David Guillet

Plausible ethnographic analogies for the social organization of Hohokam canal irrigation

This paper presents the results of a juxtaposition of archaeological findings on Hohokam irrigation and ethnographic research on the social organization of irrigation. There are no ethnographic or historic records pertaining to the Hohokam, so the comparative ethnographic approach is perhaps more productive than in other situations. Several forms of canal irrigation organization are considered, including politically centralized, acephalous, private, and several forms of communal. We find that politically centralized, acephalous, and private forms are implausible in the Hohokam context. Several of the communal forms are plausible. We find no ethnographic basis for positing a valley-wide management system.

Toward a Cultural Ecology of Mountains: The Central Andes and the Himalayas Compared [and Comments and Reply]

A model of the cultural ecology of tropical high mountains based on a comparison of the Central Andes and the Himalayas is presented. It is argued that mountain adaptations have three basic elements: (1) an array of vertical production zones, each characterized by a complex interaction of variables including agricultural regime, social organization, stratification, land tenure, labor organization, and level of productivity; (2) choice by the population of an overall production strategy for the exploitation of the vertical production zones available to it, a strategy that may involve specialization in one zone or, in response to a variety of constraints, the combined exploitation of several zones; and (3) a potential for change in production strategy, within the constraints of the mountain environment, under the influence of endogenous and exogenous factors.

Terracing and Irrigation in the Peruvian Highlands [and Comments and Reply]

Agricultural terraces in the Colca Valley of southem Peru facilitate the irrigation necessary for agriculture in this semiarid environment. Terrace expansion and contraction, in tum, are closely related to the availability of water. In the short term, households abandon terraces because of constraints in the system of water distribution. In the longer term, periodic droughts trigger water conservation practices which curtail expansion and lead to terrace abandonment. During periods of relative water abundance, constraints are relaxed, allowing new terraces to be constructed and abandoned ones rebuilt. Cyclical pattems of terrace contraction and expansion suggest that repeated observations of land use over time are necessary for an understanding of agricultural intensification and deintensification in the Central Andes.

Small-Scale Agro-Pastoral Production in the Central Andes

ABSTRACT Small-scale agro-pastoral production in the Central Andes is oriented toward guaranteeing a subsistence livelihood by efforts to attain self-sufficiency in food production and to reduce environmental risks. Production strategies involve the simultaneous use of several ecological zones each with characteristic crops or types of pasture. Households are the basic units of production which allocate land, labour, and capital at their disposal to meet short-term production goals. Supra-household mechanisms support the households within particular communities by limiting access to some lands, managing communal pastures, scheduling agro-pastoral activities, enforcing rotation schedules, and maintaining communal infrastructure (roads, terraces, irrigation canals). Ethnographic research in the last decade permits a detailed description of the workings of these forms of organization in a variety of ecological and economic conditions. Both the complementarity and the tension between household and supra-household claims on land and labour are discussed and some recent changes are reviewed.

AGRARIAN ECOLOGY AND PEASANT PRODUCTION IN THE CENTRAL ANDES

An integrated, production-focused, model of the Central Andean peasant economy is suggested, based on the interac- tion of many factors: geoecology, vertical gradients of land tenure, agricultural regime, and labour use, and the household/supra- household spheres of production. Two sets of characteristic social relations are found. The first is a personal social network built up by the household which can be activated to obtain land, labour, and other productive inputs. The second is a set of social relation- ships within the totality of households in a naturally interacting settlement. The latter is associated with a supra-household sphere of production which arises as a response to constraints on household production requiring collective processes. Through the supra- household, land, water, pasture, and collecting rights are allocated to individual households, agricultural tasks and labour utilization are scheduled and coordinated, large-scale technological inputs into household production are created and maintained, and a long- term production strategy is determined.

A Knowledge-Based-Systems Model of Native Soil Management

This paper describes the use of a knowledge-based-system to model aspects of native soil management in a Peruvian highland village. Itfocuses on the steps taken in the construction of the model: the formulation ofprototypes, the development of a knowledge vocabulary, building the knowledge base, and validation. The paper concludes with a discussion of the relative merits of knowledge-based-systems as compared with other representations of decision processes. [economic anthropology, expert systems, Andes, ecological anthropology, soil management]

Co-Management of Natural Resources: The Long View from Northwestern Spain

Stakeholder co-management, a relatively new approach to environmental man agement, has come under criticism in recent years. The ethnographic and ethnohistorical record of co-management offers a rich body of experiences in responding to these criticisms. To illustrate, the history of local resource management of forests, water, land, and pastures in the upper Duero basin of Spain from the Reconquest to the liberal administrative reforms of the nineteenth century is discussed.