Society for Anthropological Sciences

Oral Presentation Session

Failing our Children, Each Other, God, Mother Nature and the Soil: Ecuadorian Farmers Consider their Role in Climate and Environmental Change.

Presenter(s)

• EJ

  Eric Jones

With weather changes being a major concern of Quichua-speaking farmers near Cotacachi, Ecuador, this research employed thematic analyses of interviews about farmers’ daily production activities, plus free-lists in various domains of Nature. Results suggest these Andean farmers give the treatment of soil a central place in their cultural model of interactions between plants, animals, supernatural forces, climate, the biophysical environment and people. They characterize the seasonality and give-and-take of agriculture as both out of balance due to people’s poor behavior toward others and toward the soil, resulting in God and Mother Nature being less responsive.