Graduate Student, School of Anthropology and Conservation
Thesis Title: Agroculinary transitions in Ngäbe households of Costa Rica. Linking food plants, change, and worldviews in Conte-Burica.
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Dr. Rajindra Puri
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About
In Costa Rica, the many-sided effects of multimillionaire incentive-based conservation and development policies in general, and in biocultural systems in particular, have been chiefly analysed in economic terms or in the majority of cases, merely overlooked, even more so in relation to indigenous communities. Aiming to contribute to fill this gap, the currently ongoing ethnobotanical study carried out with 67 Ngäbe informants from 30 different households in Conte-Burica, analyses and discusses the observed foodways transition, biocultural diversity loss, livelihood transformations, and the resulting food insecurity –all four situations absolutely contrary to the premises of sustainable development–, and their relationships with an increased presence of conservation-development programs, market and State accelerated intrusion, augmented political interests, as well as considerable amounts of money and material artefacts, specially being on the rise since late 1980’s onwards.
