Home Grown: Ngöbe Home Gardens in a Changing World Pubblico

Locascio, Gillian Laura (2009)

Permanent URL: https://etd.library.emory.edu/concern/etds/cz30pt23b?locale=it
Published

Abstract

Home gardens--highly diverse plots near the house in which plants are cultivated on a small scale, mainly for home consumption--are internationally recognized for their role in environmental conservation, culture, and food security. For the indigenous Ngöbe communities of western Panama, who are battling declining productivity of the land and suffer the highest levels of malnutrition in the entire country, home gardens provide a stable and invaluable source of nutrition. While organizations have taken ecological factors such as climate, slope, and soil type, into account when they design home garden programs, they have struggled to include the more difficult-to-classify sociocultural and economic factors that impact garden use. As a result, many garden "betterment" programs do not fit the reality or interests of each community.

Research was conducted in three communities, one on the edge of the highway, at the entrance to the indigenous state or Comarca Ngöbe-Buglé, another one hour on foot from the first, and a third community that is also an hour away from the nearest road but has a ten year history of working with agricultural organizations. During three separate trips over the course of a year I lived in the communities, mapped gardens, and interviewed families and organizations. Of the human factors that shape home gardens, access to cash or the market and access to production or farmland are most influential. Organizations, though, that provide cash or material support over time can change the opportunity structure. It is possible to create a rapid assessment tool that allows home garden programs to adjust to these sociocultural and economic influences in different communities.

Table of Contents

The Visitor...1

Introduction...7

Research Questions...18

The Sites...19

Methods in the Field...20

Sources of Error...25

Important Terms?...28

The Woman of Two Worlds...31

Part I: In Search of Tradition...36

Leaving Afuera for the Comarca...39

Exploring through time...43

The Science of Home Gardens...45

Seeds of Change: Recent Developments...50

Nurä Jubäre: The Ngöbe Home Garden...56

Here and Now...63

The Workers...66

Part II: Going the Distance...69

Closeness: Quebrada Guabo...72

Just a Bit Farther: Cerro Concha...80

To Have a Farm...83

The Many Faces of the Market...93

Migrancy, Gender, and Labor at Home...99

The Organizer/The One Left Out...107

Part III: Organizations and Shortening the Distance...112

Histories of Organization...119

Cerro Concha...122

Quebrada Guabo...124

Hato Horcon...128

A Reason to Stay Home...133

Thinking like an Organization...138

Reinforcing Gender...139

Exporting Values...142

The Flip Side of a History of Organization: Inequality and Politics...147

The Outside Organization Director...152

Conclusion: Towards a Dynamic Model...153

Creating the Effective Space of Communities...154

Cerro Concha...154

Quebrada Guabo...156

Hato Horcon...158

Recipe for Change: Influence effective access...160

Impacts: Migration, Labor, Gender, and Internal Markets...160

Towards Implementation...161

The Place of the Patio...168

References...169

Interviews and Personal Communications...174

Glossary of Terms...187

Appendices:

A: Visual Tour of Gardens...193

B: Semi-Structured Interviews Questions and Survey...197

C: Species List and Frequency in each Community...201

Figures

Maps

15 1.1 Location of Panama in the World

16 1.2 Ngöbe territories, 1850 through present

17 1.3 Study sites, western Panama

27 1.4 Land Mapping Method

41 2.1 Topography and location of Nole Duima

Illustrations

6 1.0 The Ngöbe Home Garden

47 2.2 Vertical Stratification of a home garden

58 2.3 Parts of the Ngöbe Agricultural System

73 3.2 Quebrada Guabo, a local depiction

81 3.4 Cerro Concha, a local depiction

Tables

84 3.6 Frequency of short cycle crops in the patio

91 3.9 Frequency of small domestic animals, Quebrada Guabo and Cerro Concha

162 5.5 Community classification by effective access

162 5.6 Characteristics of different community "types"

163 5.7 Useful factors to classify communities by effective access

165 5.8 Example indicator factors used to group households by community

Charts

86 3.7 Land ownership in Quebrada Guabo and Cerro Concha

99 3.12 Percent of community that buys versus produces most of their food

101 3.14 Migrancy in Quebrada Guabo and Cerro Concha

118 4.2 Land ownership in all three communities

128 4.3 Main household food source

136 4.8 Migrancy in all three communities

142 4.10 Gendered participation in organizations

166 5.8 Example separation of households by community

Schematics

71 3.1 Hypothetical influences on the patio of road construction

77 3.3 Farm and market access in Quebrada Guabo

82 3.5 Farm and market access in Cerro Concha

90 3.8 Possible compensation within the patio for farmland loss

93 3.10 Influence of market access on buying and selling in Quebrada Guabo

96 3.11 Possible influence of the creation of an internal market

100 3.13 Migration as an option for families

104 3.15 Ambiguous effect of male migration on female labor

116 4.1 Farm and market access in Hato Horcon

122 4.4 Access in Cerro Concha, with organizations

128 4.5 Access in Quebrada Guabo, with organizations

131 4.6 Access in Hato Horcon, with organizations

134 4.7 Impacts of organizations on the effective access in Hato Horcon

137 4.9 Transition from external to local organizations

144 4.11 Exporting values as a direct effect of organizations on families

147 4.12 Change-making versus service-providing organizations

153 5.1 Context of individual decisions

155 5.2 Physical and effective space in Cerro Concha

157 5.3 Physical and effective space in Quebrada Guabo

159 5.4 Physical and effective space in Hato Horcon

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