Simões, Julio Campos
Research Interests:
Environmental Anthropology, Plant-Human Relations, Climate Resilience, Livelihood, Endogenous Knowledge
Geographical Area: Cabo Verde
Current Project:
Farming above the Sky: People, Plants, and Livelihoods in the highlands of Santo Antão, Cabo Verde
Abstract:
This research investigates livelihood engagements with plants in the highlands of Santo Antão, Cabo Verde, as an emblematic case of more-than-human learning with the environment. These ever-changing planting practices and knowledge form part of the historical experience through which Cabo Verdean communities have learned to withstand chronic drought, avoid famine and produce their livelihoods despite of slavery, colonial exploitation and failed modernization policies. I build on a hypothesis shared in Cabo Verdean common sense that the long-term experience of resilience and adaptation of Cabo Verdean farmers in dealing with scarcity of resources and climatic uncertainties has generated forms of endogenous knowledge that are valuable for reflecting on the contemporary human condition and ecological challenges. At the same time, I examine the problem of the “erosion” of knowledge amid processes of rural depopulation and development-driven economic tendencies that undervalue and deprioritize non-urban livelihoods, framing them under the label of “subsistence.”
The main goal of this research is to provide an ethnographic account of the relationship between highland communities and their plants in Santo Antão under social and ecological challenges. The methodological design combines participation in people’s everyday engagements with plants — such as rainfed farming, animal feeding, forestry and the domestic uses of plants for food, health, care, housing and other material needs — with the documentation of testimonies, life histories and memories of past practices associated with planting in a context of climate resilience. This dissertation aims to contribute to the field of environmental anthropology and to ongoing debates on human–plant relations in contexts shaped by climatic uncertainty.
Content:
On a Sahelian volcanic island marked by a dry climate and limited resources, communities of Santo Antão, historically dispossessed of the few irrigated lands controlled by the colonial elite, settled on high-altitude semi-arid plateaus in search of more favourable conditions for rainfed agriculture and animal herding. “Closer to the sky”, they live in areas of limited rainfall, but that benefit from cloud moisture to a greater extent than the coastal plains and slopes. Their microclimate also sustained remarkable endemic plant biodiversity, which local communities learned to engage with in order to navigate social and ecological challenges. Their historical struggle to sustain life and produce crops under adverse climatic conditions has generated planting practices and knowledge that support nutrition, health, climate resilience and agrobiodiversity. Labelled as “subsistence” practices and unable to meet the archipelago’s food demand, these low-productive and low-profitable livelihood activities often fall outside government priorities. This research addresses the challenges faced by these communities — including water and resources scarcity, crop pests, lack of public investment, rural depopulation, youth emigration, labour shortages and, most critically, the “erosion” of knowledge — and examines how developmentalist approaches and modernization policies have tended to undervalue farmers’ historical-ecological experience, thereby placing its intergenerational transmission at risk.
Profile: