Local Socio-Environmental Systems as a Transdisciplinary Conceptual Framework

Abstract

In this chapter, we introduce the scenario of the book and provide the theoretical foundations of its key topics-socio-environmental regimes, innovation niches, local visions, and transdisciplinary approaches, as well as the interactions among these topics-which we use to analyze indigenous and other rural production systems in Latin American (LA) territories and communities. Most of the studied territories are located in diverse geographic regions, including the Mayan jungles and the Amazon that the literature recognizes as lands in which high biodiversity and indigenous and traditional peoples are interwoven. In order to analyze diverse rural productive sectors in LA territories, we propose the Local Socio-Environmental Systems framework which is rooted in systems theory. This approach is sufficiently flexible to be compatible with the particular assumptions and theories that a given research team chooses to apply to a given territory. We used Bonfil-Batalla’s cultural control theory to explore the territories addressed in this book, categorizing them according to the sources of rural producers’ key local resources and their capacity for decision-making regarding these resources. We also discuss the manner in which we have shifted from disciplinarity to transdisciplinarity in our research in indigenous and other rural territories. We view transdisciplinarity as a way of combining scientific knowledge and social practices. Thus, transdisciplinarity involves praxis as well as discussion and consideration through a spiral of exchanges of knowledge in which participants play interchangeable roles: we are all novices; we all learn; and we all produce knowledge. Transdisciplinarity involves a critical interculturalism perspective to promote dialogue among different worldviews. The final section briefly summarizes the book’s chapters, which present case studies from seven LA countries-Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, and Mexico.