Cattle-based Livelihoods and the Bear "problem" in Northern Ecuador
Open Access
- Author:
- Jampel, Catherine Elizabeth
- Graduate Program:
- Geography
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- None
- Committee Members:
- Melissa Wright, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
- Keywords:
- cattle
dairy
livelihoods
migration
Andean bear
Ecuador
situated knowledges - Abstract:
- This project investigates cattle-based livelihoods in the northern Ecuadorian Andes in the context of increasing reports of Andean bear attacks on cattle since 2009. This qualitative study describes how, over the past two decades, raising cattle became an important livelihood strategy in Pimampiro, Ecuador, and contextualizes bears as one of many threats to livelihoods. Two months of interview-based research in 2012 grounded in the feminist theory of situated knowledges inform this thesis, which highlights the perspectives of people living and working in the region. Interviews with smallholding farmers and ranchers reveal a new reliance on cattle. The dairy economy organizes cattle-raising in the region, and brings rewards such as steady income, as well as new risks including the threat of bear attacks. Dairy also provides a viable livelihood for those remaining in the countryside following five decades of rural outmigration. These farmers and ranchers remain committed to living in the countryside for reasons related to preference and socioeconomic structure. This case study shows that the confluence of the challenges of making a living in rural spaces, the risks of raising cattle, the encroachment on bear habitat, and the frustration with government policies have created a context in which bears have become a “problem.” It also suggests that the threat of bears is produced by a variety of decisions regarding livelihoods and illustrates how regional economic processes of migration and dairy production influence human-wildlife relations on the agricultural frontier. This work contributes to scholarship on livelihoods, the new rurality, human-wildlife relations, and feminist approaches to research in political ecology.