PATTERNS OF SUBSISTENCE

Shree Maharjan8 July 2015

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• Culture is the tacit agreement to let themeans of subsistence disappear behindthe purpose of existence. Civilization is thesubordination of the latter to the former

- Karl Kraus

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Outline of the presentation

1. Sustainable Livelihood Framework2. Background: Subsistence and Adaptation3. Mode of subsistence4. Research Idea5. Conclusion

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SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOOD FRAMEWORK

Human

capital Financi

alcapital

Physical

resources

Social

capital

Naturalresourc

esVulnerabilitycontext:

Shocks/StressesTrends

Seasonality

Structures

Processes

Live

lihoo

d st

rate

gies

External supportand cooperation

Structures – level of government and private sectors; Processes – laws, policies, culture, institutions

Technology Policy

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Source: Carney, 1998, DFID 2001(modified)

BACKGROUND: ADAPTATION

1. Beneficial adjustment to a particular environment

2. Unique adaptation of human being among other species – capacity of

produce and reproduce culture and enable to creatively adapt to an

extraordinary range of radically different environment.

3. CULTURAL ADAPTATION – consist of complex ideas, activities and

technologies that enable to survive and even thrive to the environment

4. Balances the needs of a population and the potential of its environment.

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BACKGROUND: ADAPTATION (1)

5. Diff people have managed to adapt to diverse range of natural environments

– from Arctic snowfields to Polynesian coral islands, from Sahara Desert to the

Amazon rainforest

6. Cultural adaptation is fundamental to human survival in these environments.

7. Unit of adaptation is both organisms and their environment.

8. Organisms and environments form a dynamic interacting systems – called

‘ECOSYSTEM’

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BACKGROUND: ADAPTATION (2)

9. People adapt to the environment by means of their cultures that may change overthe course of time – CULTURAL EVOLUTION (different from PROGRESS – moreadvanced toward perfection)

10. People and all other organisms must have the potential to adjust to or become apart of it.

11. Sometimes, possibility of CONVERGENT or PARALLEL EVOLUTION –independent development of similar cultural adaptation to similar environmentconditions by different peoples with different ancestral cultures. Cheyenne Indiansand Comanche or farming in South West Asia and Mesoamerica

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BACKGROUND: ADAPTATION (3)

12. Recognition of stability is important as well as change involved in cultural adaptation andevolution. E.g. the life of IPs in New England and Quebec was fairly stable over 5,000 years or so.

13. Ethnic groups living in the same broad habitat often share certain culture traits, based onwhich Anthropologists have mapped culture clusters known as CULTURE AREAs – geographicalregions having a number of societies with similar ways of life.

14. Environment and technology are not the only factors that determine a society’s pattern ofsubsistence, social and political factors also influence how technology is applied to theproblem of staying alive

15. The cultural features that are fundamental in the society’s way of making its living are calledCULTURAL CORE. Muslims and Jews abstain eating pork and Hindus don’t eat beef.

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MODES OF SUBSISTENCE

• Human societies all across the world have developed a culturalinfrastructure, compatible with the natural resources.

• Each mode of subsistence involves both resources and technology toeffectively capture and utilize to fulfill the society’s needs.

FoodForagingSociety

Cropcultivation in

Gardens:Horticulture

Cropcultivation:Agriculture

Mixedfarming:crop andAnimal

IntensiveAgriculture& Industrial

Pastoralism9

FOOD FORAGING SOCIETIES

• The mode of subsistence involve in this societywere hunting, fishing and gathering wild plants,foods.

• At present, almost a quarter of million people (lessthan 0.005% of the world population of about 6billion) still support themselves mainly as foragers.

• Foragers constitute a rational response toparticular ecological, economic and socio-politicalrealities.

• For at least 2000 years, they have met thedemands for commodities such as furs, hides,feathers, ivory, pearls, fishes and honey etc.

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LIVELIHOOD FRAMEWORK ANALYSIS

Human

capital Financi

alcapital

Physical

resources

Social

capital

Naturalresourc

esVulnerabilitycontext:

Shocks/StressesTrends

Seasonality

Structures

Processes

Live

lihoo

d st

rate

gies

External supportand cooperation

Structures – level of government and private sectors; Processes – laws, policies, culture, institutions

Technology Policy

11

CHARACTERISTICS OF FOOD FORAGING COMMUNITIES (1)

• Still surviving in marginal areas that are not rich in food and fuel, including mobility

• Limited range of mobility of naturally available food sources – availability water is

crucial factor for their mobility.

• Small size local groups, typically fewer than a hundred people

• Flexible division of labor by gender, however, work of women is no less arduous

than that of men, Ju/’hoansi women walk 12 miles a day 2/3 times to gather food.

• Food sharing among adults and egalitarian social

relationship

• Cultural adaptations and technology among foragers

– hunting technologies/techniques – mobility

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FOOD PRODUCING SOCIETIES

• The next truly momentum in human history was the domestication ofplants and animals

• New cultural transformation, new economic arrangements, socialstructures, ideological patterns either based on plant or animal orboth

• The gradual transition of 10,000 years with the beginning of Neolithicor new stone age – stone based technologies and depended ondomesticated plants and animals

• Radical transformation in almost every aspect of cultural systems –Neolithic revolution or Neolithic transition.

• Dependency on domesticated crops and reduced the mobility• Initially, food production appeared largely like unintended by-product

of existing food management practices.13

CROP CULTIVATION IN GARDENS: HORTICULTURE

• Small gardeners cultivate fruit and vegetables without irrigation, plow and

fertilizer

• Not year round subsistence – mixed crops (less vulnerable to pest and

diseases

• Slash and burn cultivation (Swidden farming) in tropics – ecologically

sound, energy efficient than modern farming

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CROP CULTIVATION: AGRICULTURE

Ag. Societies• More intensive food production by

growing food plants like grains, tubers,fruits and vegetables in soil preparedusing technologies, irrigation, fertilizersand plow

• Also fuel powered tractors in developedcountries especially in larger plots oflands

• The surplus good may be traded or soldfor cash

• Political power is centralized in the handsof a socially elite class

• It’s not always easy to differentiatehorticulture and agriculture

Characteristics of Ag. Societies• Development of fixed settlements

together near to cultivated fields• The food production lent itself to a

different kind of social organization –some produces food for all; othersinvents or manufacture equipment andother occupations – pottery, textiles,housing etc.

• More organized society• People formed multifamily kinship

groups

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MIXED FARMING:

• Mixed subsistence strategy and combine crops

with animals

• Both barns or fenced off and free range based

on cultural traditions, ecological circumstances

and animal habits

• Transhumance – seasonal movement of

livestock

Crops

FisheriesAnimalhusbandry

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PASTORALISM

• One of the Human adaptation to the environment – breeding andmanaging large herds of domesticated grazing animals

• Specialized way of life centered on breeding and herding animals• Completely dependent of livestock for daily survival,• Families in pastoral cultures may own herds of hundreds of grazing

animals – everyday routines• Not settled permanently, follow their large herds to new pastures

regularly• Nomadic Pastoralism of Bakhtairi herders in the Zagros Mountains,

Iran

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INTENSIVE AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES

• With intensification of agriculture, some farming villages became towns andeven cities

• Unlike horticulturists and pastoralists, city dwellers are only indirectlyconcerned with adapting to natural environment.

• More complex society because of marked inequality, ranks, different kindsof work, disaggregation, more formal and bureaucratic, specialized politicalinstitutions

• The industrial revolution quickly spread to other parts of the globe – water,wind and steam followed by oil, gas and diesel fuel replaced human laborand hand tools

• Large scale industrialization of many societies and technological inventionsutilizing oil, electricity and nuclear energy (since 1940s) dramaticallychanges in social and economic organization worldwide.

• Late 20th century, the electronic digital revolution has changed theproduction, distribution of information for economic activity in the society

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Time

Hou

seh

old

Wel

lbei

ng

Flood

CopingResilienceFully Adapted

Development

Conceptualizing coping, resilience andadaptation

NoiseTrendThreshold

Shock

Ajaya Dixit adapted from Aarjan Dixit (2010), WRI19

FACTORS INFLUENCING ADAPTATION TOCLIMATE CHANGE IN AGRICULTURE SECTOR INNEPAL AND BANGLADESH

Advisors:Maharjan, K. L. (Main)Togawa, M. (Co-Advisor)Kawamura, K. (Co-Advisor)

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BRIEF BACKGROUND

• LDCs in South Asia, dependent in agriculture sector, highlyvulnerable to climate change impacts and variability – floods, severedroughts, landslides in coming decades

• High risks, vulnerabilities, but least adaptive capacity• Agriculture is the most sensitive sector in terms of climate risks and

vulnerabilities (IIED, 2011; Baas and Ramasamy, 2008)• Many observed changes and impacts in agriculture and food security

due to climate change such as lost of agricultural land, decrease inagricultural/livestock production, lost of prominent species,emergence of new invasive species etc.

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STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

• Implementation of adaptation plans (NAPAs) and policies are very weak,incomplete and not efficient in both Nepal and Bangladesh

• Lack of clear guidance on the mandates, clear authority and roles ofdevolved structures, inefficient planning and lack of supervision

• Factors influencing the successful planning and implementation ofadaptation and development plans are not considered important

• Lack of full and effective participation of community in the planning toimplementation of such interventions

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RATIONALE (1)• Important to carry out researches and studies on adaptation in Ag for CC

negotiations at all levels (IIED, 2011 and Sova, et. al., 2012)

• Prioritized to integrate adaptation plans into development plans and some

development plans at local levels also focused on building resilience of

the communities.

• important to plan effectively and analyze the factors including cost and

benefits associated with climate change adaptation and development

plans prior to implement in the fields.

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RATIONALE

• Many direct and indirect factors relating to effective planning and costingof adaptation plans, its implementation that needs to map out in theprocess including identification of most probable CC impacts, requiredresponse, effective planning and estimation of budget for implementationin different scales (Chambwera, et.al., 2011)

• Factors such as social, economic and ecological/environment andparticipation of communities in the process affecting the effectiveplanning and costing of adaptation interventions that are key and need toanalyze from local to national levels to mainstream adaptation todevelopment plans (Maharjan et.al., 2011)

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CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Copingstrategies

Adaptationplans

Factors:

Human

Policy

Socio-cultural

Economic

Technical

Natural

Physical

Anthropogenicreasons

NaturalCauses

Climatechange risks

andvulnerabilities

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CONCLUSION

• Human wants are unlimited, but limited resources• Facing many challenges for food, shelter and other

necessities• Human must gather, produce or buy the means to

satisfy these needs• A range of highly contrasting natural environments

with different cultural and natural adaptation duringthe span of human existence

• By inventing and applying various technologies,human have developed a great variety of distinctivesubsistence to harness energy and process requiredresources

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WE ARE DEDICATED TO MAINTAINING A NATURAL,SAFE AND GREEN ENVIRONMENT…

so that our children can enjoy the same resourcesand beauty that we have for generations.

ARIGATOGOJAIMASU

THANK YOUVERY MUCH

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