Amazonian forest gardens (chakras) for crisis resilience and cultural resistance in the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon

亚马逊森林花园（脉轮），用于厄瓜多尔和秘鲁亚马逊地区的危机恢复和文化抵抗

• 批准号: AH/X008290/1
• 负责人: Nina Moeller
• 金额: $ 40.61万
• 依托单位: Coventry University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FX008290%2F1
• 关键词: Amazonian; forest; gardens; chakras; crisis

Widely recognised as one of the most ecologically significant areas of the world, the Amazon region is under threat by interconnected crises: climate change, extractive industry and pollution, poverty, malnutrition. Crisis in the Amazon spells crisis for the rest of the world: playing a pivotal role in the regulation of global climate patterns, maintaining the Amazon rainforest's ecological dynamics is a crucial aspect of halting runaway global heating. Central to this is the safeguarding of rainforest biodiversity, to ensure ecological resilience to climate shocks. Having actively maintained and enhanced Amazonian biodiversity over millennia before the Spanish Conquest of South America, indigenous communities excel as stewards of biodiversity, yet they are still marginalised and discriminated against. Most approaches aiming to overcome this marginalisation and discrimination are aimed at improved inclusion into the national political, economic, education and health systems. While intentions may be laudable, many of these approaches are not indigenous-led, and may have consequences of eroding indigenous lifeways, ancestral practices, and the very worldviews which have supported indigenous relationships with the forest and its more-than-human inhabitants. Conducting collaborative research with indigenous organisations to support their self-organised strategies of resilience and cultural resistance, is not only a matter of social justice, but constitutes an active safeguarding of the Amazon's bio-cultural diversity in a time when the world needs them most. At the heart of many indigenous Amazonian societies lies the chakra - the traditional forest garden, or more specifically a complex network of cultivated forest spaces. Recently, the chakra has been heralded as a solution to the dilemma between environmental and economic sustainability and initiatives are underway to promote the chakra as emblematic of sustainable production methods. This new market orientation, however, overlooks the spiritual and cultural centrality of the chakra to indigenous lifeways: as the basis for good health, a space where social bonds and community relations are created and maintained and where much intergenerational transmission of knowledge unfolds, including through songs and a very literal 'speaking with plants'. The chakra, as central constituent of many Amazonian lifeways, as sphere of interaction between human and forest beings, space of entanglement of 'culture' and 'nature', is an ideal entry point into exploring indigenous cultural resilience to and overcoming of crises through a revitalisation of ancestral knowledges and practices. Arising from ongoing dialogue with indigenous organisations over several years, this project brings together a partnership of academic and indigenous researchers to understand and harness the potential of the chakra for indigenous communities' responses to the challenges posed by interconnected crises in the Amazon region. Concomitantly, the project seeks to strengthen indigenous communities' capacity for self-advocacy, to document, analyse and communicate in their own voices the issues affecting their lives and potential solutions thereto. Working together with three Napo Runa communities (Kichwa of the Upper Napo River) in Ecuador, and three Urarina communities of the Chambira Basin in Peru, the project uses participatory video and other methodologies which overcome literacy barriers and centre indigenous communities as key knowledge producers in the research process. Knowledge exchange events will foster cross-cultural connections. Led by a steering committee consisting of academic investigators and indigenous organisations, the project will produce video libraries, documentaries, scientific articles, a methodological toolkit and a policy brief to bring indigenous Amazonian research on cultural resilience to multiple audiences.

亚马逊地区被广泛认为是世界上最具生态意义的地区之一，正受到相互关联的危机的威胁：气候变化、采掘业和污染、贫困、营养不良。亚马逊的危机意味着世界其他地区的危机：在全球气候模式的调节中扮演着关键角色，维持亚马逊雨林的生态动态是阻止全球变暖失控的关键方面。这一点的核心是保护雨林生物多样性，以确保生态对气候冲击的适应能力。在西班牙征服南美洲之前，土著社区几千年来一直积极维护和加强亚马逊的生物多样性，在生物多样性方面表现出色，但他们仍然被边缘化和歧视。大多数旨在克服这种边缘化和歧视的方法都是为了更好地融入国家政治、经济、教育和卫生系统。虽然意图可能值得称赞，但这些方法中的许多不是土著主导的，可能会侵蚀土著的生活方式、祖先的习俗以及支持土著与森林及其多于人类的居民关系的世界观。与土著组织开展合作研究，以支持他们自我组织的复原力和文化抵抗战略，这不仅是社会正义的问题，而且是在世界最需要亚马逊生物文化多样性的时候积极保护亚马逊的生物文化多样性。许多亚马逊土著社会的核心是脉轮--传统的森林花园，或者更具体地说，是一个复杂的耕作森林空间网络。最近，脉轮被认为是解决环境和经济可持续性之间困境的一种解决方案，目前正在采取行动，将脉轮宣传为可持续生产方式的象征。然而，这种新的市场取向忽视了脉轮对土著生活方式的精神和文化中心地位：脉轮是健康的基础，是创造和维持社会纽带和社区关系的空间，许多知识的代际传播在这里展开，包括通过歌曲和非常字面上的“与植物对话”。脉轮是亚马孙人许多生活方式的核心组成部分，是人与森林人之间的互动空间，是“文化”与“自然”纠缠的空间，是探索土著文化通过振兴祖先的知识和做法来应对和克服危机的理想切入点。由于几年来与土著组织的持续对话，该项目汇集了学术和土著研究人员的伙伴关系，以了解和利用脉轮的潜力，以帮助土著社区应对亚马逊地区相互关联的危机带来的挑战。与此同时，该项目力求加强土著社区的自我宣传能力，以自己的声音记录、分析和交流影响其生活的问题及其可能的解决办法。该项目与厄瓜多尔的三个纳波鲁纳社区(纳波河上游的Kichwa)和秘鲁钱比拉盆地的三个Urarina社区合作，使用参与性视频和其他方法，克服识字障碍，将土著社区作为研究过程中的关键知识生产者。知识交流活动将促进跨文化联系。该项目由一个由学术研究人员和土著组织组成的指导委员会领导，将制作视频图书馆、纪录片、科学文章、方法工具包和政策简报，将亚马逊土著文化复原力的研究带给多个受众。