Doctoral Dissertation Research: Agrobiodiversity, Food Security, and Food Culture in Bolivia

这项博士论文研究项目将考察作物多样性在安第斯山脉粮食安全中的作用，以玻利维亚的食物文化为镜头，分析本地作物、家庭食物消费习惯和更广泛的社会背景之间的联系。玻利维亚提出了一个在作物起源中心常见的悖论，因为该国拥有丰富的农业生物多样性，但它的营养不良程度是南美洲最高的。遗传多样性的作物品种随着不同的生物物理环境和农民的栽培做法而演变，但这些品种往往保存在边缘农业区，这些地区往往是粮食高度不安全的地点。虽然现有文献对环境因素和农业实践在作物多样性进化和维持中的作用进行了详细的研究，但这些因素与推动小农社会和经济边缘化的更广泛的社会过程之间的关系在很大程度上仍然没有得到分析。为了填补文献中的这一空白，本项目将探索三个实证问题：(1)家庭烹饪做法与本地和传统安第斯作物的遗传和形态模式之间存在什么关系？(2)随着食品和人的跨空间移动，对作物多样性的做法、价值和选择压力如何变化？(3)农业生物多样性如何有助于脆弱的农村和城市人口的粮食安全？回答这些问题的数据将通过玻利维亚科恰班巴地区的详细案例研究收集，采用访谈、参与者观察和调查技术相结合的方法。这些数据将进一步支持沿着两条路线进行的理论研究。首先，他们将提供对土著和传统食品在讲述土著、现代性和在当今玻利维亚公共领域中发挥作用的洞察力。其次，它们将有助于围绕商品的物质性质及其周围的社会意义如何促成相互竞争的价值概念的持续辩论。该项目将产生关于农业生物多样性与粮食安全和粮食文化之间关系的基本理论和应用知识。尽管这些关系的存在被广泛接受，但支撑它们的机制还没有得到广泛的探索。通过将农业生物多样性和粮食消费作为连续粮食系统的组成部分进行审查，该项目将使人们对作物遗传资源在更广泛的社会背景下的作用有新的认识。在政策和应用领域，这项研究与玻利维亚和其他类似地区缓解饥饿和粮食不安全的方案的设计直接相关。通过与该国应用开发组织的合作关系，该项目将产生知识，为加强当地可持续的粮食系统创造新的机会。此外，该项目将有助于制定适用于世界其他区域的农业生物多样性和粮食安全研究的方法学原则。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究事业。

This doctoral dissertation research project will examine the role of crop diversity in Andean food security, using Bolivian food culture as a lens to analyze the linkages between native crops, household food consumption practices, and the broader social context. Bolivia presents a paradox common in crop centers of origin, because the country is rich in agrobiodiversity, but it exhibits the highest levels of malnutrition in South America. Genetically diverse crop varieties have evolved in conjunction with varied biophysical environments and farmers' cultural practices, but such varieties tend to be maintained in marginal agricultural areas, which are frequently sites of high food insecurity. While the existing literature offers detailed examinations of the role of environmental factors and agricultural practices in the evolution and maintenance of crop diversity, the relationship between these forces and the broader social processes driving small-scale farmers' social and economic marginalization has largely remained unanalyzed. In order to fill this gap in the literature, three empirical questions will be explored in this project: (1) What relationships exist between household culinary practices and the genetic and morphological patterning of native and traditional Andean crops? (2) How do practices, values, and selection pressures on crop diversity change as food products and people move across space? (3) How does agrobiodiversity contribute to the food security of vulnerable rural and urban populations? Data responding to these questions will be gathered through a detailed case-study of the Cochabamba region of Bolivia, relying on a combination of interviews, participant observation, and survey techniques. These data will further underpin theoretical inquiries along two lines. First, they will provide insights into the leveraging of native and traditional foods in narratives of indigeneity, modernity, and difference-making in the present-day Bolivian public sphere. Second, they will contribute to ongoing debates surrounding the ways in which the material nature of goods and the social meanings surrounding them contribute to competing conceptions of value. This project will generate basic theoretical and applied knowledge about the relationships linking agrobiodiversity to food security and food culture. Although the existence of these relationships is widely accepted, the mechanisms underpinning them have not been explored extensively. By examining agrobiodiversity and food consumption as elements of a continuous food system, this project will shed new light on the role of crop genetic resources in a wider social context. In the realms of policy and application, this research has direct relevance to the design of programs to alleviate hunger and food insecurity in Bolivia and other comparable locales. Through collaborative relationships with applied development organizations in the country, the project will generate knowledge leading to new opportunities for reinforcing locally sustainable food systems. Furthermore, this project will help to develop methodological principles for the study of agrobiodiversity and food security suitable for other world regions. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.