Browsing by Subject "Peruvian Amazon"
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Item How access, values, and history shape the sustainability of a social-ecological system : the case of the Kandozi indigenous group of Peru(2010-12) Montoya, Mariana; Young, Kenneth R.; Crews, Kelley A.; King, Brian H.; McClain, Michael E.; Sletto, BjornThis research examines how the Kandozi indigenous group governs access to fish and timber, how access contributes to their well-being, and if the Kandozi’s natural resource use and socio-ecological system are sustainable. The Kandozi occupy a biodiverse tropical forest in the northern Peruvian Amazon with lakes and seasonally flooded areas. This indigenous group has livelihoods that are dependent upon securing access to natural resources that contribute to their well-being; hence it represents a good case study to investigate access and its relation with social-ecological sustainability. Access is defined here as the ability to derive benefits from natural resources. The analysis of sustainability was done by integrating research on both access and well-being. Multiple methods and a comparative examination of access to fish and timber were used to explore historical processes that shape access. The analysis of qualitative data on well-being and quantitative data based on income from fishing activities in 2009, helped evaluate if the Kandozi benefited from the use of resources and clarified the evolution of their quality of life. Hypotheses regarding how spatiality shapes access and how sustainability depends upon access to natural resources were tested. Results indicate that factors such as heterogeneity, kinship, land tenure, the legal framework and knowledge all shape access to natural resources. Spatial and temporal heterogeneity in particular is a critical factor because it determines resource availability. Furthermore, this study shows how benefits from the use of resources contribute to the Kandozi’s perception of well-being, defined by them as living without worries, which includes meeting economic, social and cultural needs. Results from this study indicate that perceptions of well-being depend on human values and change over time, consequently the sustainability of the social-ecological system fluctuates. This research concludes that sustainability of this and similar systems are dependent upon the moment at which the analysis is done, because of the changing needs of people over time. This study demonstrates that the range of relations and interactions among different processes that shape access, and the historically contingent characteristic of access and its evolution over time, help better understand complex social ecological systems.Item Music from Amazonia : roots, cosmopolitanism, and regional expression in Iquitos, Peru(2010-08) Metz, Kathryn Ann, 1978-; Moore, Robin D.; Tucker, C. Joshua; Slawek, Stephen; Erlmann, Veit; Keeler, WardThis study explores the construction of regional identities through music performance and mediated forms of public culture in the urban Amazon of Peru, focusing on the city of Iquitos. A fast-developing metropolis, Iquitos's increasing industrial, ecological and economic importance on the national scale has driven a population explosion, drawing migrants from the surrounding jungle whose traditional communities are disintegrating. Urban musicians respond to these changes by attempting to create an inclusive, Amazonian regional community through public culture. A local folkloric genre called pandilla, which has morphed from a style associated mainly with native communities in another region of the Amazon to a distinctly mestizo music and dance from Iquitos, has been particularly central to this process. Shaped through forms of public culture in urban Amazonia that articulate cosmopolitanism and globalization to the local milieu, it connects a folkloric past -- molded by colonial dominance -- to the present, which is steeped in cosmopolitanism and regional pride. This project traces the region’s history beginning with an influential folkloric ensemble, Los Solteritos, which emerged in the early 1960s and came to epitomize local mestizo music, shaping iquiteño esthetics and repertoire, and establishing pandilla as a pan-Amazonian folkloric genre. It shows how this urban folkloric group claims deep ties to rural, indigenous Amazonia, even as it invests heavily in cosmopolitan esthetics and the mechanized reproduction of sound. Finally, this study demonstrates how Explosión, a pop group that performs tecno-cumbia music became the representative pop ensemble of Iquitos by bringing local symbols of cosmopolitanism and folklore into their performances. The ensemble re-packaged pandilla for consumption by various audiences locally and nationally, creating a unique music style at the juncture of community and cosmopolitanism, where industry and consumerism often shape musical trajectories. Overall, through the tecno-cumbiaization of pandilla, Iquitos is coming to terms with its position as an Amazonian city seeking admittance into the nation imaginary and radio, piracy, and public performance are the varied public cultural sites where regional identity is shaped as the Amazon grows in economic and political significance.Item Smallholder livelihoods and market accessibility in the Peruvian Amazon(2013-05) Cardozo, Mario Luis; Crews, Kelley A.; Young, Kenneth R.Abstract: This study examines how differential accessibility to regional markets and natural resources affects smallholder livelihoods in the northeastern Peruvian Amazon, particularly in terms of household income diversification or specialization. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods were applied to semi-structured smallholder household (N = 319) and community leader interview data collected in 40 communities in 2006-2007, in addition to change detection performed on Landsat satellite imagery (1987, 1993, and 2001). First, the dissertation explores changes in smallholder land use patterns across the study region during a period of profound macroeconomic changes and continual urbanization, finding that overall land use trends of agricultural abandonment reflected national reductions in agrarian subsidies. Second, based on interview data, household processes of income diversification and specialization were analyzed in two sections of the study area, the Itaya and Nanay basins. In the Itaya Basin, it was observed that smallholder livelihood specialization was aided by road development increasing transportation accessibility to important regional markets. In the more isolated Nanay Basin, livelihood choices were found to be influenced by processes of livelihood displacement caused by conservation efforts, in addition to remoteness and river seasonality. This study concludes by reflecting on the importance of the spatial relations of access to resources and markets in the region and in similar places in the developing tropics. This kind of information can help make national and regional policy decisions on such issues such as conservation, agrarian credits, road development, which may differentially affect smallholder livelihoods and their environments.