Karl Zimmerer | Penn State University (original) (raw)

Papers by Karl Zimmerer

The New Geographies of Energy, 2013

University of California Press eBooks, Dec 31, 1996

Oxford University Press eBooks, Feb 5, 2004

Cultural ecology in the 1990s was a highly productive and rapidly growing specialty group within ... more Cultural ecology in the 1990s was a highly productive and rapidly growing specialty group within geography. The group’s scholarship has contributed to a number of core themes and concepts in geography and in related fields within the social and biogeophysical sciences and humanities (Butzer 1989, 1990a; Porter 1991; B. L. Turner 1997a; Zimmerer 1996c). This review evaluates the central research contributions—findings, themes, concepts, methods—of North American geographical cultural ecology over this decade (1990–9). The evaluation is based on the clustering of the contributions of the 1990s into eight main areas: long-term cultural ecology; resource management; local knowledge; pastoralism; environmental politics; protected areas; gender ecology; and environmental discourses (Figs 8.1 and 8.2). Notable accomplishments and characteristic approaches are reviewed in each area. Emphasis is placed on the continued evolution of the common ground of cultural ecology and its most prominent offshoot, political ecology. A nature-culture or nature-society core is central to advances of the 1990s. This core is made up of interacting dialectical processes of culture-and-consciousness and domestic-and-political economy, on the one hand, and non-human nature, on the other hand (Zimmerer and Young 1998: 5). Increased awareness of this recursive interaction has led to a historical perspective that is common to much work in cultural and political ecology during the past decade (Figs 8.1 and 8.2). Culture and society in environmental interactions are considered with new importance granted to the multiple forms and contingencies of spatial scale, from the local to the global, as well as varied temporal frames. Culture and society are conceptualized in new ways while, at the same time, the biogeophysical environments themselves are thought of as increasingly complex and less spatially and temporally predictable than was previously presumed.

Journal of Latin American Geography

Geography in America at the Dawn of the 21st Century

The Journal of Nutrition, 2019

RM, et al. Farmlevel agricultural biodiversity in the Peruvian Andes is associated with greater o... more RM, et al. Farmlevel agricultural biodiversity in the Peruvian Andes is associated with greater odds of women achieving a minimally diverse and micronutrient adequate diet.

Changing FortunesBiodiversity and Peasant Livelihood in the Peruvian Andes, 1997

American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 1989

The American Historical Review, 2007

The MIT Press eBooks, Apr 30, 2019

This chapter seeks to identify the linkages between agrobiodiversity and global demographic and s... more This chapter seeks to identify the linkages between agrobiodiversity and global demographic and spatial changes. Using an interdisciplinary approach, it reviews research models and empirical studies that link demographic and spatial changes to socioecological interactions involving agrobiodiversity at different spatial and temporal scales. Concepts are employed from the frameworks of geographic synthesis, socioecological systems, global change science, coupled human–natural systems, agroenvironmental history, development studies, and political ecology. Seven globally predominant linkages are identifi ed: demographic change and population effects; urbanization and periurban expansion; migration including refugee movements; agricultural trade, markets, and food systems; spatial and land-use planning, zoning, and territorialization; food security, food sovereignty, seed movements, sustainable intensifi cation, ecological intensifi cation, and agroecology; and ongoing historical, cultural, and social network infl uences. Conditions of the major drivers bear complex relations to agrobiodiversity that range from loss and genetic erosion to continuing utilization, the emergence of expanded or innovative new uses, and conservation contributing to the sustainability of food systems. Linking the causal drivers of change to the range of possible outcomes depends on assessing the context-dependent roles of intervening and intermediate-level factors rather than ironclad mechanisms. Several intermediate-level factors are evaluated for each topic and recommendations are offered for future policy-relevant scientifi c research. Introduction: Defi ning Agrobiodiversity Interactions with Demographic Change and Spatial Integration To understand current fl uctuations in agrobiodiversity and equip us to meet future challenges, demographic and spatial changes require thorough From “Agrobiodiversity: Integrating Knowledge for a Sustainable Future,” Karl S. Zimmerer and Stef de Haan, eds. 2019. Strüngmann Forum Reports, vol. 24, series ed. Julia R. Lupp. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262038683. 164 K. S. Zimmerer and J. A. Carney examination. As primary drivers of agrobiodiversity change, both involve multiscale processes at various levels (from global to local). Thus, our overall framing must extend beyond the biological factors that have traditionally defi ned the core concept of agricultural biodiversity. The consideration of current population movements, both economic and refugee, and urbanization—whether rural to urban or displaced people increasingly concentrated in refugee camps—illuminates key geographic and socioecological factors that transcend classic disciplinary boundaries. By focusing on the interdisciplinary characteristics of demographic and spatial change, our goal is to examine the complex socioecological interactions involving agrobiodiversity at different spatial and temporal scales. We use the term “agrobiodiversity,” which is already in common usage (see Chapter 1), to refl ect this framing. This expanded conceptual framing is essential to delineating research directions in policyrelevant science and scholarship on agrobiodiversity amid dynamic changes (Bioversity Intl. 2017). Our chapter extends well beyond conventional single-factor explanations by analyzing demographic and spatial changes in relation to population factors, political and economic forces, and production and consumption trends. The processes of demographic and spatial change include human population growth and decline, urbanization, migration (economic and political including populations in refugee or migrant camps), and the spatial integration of agricultural commodities and food systems across national boundaries and into international and global systems through institutions and policies as well as the everyday actions of migrants on the move. Much demographic and spatial change is closely related to global-scale drivers and the kinds of integration associated with globalization. Our referring to “global demographic and spatial change” also acknowledges that these processes often occur at the intermediate and local level. We discuss the relationship between agrobiodiversity and sustainability, sustainable development, sustainable intensifi cation, and ecological intensifi cation in agriculture, food security, and food sovereignty as well as the regulation of food labeling. Each discussion includes the spatial and scale dimensions of these efforts; for a discussion of related agrobiodiversity interactions with plant breeding and industry, see Chapter 6. In addition, agrobiodiversity’s interaction with demographic and spatial changes draws attention to the powerful infl uence still exerted by the past. Indeed, we highlight the relevance of historical precedents as well as specifi c past agrobiodiversity interactions, like the diverse food traditions enriched through preand early European trade across the Indian Ocean discussed below.…

University of California Press eBooks, Jan 29, 1997

Journal of Latin American Geography, 2023

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Jun 1, 1998

Elementa, 2023

Accessible, high-quality seed is vital to the agricultural, food, and nutrition sovereignty neede... more Accessible, high-quality seed is vital to the agricultural, food, and nutrition sovereignty needed for justice-based sustainable development. Multiregion, interdisciplinary research on farmers' seed systems (FSS) can complement case-based and thematic approaches.This study's goals are to (1) provide a synthetic overview of current major FSS concepts; (2) design and evaluate a novel social-and political-ecological model of FSS using globally representative data from mountain agricultural areas of Africa, Asia, and Latin America; (3) model and evaluate FSS relations to socioeconomic, political, and environmental factors including main food crops (rice, wheat, maize, potato, and common bean); (4) generate new spatial, geographic, and demographic estimates; and (5) strengthen FSS for justice-based sustainable development of agriculture, land use, and food systems. The conceptual framework of FSS-related factors guided the global modeling of data from 11 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. A multiple regression model explained FSS utilization (R 2 ¼ 0.53, P < 0.0001), specifying the significant inverse relations to mean farm area (strong), per-capita Gross Domestic Product at the district level (strong), and urban distance (moderate). FSS showed strong positive relations to aridity and topographic ruggedness. FSS were positively related to elevation in a 5-country Andean subsample. Results estimated FSS utilization by 136 million farmers within the 11 countries. Novel insights to strengthen FSS policies and programs are the importance of FSS to extremely small farm-area subgroups and other distinct FSS stakeholders, global-region geopolitical distinctness of FSS-farm area relations, multidistrict FSS concentrations that enable extralocal FSS spatial connectivity, FSS capacities in climate-change hot spots, and high FSS encompassing periurban areas. Policy-relevant results on global geographic and demographic extensiveness of FSS and key spatial, socioeconomic, political, and environment relations demonstrate that globally FSS are key to supporting agrobiodiversity, agroecology, nutrition, and the sustainability of food systems. These advise strengthening FSS through pro-poor and linked urban-rural policies at regional scales in addition to expanding local initiatives.