Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Indigenous Foodways in the Andes of Peru
Abstract
This article explores the Quechua peoples’ food systems as seen through a traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) lens and reflects on the vital role of Indigenous peoples’ knowledge for global food security. Data was collected from two Quechua communities, Choquecancha and Rosaspata, in the highlands of Peru, from March 2016 to August 2018. This data was collected via participatory action research, talking circles with female
farmers, oral history interviews with elders, and Indigenous gatherings at chacras with community leaders and local agroecologists. Analysis of this data suggests that Quechua people’s in-depth and locally rooted knowledge concerning food security provides an Indigenous-based theoretical model of food sovereignty for the revitalization of Indigenous foodways and collective rights to food rooted in often under-recognised
aspects of their Indigeneity and TEK.
Keywords
Indigenous people; food justice; Allin Kawsay/Buen Vivir; Mauri Ora; food sovereignty; Peru; New Zealand
References
Agrawal, Arun. “Dismantling the Divide between Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge.” Development and Change, vol. 26, no. 3, 1995, pp. 413–39.
Altieri, Miguel A., and Victor Manuel Toledo. “The Agroecological Revolution in Latin America: Rescuing Nature, Ensuring Food Sovereignty and Empowering Peasants.” Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 38, no. 3, 2011 pp. 587–612.
Altieri, Miguel A. Agroecology: The Science of Sustainable Agriculture. Westview Press, 1995.
Apffel-Marglin, Frédérique. “From Fieldwork to Mutual Learning: Working with PRATEC.” Environmental Values, vol. 11, no. 3, 2002, pp. 345–67.
Apffel-Marglin, Frédérique. The Spirit of Regeneration: Andean Culture Confronting Western Notions of Development. Zed Books, 1998.
Battiste, Marie. Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education: A Literature Review with Recommendations. National Working Group on Education and the Minister of Indian Affairs, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), 31 Oct. 2002, www.usask.ca/education/documents/profiles/battiste/ikp_e.pdf.
Bello, Walden, and Mara Baviera. “Food Wars.” Monthly Review, vol. 61, no. 3, 2009, p. 17.
Berkes, Fikret. “Sacred Ecology, Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Resource Management.” Economic Geography, vol. 76, no. 4, 2000, pp. 395–96.
Berkes, Fikret, Carl Folke, and Johan Colding. Linking Social and Ecological Systems: Management Practices and Social Mechanisms for Building Resilience. Cambridge UP, 2000.
Bernstein, Henry. ‘The Peasantry’ in Global Capitalism: Who, Where and Why?” Socialist Register, vol. 37, no. 37, 2009, pp. 25–49.
Borras, Saturnino M., and Marc Edelman. Political Dynamics of Transnational Agrarian Movements. Practical Action Publishing, 2016.
Borras, Saturnino. “Agrarian Change and Peasant Studies: Changes, Continuities and Challenges: An Introduction.” The Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 36, no. 1, 2009, pp. 5–31.
Brush, Stephen B. “Farmer’s Rights and Genetic Conservation in Traditional Farming Systems.” World Development, vol. 20, no. 11, 1992, pp. 1617–30.
Cajete, Gregory. Native Science: Natural Laws of Independence. Clear Light Publishers, 2000.
Contreras Salinas, Sylvia. “Saber Campesino: Otra Forma De Experimentar La Escuela Rural” Estudios Pedagogicos, vol. 38, no. 1, 2012, p. 367.
Conklin, Harold C. Hanunoo agriculture. A report on an integral system of shifting cultivation in the Philippines.Vol.2. (1957).
De Schutter, O. The Right to Food and Sustainable Global Food System. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. 17th Session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development. 2009, www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/otherdocuments/19-srrtfsubmissioncsd-01-05-09-1.pdf.
Daigle, Michelle. “Tracing the Terrain of Indigenous Food Sovereignties.” The Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 46. 2019, vol. 26, no. 2, 2019, pp. 297–15.
Deloria, V. “Indigenous Peoples.” The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics. edited by W. Schweiker, Blackwell Publishing, 2005, pp. 552–559.
Desmarais, Annette Aurelie. “The Via Campesina: Peasant Women on the Frontiers of Food Sovereignty.” Canadian Woman Studies, vol. 23, no. 1, 2003, p. 140.
Espinoza, Waldemar. Los Incas. Economía, Sociedad Y Estado En La Era Del Tahuantinsuyo. Amaru Editores, 1997.
FAO, WFP. IFAD. The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2015. Meeting the 2015 International Hunger Targets: Taking Stock of Uneven Progress. FAO, 2015.
Fernard, Braudel. Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century, in 3 Volumes. Harper and Row, 1979.
Furnish, Dale B. “The Hierarchy of Peruvian Laws: Context for Law and Development.” The American Journal of Comparative Law, vol. 19, no. 1, 1971, pp. 91–120.
Gibbs, Meredith. “The Right to Development and Indigenous Peoples: Lessons from New Zealand.” World Development, vol. 33, no. 8, 2005, pp. 1365–78.
Gonzales, Tirso. “An Indigenous Autonomous Community-Based Model for Knowledge Production in the Peruvian Andes.” Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, vol. 10, no.1, 2015, pp. 107–133.
Gonzalez, Maria, and Tirso Gonzales. “From Colonial Encounter to Decolonizing Encounters. Culture and Nature seen from the Andean Cosmovision of Ever: The Nurturance of Life as Whole.” Nature and Culture. Routledge, 2010, pp. 101–120.
Holt Giménez, Eric, and Annie Shattuck. “Food Crises, Food Regimes and Food Movements: Rumblings of Reform or Tides of Transformation?” The Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 38, no. 1, 2011, pp. 109–144.
Huambachano, Mariaelena. “Business and Sustainability: The Camisea Project in the Peruvian Amazon Basin. Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability.” Emerging Trends in Developing Economies: Critical Studies on Corporate Responsibility, Governance and Sustainability, edited by Gabriel Eweje, Emerald Group Publishing, 2014, pp. 215–240.
Huambachano, Mariaelena. “Enacting Food Sovereignty in Aotearoa New Zealand and Peru: Revitalizing Indigenous Knowledge, Food Practices and Ecological Philosophies.” Journal of Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, vol. 42, no. 9, 2018, pp. 1003–28.
Huambachano, Mariaelena. Through an Indigenous Lens, Food Security is Food Sovereignty: Case Studies of Maori People of Aotearoa and Andean People of Peru. 2017. University of Auckland, PhD dissertation.
Hoover, Elizabeth. “You can’t Say You’re Sovereign if You can’t Feed Yourself”: Defining and Enacting Food Sovereignty in American Indian Community Gardening. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, vol. 5, no. 3, 1994, pp. 127–35.
International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems. From Uniformity to Diversity: a Paradigm Shift from Industrial Agriculture to Diversified Agroecological Systems. 2016, www.ipes-food.org/_img/upload/files/UniformityToDiversity_FULL.pdf.
Kovach, Margaret. Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts. University of Toronto, 2010.
Kuhnlein, Harriet V., et al., editors. Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems and Well-being: Interventions and Policies for Healthy Communities. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 2013, www.fao.org/3/a-i3144e.pdf.
La Vía Campesina. The Global Struggle for Peasants’ Seeds: a Struggle for our Future. Grain. 22 November 2013, www.grain.org/bulletin_board/entries/4836-the-global-struggle-for-peasants-seeds-a-struggle-for-our-future.
La Vía Campesina. Proceedings from the II International Conferencia of the Vía Campesina. NCOS Publications, 1996.
LaDuke, Winona. All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life. Haymarket Books, 2016.
LaDuke, Winona. “Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Environmental Futures.” Journal of International Environment and Policy, vol. 5, 1994, pp. 127–35.
Lajo, Javier. “Sumaq Kawsay-ninchik o Nuestro Vivir Bien.” Argenpress Cultural, 27 March 2010. www.cultural.argenpress.info/2010/03/sumaq-kawsay-ninchik-o-nuestro-vivir.html.
Marglin, Frédérique Apffel. “Paper: Development or Decolonization in the Andes?” Futures, vol. 27, no.8, Oct. 1995, pp. 869–82.
Maxwell, Simon. “Food Security: A Post-Modern Perspective.” Food Policy, vol. 21, no. 2, May 1996, pp. 155–70.
Mayer, Enrique. The Articulated Peasant: Household Economies in the Andes. Routledge, 2018.
McGregor, Deborah. “Coming Full Circle: Indigenous Knowledge, Environment, and our Future.” The American Indian Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 3, 2004, pp 385–410.
McGregor, Deborah. “Coming Full Circle: Indigenous Knowledge, Environment, and our Future.” The American Indian Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 3–4, Summer/Fall 2004, pp 385–410.
McMichael, Philip. “A Food Regime Analysis of the ‘world Food Crisis.’” Agriculture and Human Values, vol. 26, no. 4, 2009, p. 281.
McMichael, Philip. “A Food Regime Genealogy.” The Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 36, no. 1, Dec. 2009, pp 139–69.
Paarlberg, Robert. Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford UP, 2013.
Pierotti, Raymond, and Daniel Wildcat. “Traditional Ecological Knowledge: The Third Alternative (Commentary).” Ecological Applications, vol. 10, no. 5, 2000, pp 1333–40.
Pihama, Leonie, Fiona Cram, and Sheila Walker. “Creating Methodological Space: A Literature Review of Kaupapa Maori Research.” Canadian Journal of Native Education, vol. 26, no. 1, 2002, pp. 30–43.
Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, M. Historia Del Tahuantinsuyo. Lima: IEP/PromPerú, 2003.
Shiva, Vandana. Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability and Peace. Zed Books, 2016.
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Decolonising Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. University of Otago, 1999.
Timmer, C. Peter. Food Security and Scarcity: Why Ending Hunger is so Hard. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). United Nations Declaration on The Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 13 September 2007, www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wpcontent/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf .
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Rome Declaration on World Food Security. 13 Nov. 1996, www.fao.org/docrep/003/w3613e/w3613e00.htm.
Whyte, Kyle. “Food Justice and Collective Food Relations.” The Ethics of Food: An Introductory Textbook, edited by A. Barnhill, M. Budolfson, and T. Doggett, Oxford UP, 2015, pp. 1–18.
Whyte, Kyle. “Food Sovereignty, Justice and Indigenous Peoples: An Essay on Settler Colonialism and Collective Continuance.” Oxford Handbook on Food Ethics. Eds. A. Barnhill, T. Doggett, and A. Egan. New York: NYC: Oxford University Press, 2016. 1–21.
Wilson, Shawn. “Progressing Toward an Indigenous Research Paradigm in Canada and Australia.” Canadian Journal of Native Education, vol. 27, no. 2, 2003, pp 161–78.
Wittman, Hannah, Nettie Wiebe, and Annette Aurelie Desmarais. Food Sovereignty: Reconnecting Food, Nature & Community, Fernwood, 2010.
University of Wisconsin. Madison United States
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9583-0239
Mariaelena Huambachano (Ph.D) is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in the department of Civil Society and Community Studies. Mariaelena is an Indigenous scholar who is native of Peru and citizen of New Zealand, whose work stems from both personal and professional interests. She is a food sovereignty and environmental justice advocate and also an active member of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Her research focuses on Indigenous transnational comparative studies at the interface between cultural and agrobiodiversity proving a new approach to understand traditional knowledge, biocultural heritage and public policies. Her work can be found in Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems,
The International Journal of Food Studies, The International Journal of Environmental Sustainability, The International Journal of Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability. Also, in the volumes on Indigenous spirituality at work: Transforming the Spirit of Business Enterprise edited by Chellie Spiller and Rachel Wolfgramm and in the volume of Critical Studies on Corporate Responsibility, Governance and Sustainability edited by Gabriel Eweje. She is currently working on a book project entitled Indigenous Food Sovereignty, Sustainability, and Wellbeing and also she is leading an international community-based project entitled “Our Right to Food Sovereignty” with community partners in Aotearoa New Zealand, Peru and the USA.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The Copyright Holder of the submitted text is the Author. The Reader is granted the rights to use the material available in the RIAS websites and pdf documents under the provisions of the Creative CommonsAttribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0). Any commercial use requires separate written agreement with the Author and a proper credit line indicating the source of the original publication in RIAS.
- License
The University of Silesia Press provides immediate open access to journal’s content under the Creative Commons BY 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Authors who publish with this journal retain all copyrights and agree to the terms of the above-mentioned CC BY 4.0 license.
- Author’s Warranties
The author warrants that the article is original, written by stated author/s, has not been published before, contains no unlawful statements, does not infringe the rights of others, is subject to copyright that is vested exclusively in the author and free of any third party rights, and that any necessary written permissions to quote from other sources have been obtained by the author/s.
If the article contains illustrative material (drawings, photos, graphs, maps), the author declares that the said works are of his authorship, they do not infringe the rights of the third party (including personal rights, i.a. the authorization to reproduce physical likeness) and the author holds exclusive proprietary copyrights. The author publishes the above works as part of the article under the licence "Creative Commons Attribution - By the same conditions 4.0 International".
ATTENTION! When the legal situation of the illustrative material has not been determined and the necessary consent has not been granted by the proprietary copyrights holders, the submitted material will not be accepted for editorial process. At the same time the author takes full responsibility for providing false data (this also regards covering the costs incurred by the University of Silesia Press and financial claims of the third party).
- User Rights
Under the Creative Commons Attribution license, the users are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit the contribution) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) the article for any purpose, provided they attribute the contribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
- Co-Authorship
If the article was prepared jointly with other authors, the signatory of this form warrants that he/she has been authorized by all co-authors to sign this agreement on their behalf, and agrees to inform his/her co-authors of the terms of this agreement.
I hereby declare that in the event of withdrawal of the text from the publishing process or submitting it to another publisher without agreement from the editorial office, I agree to cover all costs incurred by the University of Silesia in connection with my application.
