Carla Lancelotti, IP of ERC Starting Grant project at Culture and Socio-Ecological Dynamics Research Group (CaSEs) with the Departament of Humanities at UPF

The concept of Planetary Wellbeing encompasses the wellbeing of people and the sustainability of the Earth’s ecosystems. Thus, the study of socio-ecological systems and dynamics is one of the most suitable theoretical frameworks for addressing the social challenges that affect the sustainability of our planet’s resources. Central to Planetary Wellbeing are ideas such as: global food security, healthy livelihoods, sustainable water resources, or healthy and productive ecosystems.

The study of past civilisations shows that human societies were able to adapt and thrive in extreme environments, even in the face of climate and environmental stress. Learning what mechanisms these societies established, what types of crops they cultivated and how, is essential to understanding patterns of human resistance in challenging environments, such as dry land. Far from establishing direct parallels between the past and present, the study of socio-ecological systems and dynamics from a long-term perspective can pave the way to understanding the general mechanisms behind these adaptations with a view to adapting them to current conditions. The CaSEs research group focuses on the study of human-environment interactions in extreme environments, from the deserts of Africa and Asia to the tropical forests and wetlands of Brazil and Bolivia, with the aim of providing models of social resistance to climatic and environmental changes.

The CaSEs group’s research grew out of archaeology and pushes the limits of material culture studies to analyse how humans interacted with the environment in the past and how human societies were able to survive climatic and environmental changes. The research focuses on the strategies for exploiting agricultural resources, their evolution over time, the drivers of the observed changes, and how agriculture, in turn, modified the surrounding environment in a process of continuous co-evolution (eventually giving rise to today’s “cultural landscapes”). Our research, which can be seen as part of the relatively new field of environmental humanities, is focused on understanding traditional environmental knowledge from a long-term perspective, overcoming the nature/culture dichotomy. Our interest in understanding past agricultural and food practices is a means for us to understand current systems. Forgotten farming practices and crops played a vital role in supplying nutritious and sustainable food in the past, often because these ‘agricultural packages’ were adapted to marginal conditions and had the unique ability to tolerate or resist stress. In a world in which marginal lands are increasing due to desertification and overexploitation, these practices and crops could actively provide more sustainable and climate-resistant socio-ecological systems. Ultimately, the goal is to promote greater sustainability and to encourage biological and cultural diversity to ensure intelligent agriculture in relation to the climate.

ERC Starting Grant 759800 project - RAINDROPS - Resilience and adaptation to drylands: Identifying past water management practices fro drought-resistant crops