Coastal Heritage and Cultural Resilience

319 Pages·2018·8.174 MB·English

by  Lisa L. Price, Nemer E. Narchi

Ethnobiology
Lisa L. Price · Nemer E. Narchi Editors
Coastal
Heritage
and Cultural
Resilience
Ethnobiology
Series editors:
Robert Voeks, Center for Remote Sensing & California State University,
Fullerton, CA, USA
John Richard Stepp, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida,
Gainesville, FL, USA
Ethnobiology is the study of the dynamic relationship between plants, animals,
people, and the environment. Academic and applied interests include ethnobotany,
ethnozoology, linguistics, paleoethnobotany, zooarchaeology, ethnoecology, and
many others. The field lies at a dynamic intersection between the social and
biological sciences. The major contribution from the biological sciences has come
from economic botany, which has a rich historical and scientific tradition. Indeed,
the objectives of the colonial enterprise were as much about the quest for “green
gold” –herbal medicines, spices, novel cultivars, and others—as it was for precious
metals and sources of labor. The view that ethnobiology concerns mostly the
discovery of new and useful biota extended into the 20th century. The social sciences
have contributed to the field in both descriptive studies but also within quantitative
approaches in cognitive anthropology that have led to general principles within
ethnobiological classification. Ethnobiological research in recent years has focused
increasingly on problem solving and hypothesis testing by means of qualitative and
especially quantitative methods. It seeks to understand how culturally relevant
biotas are cognitively categorized, ranked, named, and assigned meaning. It
investigates the complex strategies employed by traditional societies to manage
plant and animal taxa, communities, and landscapes. It explores the degree to which
local ecological knowledge promotes or undermines resource conservation, and
contributes to the solution of global challenges, such as community health, nutrition,
and cultural heritage. It investigates the economic value and environmental
sustainability to local communities of non-timber forest products, as well as the
strategies through which individual ecological knowledge and practices encourage
resilience to change—modernization, climate change, and many others. Most
importantly, contemporary ethnobiological research is grounded in respect for all
cultures, embracing the principles of prior informed consent, benefit sharing, and
general mindfulness.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11551
Lisa L. Price • Nemer E. Narchi
Editors
Coastal Heritage
and Cultural Resilience
Editors
Lisa L. Price Nemer E. Narchi
School of Language, Culture, and Society, CoLaboratorio de Oceanografía Social
College of Liberal Arts Centro de Estudios en Geografía Humana
Oregon State University El Colegio de Michoacán, A.C.
Corvallis, OR, USA La Piedad, Michoacán, Mexico
ISSN 2365-7553 ISSN 2365-7561 (electronic)
Ethnobiology
ISBN 978-3-319-99024-8 ISBN 978-3-319-99025-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99025-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018959414
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Preface
For more than a decade, we, the coeditors, have discussed and contributed to a num-
ber of projects involving ocean resources, coastal communities, and local knowl-
edge. For the most part, we have done so within the boundaries of ethnobiology,
defined classically as the study of the interactions between people and the environ-
ment and of people’s knowledge and concepts concerning nature and biology.
However, in its strictest sense, neither the orthodoxy of ethnobiology nor the epis-
temic rigidity of marine sciences or marine policy alone is sufficient for observing,
analyzing, and understanding a cornucopia of nonindigenous ocean and coastal
livelihoods, imaginaries, and significations. The profound implications of this last
sentence, along with the complexity of human existence, can help explain why this
book came into being.
To have a better idea of the complexities occurring in coastal settings, we must
take into account that approximately half of the global human population lives
within a hundred kilometers of a coastline. Within the United States, nearly half
of the population lives in coastal states, and roughly 40% live in coastal counties.1
Such large coastal populations bring together a vast number of cultural, social,
and economic configurations—small-scale communities of fishers, industrial fish-
ers, sailors, traders, tourists, developers, governments, planners, artists, and scien-
tists, among others. Each segment of the coastal populace has its particular, but
sometimes overlapping, vested interests, ideologies, bodies of knowledge, and
sensibilities.
Presently, the environmental state of our coasts and oceans is far from what it
used to be. Coral bleaching, ocean acidification, fisheries overexploitation, massive
amounts of photodegraded plastic eternally floating in the world’s oceans, and con-
tinually increasing quantities of urban, industrial, and river pollution are but some of
the problems our oceans face. These anthropogenically induced damages, combined
with high human densities and variation in vested interests, create complexity to
such an extent that our standard tools and academic disciplines are not as effective in
1 U.S. Census Bureau (2017). Population rising in coastal counties. Data key to hurricane response.
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2017/08/hurricane-season.html. Accessed 3 June 2018.
v
vi Preface
finding solutions as we first thought they were. We think that it is not simply a matter
of employing better planning, complicated calculations, engineering, and fisheries
science to achieve life-affirming results, as this is already happening to some degree.
Instead, we think there is a desperate need for giving the social sciences and humani-
ties inherent in ethnobiology a preponderant place within the discussion of marine
and costal planning for environmental, cultural, economic, and social sustainability.
Ethnobiology, when articulated across the liberal arts, has the power to suggest
novel solutions under the light of vivid livelihoods, cultural adaptation, local
resource management schemes, social institutions, and alternate ways of appreciat-
ing, perceiving, appropriating, understanding, and explaining the world. Inside
these pages, readers will find a fresh attempt to achieve this goal.
In such a light, we are motivated by new and ambitious initiatives emerging in
institutions around the world. Two of these initiatives, not parallel but complemen-
tary, bring us together once again to discuss, analyze, and present a new panorama
on coastal human existence.
On the one hand, Oregon State University’s Marine Studies Initiative strives to
create a healthy future for the oceans and humanity through transdisciplinary
research and teaching that emphasizes the social, political, and cultural issues of
coasts and oceans as they interface with marine natural systems.
On the other hand, the CoLaboratories of Social Oceanography is a multi-
institutional and interdisciplinary effort hosted by El Colegio de Michoacán in
which marine and social sciences coalesce in an effort to overcome the unintended
barriers posed by classical oceanography, namely, a monocultural vision of the sea,
social Darwinism, epistemicide, and inequality. These barriers are tackled by pro-
moting a decolonial shift in the relationship between knowledge and power, ensur-
ing the political praxis of coastal peoples. This effort is about transforming the
methodical solipsism of modern politics and governmental thinking and recovering
the critical spirit in the production of historical subjects to promote participation of
coastal peoples in alternative development projects on their own terms.
In the end, as defined in the goals and mission of these two parallel efforts, we
have shepherded this volume, motivated by an ethnobiological heart and sheltered
by a critical carapace assembled from many disciplines. We do so with the strong
conviction that not only are new paradigms needed but that, in order to shape these
new solutions, one of the most indispensable things we need to bring to the table is
the voices and realities of those peoples and cultures who have been deprived of
such an elemental right as participation.
Coastal Heritage: Ethnobiology, Environmental Knowledge,
and Livelihood Diversity
There is no absolute consensus on how to define coastal ethnobiological knowledge,
but, at least from the ethnobiological standpoint, it is widely understood as the knowl-
edge that coastal populations have acquired about the ecological properties of the
coastal and marine ecosystems from which they benefit in many material and spiritual
Preface vii
ways.2 This definition differentiates between Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)
and Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK), which, despite being used interchangeably in
ethnobiological and anthropological literature, should be distinguished for various rea-
sons. First, the differentiation enables researchers to incorporate the knowledge of
nonindigenous communities in their observations. Second, there is no requirement to
assume an ancient or even a multigenerational accumulation of knowledge. Lastly,
there is no need to forcefully try to embed LEK systems into a broader shared culture,
as coastal ethnobiological knowledge frequently applies to coastal populations with a
relatively recent history of living in a marine environment and engaging with the envi-
ronment and change. We rely on this description in order to highlight how the exis-
tence and relevance of biotic, abiotic, and cultural factors can either increase
environmental degradation or trace paths toward more sustainable futures.
We rely on the above characterization of local ecological knowledge for coastal
inhabitants featured in this volume in order to encompass a diversity of coastal
actors not necessarily having an indigenous first peoples background. This frame-
work allows us to extend the conceptual reach of “biocultural diversity” beyond the
marked theoretical bias toward the study of transcendental spaces, such as spiritual
landmarks, to include specific coastal and marine resources, to analyze their cultural
and material values, and to elucidate how these values are linked to specific liveli-
hoods, sentiments, and sentimentality.
In other words, different human groups perceive, understand, conceptualize, use,
and exploit coastal and marine resources, features, and phenomena differently.
From these differences arise new forms of knowledge that define human–environ-
ment interactions in particular and precise case-specific relations. These relations
manifest in the forms of preconceptions, behaviors, actions, and beliefs that can
range from purely utilitarian strategies to balanced communal connections with
other biological entities and natural surroundings. The continuous repetition and
frequent transmission of strategies and connections toward biological entities and
natural surroundings create a cultural repertoire that, when applied to coastal and
oceanic settings, should be referred to as coastal heritage. Coastal heritage contrib-
utes to building and consolidating support for the livelihoods and well-being of
individual and community spirit vital to cultural resilience.
Coastal Heritage and Cultural Resilience
We understand cultural resilience as the ability a community has developed to adapt
to change while maintaining its customary livelihood strategies through the use,
management, and maintenance of biological and cultural assets, and we consider
human agency to be fundamental to resilience as it promises the continued produc-
tion of coastal heritage by fostering a set of relationships and connections that
ensures the maintenance of cultural repertoires.
2 Narchi, N. E., Cornier, S., Canu, D. M., Aguilar-Rosas, L. E., Bender, M. G., Jacquelin, C., ... &
De Wit, R. (2014). Marine ethnobiology a rather neglected area, which can provide an important
contribution to ocean and coastal management. Ocean & Coastal Management, 89, 117–126.
viii Preface
It is important, however, to highlight that the concept of resilience is complex
and that we should not mistake lack of change or resistance to change for resilience.
Values, knowledge, skills, agency, or political power may not be present in order of
magnitude to ensure resourcefulness.
Contributions to the Volume
The researchers convened to contribute to this project have historically worked in
the Pacific region, partially because this is the region where most of our institutions’
research efforts in marine studies have been invested.
In such a light, the authors contributing to this book have undertaken the task of
presenting an ample view of coastal heritage traditions from Panama to Vancouver.
In doing so, they have relied on poetry, environmental history, and significant trade
trends of the Western Pacific countries, along with studies in local ecological knowl-
edge, food systems, vulnerability, and art to create a unique volume comprehensive
of a wide array of cultural manifestations and local adaptations that, we are confi-
dent, will help the reader understand the vital role of coastal heritage and cultural
resilience in fostering ecological conservation. These trends answer the call made
toward an ethnobiological endeavor in desperate need of thinking outside of its
conventional models.
From putting together this book, we have learned that coastal heritage manifests
in many different ways throughout separate places and that, despite more sober defi-
nitions, coastal heritage does not necessarily require a multigenerational accumula-
tion of experience. In other words, individuals can accumulate local ecological
knowledge during the course of their own life while interacting with a local environ-
ment, and such empirical knowledge can be shared within the community in a single
generation, many times as a result of personal innovation and experimentation. A
theme of this sort is what Peter Betjemann presents in this book. His chapter pres-
ents a sharp commentary on erotic Pacific coast poetry by Robinson Jeffers and
Theodore Roethke—who use tidal movement, fish reproduction, and wave energy
as sexual metaphors—to show the poets’ efforts to entice their readers into a sensu-
ous relation with the sea in order to maintain coastal environments. Betjemann’s
ecologies of desire manage to capture a sort of coastal consciousness that trans-
forms ardent passion into profound environmental awareness, as well as keen
ecological and zoological observations. His chapter resonates with the famous
phrase Beaucoup de gens attaquent la mer, je lui fais l’amour3 attributed to Captain
Jacques Yves Cousteau. Finally, it also echoes the profound ecological observations
embedded in the cultural systems of indigenous coastal peoples around the world
and passed on through poetry and song.
Perhaps such a sensuous stirring—along with a feud with Forrest Shreve and
Herman Spoe—is what made pioneering ecologist Frederic E. Clements fall in love
3 A lot of people attack the sea, I make love to it.
Preface ix
with the endangered dune systems of Southern California. In a wonderful chapter
mixing environmental history, plant ecology, and the foundational records of the
University of California Natural Reserve System, Anita Guerrini, Donald Burnette,
and Jenifer Dugan provide us with the inside story of the Coal Oil Point Reserve.
This place was named a preservation site in 1970 under the premise that it repre-
sented one of the last remaining pristine dune-to-slough coastal systems in Southern
California. However romantic that notion, what Coal Oil Point truly stands for is a
long-term disrupted environment—an invisible landscape bearing witness to human
hybridization of natural systems. This invisible landscape, resulting from the inter-
vention of Frederic E. Clements and others, can now be considered an archival
human landscape useful for advancing knowledge on coastal heritage in numerous
ways beyond botanical endeavors.
Ana Spalding and María Eugenia Mellado also plunge into a discussion of the
outcomes of creating disrupted environments by developing a chapter connecting
one of the best-known disrupted coastal zones in the world—the Panama Canal—
with the United States. Through their piece, the authors delve deeply into the out-
comes resulting from the historical, political, economic, and social connections
emerging from the European appropriation of the Mar del Sur. Two specific out-
comes of these connections are highlighted throughout the chapter: the demise of
the pearl oyster (Pinctada mazatlanica) and the construction of the canal itself.
Spalding and Mellado clearly show that the geographical aperture of the Mar del
Sur to European imaginaries and economies quickly had a marked impact on local
ecologies and global economies that remains to this day. Perhaps the most signifi-
cant of their conclusions is that discovery, conquest, and superimposition of politi-
cal and economic imaginaries diminished local human and nonhuman populations
and that the coastal heritage built through their relationships gave Panama a mal-
leable identity that, while cruel in origin, still bears hope of amassing a sustainable
coastal heritage for the future.
Few indigenous cultures in Mexico have a fully coastal livelihood; one is the
Mero ‘ikooc culture, a horticultural-fisher society occupying coastal lagoons in the
state of Oaxaca. Sadly, the state of the fisheries in Mero ‘ikooc territories shows a
similar degree of deterioration to those in the rest of Mexico, due, very likely, to the
effects of centralized fisheries policies in place since the 1970s. To reverse this
trend, new policies have been implemented for promoting citizen participation in
decision-making processes. Citizen participation is particularly important for the
Mero ‘ikooc, as people of this society have long maintained their coastal heritage
through ethnobiological interactions with the resources they manage and the ecolo-
gies that surround them. The research of José Zepeda-Domínguez and Alejandro
Espinoza-Tenorio documents the transition of Mero ‘ikooc institutions toward self-
governance, social and cultural resilience, and the search for sustainability in a
socioenvironmental context in need of a new status quo.
The exploitation of pearls has remained an important human activity for thou-
sands of years. As such, the promise of rich pearl banks was a recursive element in
the discursive formula aimed at attracting volunteers to the Americas, and the activ-
ity became ubiquitous for European settlements along the coasts of the new world.