Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Socio-ecological analysis and modeling of Q'eqchi' Maya Milpa Agriculture in Toledo District, Belize

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Graduate student Sean S. Downey, supervised by Dr. J. Stephen Lansing, will investigate the social network structure, ecology and economics of Q'eqchi' Maya milpa agriculture in the Toledo District, Belize. Historical patterns of interaction in coupled human and natural systems are as yet poorly understood. The relationship of Maya farming communities to milpa agriculture is particularly subtle because it involves complex patterns of hierarchical and common-pool management of an agricultural system that is embedded in both subsistence and market economies. Because of its long history and importance for understanding the historical dynamics of Maya societies, milpa agriculture has been extensively studied and half a dozen plausible hypotheses have been advanced to explain features of this coupled system. These hypotheses address the problem at different scales, from the short-term effects of market fluctuations, labor requirements or State interventions to the idealized behavior of a generalized model of the system framed in the context of ecologist C.S. Holling's concept of adaptive cycles. Downey will conduct extended fieldwork in five Q'eqchi' villages where he will conduct household interviews, and interview local leaders. He will collaborate with an ecologist to create a GIS map of the milpa fields surrounding these villages and to collect soils samples. These data will be analyzed using cutting-edge spatial explicit agent-based modeling techniques. Grounding the adaptive cycle in observations of the demographic, ecological, and economic cycles in the Toledo District promises to test its utility for explaining the dynamics of a real human system, and may help explain the long-term resilience of Q'eqchi' Maya milpa agriculture.