Applied Montology Using Critical Biogeography in the Andes

Abstract

More than most other landforms, mountains have been at the vanguard of geographical inquiry. Whether promontories, cultural works on slopes, or even metaphorical/spiritual heights, mountain research informs current narratives of global environmental change. We review how montology shifts geographic paradigms via the novel approach of critical biogeography in the Andes. We use it to bridge nature and society through indigenous heritage, local biodiversity conservation narratives, and vernacular nature-culture hybrids of biocultural landscapes (BCLs), focusing on how socioecological systems (SES) enlighten scientific query in the Andes. In our Andean study cases, integrated critical frameworks guide the understanding of BCLs as the product of longterm human-environment interactions. With situated exemplars from place naming, wild edible plants, medicinal plants, sacred trees, foodstuffs, ritualistic plants, and floral and faunal causation, we convey the need for cognition of mountains as BCLs in the Anthropocene. We conclude that applied montology allows for a multimethod approach with the four Cs of critical biogeography, a model that engages forward-looking geographers and interdisciplinary Andeanists in assessments for sustainable development of fragile BCLs in the Andes.

La onomástica de nombres erróneos en la construcción de andinidad fallida y débil andeancia: el imperativo de microrefugios bioculturales en los Andes

“…We understand "Andeanity" to mean a physically driven, corporeally manifested structure objectified as typical of the Andes region, such as the overall people complexion, the ecosystem configuration and the landscape phenosystemic intervention. On the other hand, we understand "Andeaness" to mean a culturally driven, intellectually manifested structure reified as of common ancestry and customary observed, such as the overall behavior, the ecosystem homeorhetic function and the hidden landscape cryptosystemic comprehension of intangibles or incommensurables (Sarmiento et al, 2017).…”

“…As the previous analysis portrays, the misnomers constructed a false Andeanity and a weak Andeaness, with scant relation to Andeanitude (Sarmiento et al, 2017). Further complicating the target for a common identity in the Andes, historical accounts and modern behaviors of political isolation, competition, even conflicts between groups of original people, have had lasting consequences in contemporary efforts of integration.…”

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“…Consequently, these forests, which exist as a full gradient from "novel" communities to nearly natural ones, will respond differently to climate stimuli than their natural counterparts. Stimuli also come from the socio-ecological systems in need of applied montology (Sarmiento et al 2017) and better conservation approaches (Bax and Francesconi 2019) to sustainability.…”

A Socio-Hydrological Perspective on Recent and Future Precipitation Changes Over Tropical Montane Cloud Forests in the Andes

“…Old approaches, favoring exotic plantations, increasing the agricultural frontier and establishing payments for ecosystem services, are beginning to shift toward new considerations of CES. These include reforestation with native species, agroecological practices, community-based conservation, and nature benefits to people, with value of spirituality, myths, traditions, and landscape memory of decolonial thinking of the sacred transition (Sarmiento et al, 2017;Oslender, 2019). This is a transitional phase where the multiple values of nature approach incorporates factors of local cosmological views as well as the intangibles (i.e., heirloom flavors, textile designs, rituals) and incommensurables (i.e., national identity, rootedness, spirituality) of CES (Alimonda, 2016).…”