’intervenció sobre el medi. La conservació identifica els valors d’un territori determinat -presents o desapareguts- i promou actuacions di...

En el marco del desarrollo de que ha sido objeto en las últimas décadas, la antropología de la conservación ha focalizado gran parte de su interés en la gobernanza de las áreas protegidas. La dinámica entre la nueva institucionalidad conservacionista y los actores locales, especialmente en regiones con una importante presencia de grupos indígenas o...

This paper focuses on what shepherds must do to ensure that their herds can peacefully graze on the upper meadows of the Catalan Pyrenees. These days, this image, a classic icon of bucolic traditional rurality, cannot happen unless the shepherds are in permanent contact with public administration officials to confirm their compliance with a plethor...

Contemporary indigenous Zapotec rural villages of the northern sierra region of Oaxaca state exhibit profound transformations in their agricultural strategies. Since the mid‐twentieth century, its agricultural lands have suffered a gradual process of abandonment. As a consequence, forest transition is occurring around the villages, and the cultivar...

After the brown bear reintroduction program was launched in the Pyrenees in 1996, the French and Spanish States fostered and funded a regrouping policy to protect the sheep flocks from the bear attacks. Drawing on a comparative analysis between two Catalan districts in north-eastern Spain (Val d'Aran and Pallars Sobirà) and the Ariège district in s...

In this article we aim to explore the still incipient first steps of the return of extractivism to Europe, examining the geopolitical context that led to a reemergence of metal mining in rural areas. Previous emphasis on nature conservation and tourism promotion, equally fostered from European stances since the 70s on, are nowadays being confronted...

This article describes the historical deployment of ski resorts in the Catalan Pyrenees from the perspective of the political ecology of tourism. It intends to analyse the complex interconnection between the political, economic, and ecological processes intervening in the development of this tourism sector, by taking into account the actions of its...

En este capítulo examinamos el desarrollo de las políticas de conservación de la naturaleza en las comarcas del Alto Pirineo de Cataluña, en la vertiente meridional del Pirineo Central. El análisis de las fórmulas de gestión empleadas en su implementación a lo largo de las últimas seis décadas, así como de algunas de las medidas tomadas en este con...

Dans cet article, nous étudions les utilisations locales du territoire associées aux formes alternatives de conservation des valeurs naturelles dans les Pyrénées catalanes, dans le nordest de l’Espagne. Dans les Pyrénées, région où de nombreuses aires protégées ont été créées, la conservation de l’environnement ne se limite pas aux projets et actio...

Community-based approaches are pursued in recognition of the need for place-based responses to environmental change that integrate local understandings of risk and vulnerability. Yet the potential for fair adaptation is intimately linked to how variations in perceptions of environmental change and risk are treated. There is, however, little empiric...

This article focuses on understanding rural life and how agrarian everyday life changes as a consequence of the radical socio-economic transformations that, across the world, have accompanied rural communities in their transition from economies of subsistence to industrial production, and, in some areas, from there to providers of service to the to...

En Cataluña, los efectos de la crisis económica de la última década obligan a revisar algunas de las conclusiones establecidas desde la antropología de la conservación acerca del protagonismo del Estado y el peso de las iniciativas privadas en la gestión del patrimonio natural. El análisis histórico de la implementación de las políticas conservacio...

En els últims anys, els comunals han adquirit un protagonisme significatiu a les muntanyes de l'Alt Pirineu. Les antigues formes de gestió de l'aprofitament dels recursos naturals sembla que ofereixen un potencial renovat en un context caracteritzat per nous usos del territori i noves demandes en l'àmbit de la participació política. En realitat, la...

The debate around the commons has often been dominated by ideological opinions about their social, economic, environmental, and political implications. Catalan High Pyrenees districts, where historically common property has had a wide territorial presence, provide many arguments to analyze the discussions around common property from a conceptual st...

Because the Anthropocene by definition is an epoch during which environmental change is largely anthropogenic and driven by social, economic, psychological and political forces, environmental social scientists can effectively analyse human behaviour and knowledge systems in this context. In this subject review, we summarize key ways in which the en...

Understanding the cross-scale nature of how natural resource trading links to local extraction patterns remains a topic of great relevance to stewardship and sustainable use of ecological systems. Microeconomic influences on a society’s pattern of smallscale natural resources utilization can exacerbate resource overuse, especially under increased p...

Les comarques de l'Alt Pirineu concentren un alt percentatge de terrenys de titularitat pública. La grandària de les finques i les forests pertanyents a les entitats locals (municipis i EMD) i a la Generalitat assoleix avui el 91,1% de la superfície de la Val d'Aran, el 66,6% a l'Alta Ribagorça i el 63,8% al Pallars Sobirà, les tres comarques catal...

En este trabajo pretendemos identificar y analizar las huellas que han dejado las diferentes formas de conformación del espacio y de utilización de los recursos en el paisaje pirenaico. Los Pirineos contemporáneos, en tanto que constituyen un territorio socializado, son el resultado de un conflicto entre los modos tradicionales de gestión del espac...

Local perceptions of environmental and climate change, as well as associated adaptations made by local populations, are fundamental for designing comprehensive and inclusive mitigation and adaptation plans both locally and nationally. In this paper, we analyze people's perceptions of environmental and climate-related transformations in communities...

Os montes Pirineus contemporâneos foram convertidos em uma reserva ambiental. O agudo processo de despovoamento experimentado durante o século XX, e a apropriação progressiva de grande parte de seu território por parte do Estado para implementar políticas de conservação, favoreceram o reaparecimento, através da reintrodução, da promoção ou da recup...

Development has been a dominant trope of the global political and economic life of the world since the 1950s. As such it has been inevitably linked to some of the most important social processes of this era: colonialism, globalization, postcolonialism, global ecological crisis, the rise of environmentalism, and more. The consolidation of the contem...

El mateix any que es va estrenar La nit del caçador, el general Franco declarava l'espai comprès per les capçaleres dels rius Escrita i Sant Nicolau com a parc nacional, d'acord amb la llei vigent del 1916. El Parc Nacional d'Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici, el cinquè parc espanyol, es creava l'any després dels del Teide i la Caldera de Tabur...

Contemporary scholarship increasingly emphasizes that modern state sovereignty does not depend on the control of a strictly bounded and uniformly governed territory. Rather, authority now stems from a variety of different actors, within and external to states, who enact shared forms of power over different areas of national territory for different...

En este artículo realizamos una aproximación general a la sociogenésis de la conservación moderna y pública de la naturaleza. Para ello distinguimos tres etapas. La primera estará marcada por la búsqueda del anhelado paraíso perdido: a finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX, el paisaje concentrará valores identitarios, patrióticos y nacionalista...

El patrimoni immaterial en el patrimoni natural Un retorn al misticisme En aquest article fem un breu recorregut sobre la conflu-ència del patrimoni natural i immaterial a través de les normatives internacionals que marquen les polítiques públi-ques. Analitzem, com a exem-ple, la proposta d'Europarc-España per a la incorporació del patrimoni immate...

La proliferació de les àrees protegides és un fenomen destacat dels Pirineus contemporanis. Els parcs i les reserves s'han estès per unes muntanyes que fins fa unes poques dècades recolzaven les formes de vida d'amplis sectors de població. La funció assignada avui a aquests territoris respon a unes demandes, de procedència urbana, associades al tur...

During the last one hundred fifty years the communities of the Spanish Pyrenees have experienced several waves of public policies that have completely transformed the local administrative regimes: municipalization, disentailment, forest expropriations, and conservation policies. This historical genealogy of public policies was informed by "moderniz...

Este capítulo trata de las variables económicas y políticas que intervienen en el proceso por el que la naturaleza se ha convertido en un patrimonio público y ha adquirido un valor como mercancía. Nos referiremos, en primer lugar, a la historia de la conservación. El objetivo es mostrar la conservación de la naturaleza como un factor importante en...

El establecimiento de espacios naturales protegidos es un fenómeno que se ha generalizado a nivel mundial en las últimas décadas y que ha adquirido una presencia especialmente significativa en las regiones de alta montaña. La comarca pirenaica del Pallars Sobirà, donde dos terceras partes del territorio se hallan sujetas a alguna figura de protecci...

Collective action theory predicts that natural resource management at a local level has a higher probability of success if territoriality and jurisdiction of the managerial institution are in synchrony with mobility and territoriality of the resource and exploitation patterns of local users. In several East African lakes local managerial institutio...

This article assesses the territorial impact of the ski industry in two areas of the Spanish Pyrenees (Aragon Pyrenees and the Catalan High Pyrenees). By analyzing the changes on demographic dynamics and structure, economic portfolio, and evolution of the built structure of these areas since the construction of the ski resorts, we, firstly, identif...

Els usos tradicionals de les muntanyes tradueixen un coneixement empíric sobre els ecosistemes d'aquestes que s'ha anat acumulant durant generacions, expliquen la configuració històrica dels seus paisatges i són, per això, una part fonamental del patrimoni immaterial de la seva població. Les ciències socials estan capacitades per fer contribucions...

The twentieth century has deepened and increased global interconnected-ness. Furthermore, the networks that link most places of the world are now dominated by their most powerful nodes: cities. Cities have large socio-ecological footprints (Cronon 1992). Their survival requires large amounts of resources, and their populations constitute large mark...

En los últimos veinte años, la conservación se ha convertido en un tema central de interés para el conjunto de las ciencias sociales y para la antropología en particular. Este proceso, que comenzó con una serie de estudios sobre las relaciones entre algunas áreas protegidas y sus comunidades humanas, conformará pronto una línea de trabajo que abarc...

The contemporary Pyrenees are becoming an environmental reservoir. The pronounced process of human depopulation experienced during the twentieth century and the progressive appropriation of large parts of its territory by the states to implement conservation policies have resulted in the return, via reintroduction or natural regeneration, of charis...

In this paper, using a political ecology framework, we examine the impacts of statemaking technologies in several areas of the Pyrenean mountain range, Spain. We describe processes of governmental territorialization in a European, non-colonial setting, stressing their effect on the conceptualization and management of natural resources. Conservation...

Under-differentiating classificatory systems pose methodological problems for cultural domain analysis in particular, and ethnobiology in general. Our analysis suggests the Roviana people from the Western Solomon Islands do not have a word for the category “insects” and their classification scheme for little terrestrial animals is rather generic an...

This article discusses the ways in which the predominant economic mechanisms of capitalism, characterized by a hyper-mobility of flows, affect actual places and people. The rationality informing these mechanisms is the quest for a reduction of costs and the increase of potential benefit, and this can only be achieved by jumping from locale to local...

The relationship between human communities and the environment is extremely complex. In order to resolve the issues involved with this relationship, interdisciplinary research combining natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities is necessary. Here, specialists summarise methods and research strategies for various aspects of social research d...

This innovative work of historical ecology advances the integration of research on environmental and social systems, contributing important lessons for contemporary natural resource policy and management. A diverse, international region, the Pyrenees has been characterized as a quintessential example of rural areas across Europe and North America....

The establishment of natural protected spaces is a phenomenon which has spread throughout the world in recent decades and which has acquired a particularly important presence in high mountain areas (Europarc, 2008; Santamarina, 2005). The Pyrenean county of Pallars Sobirà in which two thirds of the territory is subject to some kind of environmental...

In this chapter we will discuss the economic and political variables that play a role in the understanding of the process by which nature has become public heritage and a commodity worth preserving as heritage. These pages will firstly present the history of conservation. The goal is to present conservation as an important element in the developmen...

Desde el año 2003, a partir de la creación del Parque Natural del Alt Pirineu, más de dos terceras partes del territorio del Pallars Sobirà se hallan sujetas a algún tipo de protección de sus valores naturales. El establecimien-to masivo de espacios naturales protegidos es un fenómeno que se ha gene-ralizado en todo el mundo en las últimas décadas...

In this chapter, we examine the characteristics of the Pallars Sobirà landscape, and reflect upon the dynamic interactions between nature, politics, and society it demonstrates. The analysis of the landscape, understood as ‘the material manifestation of the relations between humans and the environment’ (Crumley 1994: 6), cannot limit itself to the...

The studies included in this compilation analyze distinct historical social processes with clear ecological, economic, political and cultural repercussions. The Pyrenees, with their forests, valleys, water, animals, and landscapes, is a region with a rich abundance of natural resources. As a consequence, different social groups, both local and fore...

En los primeros años del siglo XXI, el lobo y el oso han reaparecido en los Pirineos, el Estado destina recursos a la gestión de algunas poblaciones de ungulados salvajes y, después de décadas de haberse producido los últimos avistamientos, los buitres y las nutrias vuelven a estar presentes en los cielos y los ríos de la región. La creciente prese...

In these pages we reflect on the process of transformation of the Catalan Pyrenees from a peripheral and economically decaying area to a first-rate tourism center. Real estate speculation has replaced depopulation. The economic and social value of the territory has dramatically shifted as it has gone from supporting low profitability ranching activ...

In these pages we reflect on the process of transformation of the Catalan Pyrenees from a peripheral and economically decaying area to a first-rate tourism center. Real estate speculation has replaced depopulation. The economic and social value of the territory has dramatically shifted as it has gone from supporting low profitability ranching activ...

Development studies have often evolved amidst a tension between the tendency to declare all forms of communal management archaic and in need of modernisation via privatisation and market integration, and the temptation to essentialise indigenous management with nostalgia while vilifying market impacts. Closer examination suggests that common proper...

The Pyrenees are becoming an environmental reservoir. The acute human depopulation experienced during the twentieth century and the progressive appropriation of large parts of the mountainous territory by the state in order to implement conservation policies have resulted in the return, via reintroduction or natural regeneration, of bears, wolves,...

If current trends of declining fertility rates and increasing abandonment of rural land as a result of urbanization continue, this will signal a globally significant transformation with important consequences for policy makers interested in conservation planning. This transformation is presently evident in a number of countries and projections sugg...

In this article the contemporary Spanish Pyrenees are explained as the result of the transformative agency of the modern state. ne process of reorganization of the natural resources of these mountains through different types of public policies is explained. The analysis of the historical progression of the different waves of transformation of the P...

In the last twenty years the Pyrenean social landscape has experienced a significant change associated with shifts on the uses of its natural resources. Communities previously characterized by their high rates of depopulation are now in a process of relative demographic recovery. This change is associated to a shift from primary economic activities...

An agument for the importance of equity as a criterion in evaluating water policy, with examples in wide-ranging case studies from North and South America and Europe. Many predict that by the end of this century water will dominate world natural resources politics as oil does today. Access to water is widely regarded as a basic human right, and was...

This article reflects on the changing relationships between productive activities, social relations and ethnobiological knowledge in Cornellà de Llobregat. Cornellà is a town located near the city of Barcelona, Spain, which experienced a rapid process of urbanization during the twentieth century. The article explores the transformation of this city...

This study describes the seascape ecology of the Roviana Lagoon in the Western Solomon Islands. Using a combination of ecological and ethnographic data, we analyze the dominant characteristics of the habitats represented in the area, the prevalent environmental phenomena, and the productive practices exerted in these habitats by the local inhabitan...

Las aportaciones realizadas desde la antropología en relación con las áreas protegidas están contribuyendo a destacar las dimensiones sociales de las políticas de conservación. Los parques y las reservas deben considerarse como figuras políticas (y no espacios meramente naturales), como figuras de gestión territorial, en la medida que establecen nu...

ResumenIdioma El análisis de las figuras de protección ambiental desde la antropología se justifica porque estas nuevas formas de apropiación instituyen normas que regulan aspectos tales como cuál debe ser el uso de determinados territorios, quiénes pueden llevarlo a cabo y cómo esto va a ser controlado. Nos interesa saber cómo han llegado a implan...

Este trabajo analiza el moderno proceso de transformación de las zonas rurales de montaña que tiene lugar en el marco de una definición postmaterialista de los recursos naturales y una reorientación de los flujos demográficos, económicos e ideológicos asociados a su gestión. Esta reorganización del espacio, los usos y los recursos está mediatizada,...

This paper reflects on what is called the process of 'patrimonialization' of culture and nature currently taking place in the Western mountainous inlands of the Spanish Eastern Pyrenees. Landscapes, as cultural and historical formations, are presently being commodified and connected to global networks of consumption dominated by urban and 'postmate...

At the dawn of the twenty first century, nature, in the valley of Lillet, is represented by luxuriant forests, the return of charismatic animal species and dramatic landscapes. The valley of Lillet is located in the Catalan Pyrenees in Northeast Spain. Its complex recent history has left deep tracks on its landscape. The wilderness that currently c...

The current globalization of the world is resulting on entire regions suffering sudden structural reconfigurations through the re-organization of economic activities of industrial towns and agrarian landscapes. Contemporary Western societies have seen industries and its associated values move away to cheaper locales, replaced by a services economy...

The expansion and consolidation of the state's sovereignty and the market economy in the Pyrenees, in northeast Spain, took place through the implementation of a series of territorialisation policies designed to reorganise the territory, its natural resources and its population. This process was supposed to introduce state-driven modernity into the...

En este capítulo queremos presentar las características generales del paisaje del Pallars Sobirà y reflexionar acerca de la interacción dinámica que muestra entre naturaleza, política y sociedad. El análisis del paisaje, entendido como "la manifestación material de la relación entre los humanos y el medio ambiente" (Crumley, 1994), no puede limitar...

En este libro se recogen una serie de artículos que reflexionan sobre los cambios experimentados por los Pirineos y sus comunidades humanas en los últimos cuarenta años. Durante este tiempo el paisaje pirenaico ha pasado de sufrir un acusado proceso de despoblación a caracterizarse por un predominio del turismo y de las políticas públicas de conser...

La implantación de grandes complejos turísticos, la construcción masiva de segundas residencias y la creciente expansión de las figuras de protección ambiental constituyen elementos indicativos de los cambios experimentados por los Pirineos en los últimos años. De un extremo a otro de la cordillera y a ambos lados de la frontera administrativa, las...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2005. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 309-329).

This article identifies the current explosion of conservation policies in the Pyrenees as the most recent wave of a long-standing tradition of state-driven territorial policies. The very existence of these policies cannot be understood without taking into account the consequences of two hundred years of territorial rationalization, land expropriati...