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Research

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





Image: Estate/Summer, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, 1563. Public domain, Wikimedia


 

My formal training was an interdisciplinary mix of anthropology and plant sciences, leading to a PhD in ethnoecology with a minor in plant sciences from the University of Arizona.

Positively responding to the climate crisis, and the environmental and social changes we face requires making use of diverse forms of knowledge and expertise. In agriculture, local knowledge often reflects people’s goals and many realities of the environments they are working in. My research investigates local 'informal' knowledge, practices and outcomes in human management and use of crop plant diversity, including the consequences for adaptation to climate, environmental and social changes. Frequently this involves quantifying farmers’ and gardeners’ practices, and documenting the theory and values underlying those practices in un- or under-represented communities. Understanding these practices, and the knowledge and expertise underlying them, is the basis for partnerships between communities and scientists that are effective, and based on respect and equity.

I have had the good fortune to work with biologists, plant breeders, crop geneticists, and farmers in a number of locations: Hopi and Zuni Native American farmers in the US southwest, investigating changes in crop diversity over time, and cultural values related to intellectual property rights in traditional crops; in Oaxaca, Mexico quantifying the phenotypic and genetic consequences of farmer seed selection in maize and beans, farmers’ genetic perceptions regarding their maize populations, and their assessments of risk related to transgenic maize; in Cuba and Guatemala also documenting farmers’ assessments of risk related to transgenic maize; in Oaxaca, Mexico and southern California investigating traditional foods of Oaxacan origin and their relationship with crop diversity, cultural identity and wellbeing; the stories and genetic characterizations of historic olive plantings in the greater Santa Barbara area. With David A. Cleveland I have co-authored, and I illustrated the 1991 book Food from Dryland Gardens, on food gardening in arid areas. Food Gardens for a Changing World (2019) is a book co-authored with David A. Cleveland and Steven E. Smith, about food gardens in the changing climates, environments and societies of the 21st century, especially in the global north. Most recently I began research on seed libraries and other small scale, community seed efforts, to create a baseline of where that movement is and explore how the research questions, practices and data needs of grassroots seed groups can be the basis of collaborations with public scientists through participatory or community science.