Periodic Reporting for period 2 - HI-LANDeS (More-than-Human Histories of Rural Landscapes in the Andes, 19th-20th century)
Période du rapport: 2025-02-01 au 2026-01-31
In times of unprecedented environmental change and related socio-political challenges, HI-LANDeS addresses the critical need for new knowledge, methods and governance practices that better grasp how human and nonhuman actors have contributed to global socio-environmental transformations. Conventional environmental governance schemes tend to prevent and mitigate environmental change by protecting and separating nature from humans, thereby excluding or simplifying other (e.g. indigenous) modes and practices of relating to nature. This has resulted in an increase in socio-environmental conflicts and vulnerabilities.
HI-LANDeS contributes to a paradigm shift towards an integrated approach that understands socio-environmental change as co-produced by human and nonhuman lives through ‘more-than-human’ histories. HI-LANDeS focuses specifically on wetlands of the Andean highlands, constituting strategic sites for carbon storage, water sources, and biodiversity, as well as the home of resilient indigenous communities.
HI-LANDeS has a double main objective. First, it aims to investigate the role of communal management practices and local ecological knowledge in the context of historical socio-environmental change within a global analytical framework. This will provide an enhanced historical understanding of Andean rural communities’ adaptive capacities in the transformation and governance. Second, the project aims to translate historical insights into an innovative environmental governance approach through a co-creational and intersectoral strategy. This will contribute to more inclusive policy frameworks that are relevant to the regional and global environmental agendas, including the European Green Deal.
HI-LANDeS contributes to a paradigm shift towards an integrated approach that understands socio-environmental change as co-produced by human and nonhuman lives through ‘more-than-human’ histories. HI-LANDeS focuses specifically on wetlands of the Andean highlands, constituting strategic sites for carbon storage, water sources, and biodiversity, as well as the home of resilient indigenous communities.
HI-LANDeS has a double main objective. First, it aims to investigate the role of communal management practices and local ecological knowledge in the context of historical socio-environmental change within a global analytical framework. This will provide an enhanced historical understanding of Andean rural communities’ adaptive capacities in the transformation and governance. Second, the project aims to translate historical insights into an innovative environmental governance approach through a co-creational and intersectoral strategy. This will contribute to more inclusive policy frameworks that are relevant to the regional and global environmental agendas, including the European Green Deal.
HI-LANDeS has implemented actions along three research strategies, in line with its three research objectives:
First, HI-LANDeS has developed two case studies in wetland areas of the Andean highlands, situated in 1) the Lauca altiplano across the Bolivian-Chilean border and 2) the Lake Poopó basin, Bolivia. Archival research was conducted in ten collections of archival and library institutions, in Bolivia and Chile. Ten field work visits were organised across the two case areas, including participatory observation, interviews, focus groups. The collected data allow to demonstrate how land and water management practices been mobilised, adapted, and reinvented as part of communities’ negotiations over state- and market-oriented infrastructures and related environmental change since the mid-19th century.
Second, HI-LANDeS has developed a global analytical framework that allows to process the empirical data from the case studies in relation to the structural drivers and multispecies entanglements at play in the transformation of Andean rural landscapes. This framework was also nurtured by interdisciplinary and intersectoral collaborations with archaeologists, anthropologists, geographers, practitioners in community-driven environmental and territorial management, amongst others.
Third, HI-LANDeS has facilitated a co-creational process with local communities, civil society organisations, and public institutions. Through community meetings, participatory community workshops, liaising with public institutions, and a secondment at NGO Agua Sustentable (La Paz, Bolivia), the project continuously and critically assessed how the obtained historical insights can inform and strengthen inclusive environmental governance practices. This co-creation has resulted in tangible community-oriented outputs that aim to strengthen the (recognition of) traditional ecological knowledge, territorial management, and data sovereignty of indigenous communities.
Outcomes per work package:
Work Package 1 – Case studies
• Implementation of data management and ethics protocols
• Archival research at Archivo Histórico Vicente Dagnino (Universidad de Tarapacá) and the National Archive (Santiago) in Chile; at the Bolivia National Archive (Sucre), the MUSEF and Fundación Xavier Albó libraries (La Paz), the Historical Juridical Archive, the Gobernación Archive, the INRA-Oruro archive, and the archives of NGO Centro de Ecología y Pueblos Andinos (Oruro), and the Poopó Provincial Juridical Archive (Poopó) in Bolivia.
• 10 field work visits in the two case areas, 1) Sajama and 2) Oruro - Lake Poopó basin (community meetings, participatory observation, interviews, focus groups)
Work Package 2 - Analytical framework
• Literature review
• Discussion and feedback: research group meetings, seminars, invited lectures, colloquia.
Work Package 3 - Co-creational research
• Participatory community workshops with communities in both case areas: Aymara communities of Sajama National Park; Uru communities of the Lake Poopó basin.
• Interdisciplinary workshop and podcast participation on Decolonial Participatory Research (University of York, UK)
• Two secondment periods with NGO Agua Sustentable (La Paz, Bolivia)
Work Package 4 - Training
• Personal Career Development Plan
• Teaching activities at Universidad de Tarapacá and Ghent University (Bachelor, Master, and PhD programmes), as well as guest lectures in Latin American and European universities
• Editorial work for international journals
• Reviewer for international publishers
Work Package 5 - Dissemination & Exploitation
• Submission of Dissemination and Exploitation plan
• Presentation of the project before community assemblies
• Presentation of 19 conference papers and invited talks; organisation of 4 panels at international conferences; moderator and discussant in academic events.
• Publication of 3 scientific articles, 1 book chapter, and 3 book reviews. 1 accepted scientific article; 1 accepted book chapter.
• Creation and presentation of Digital Historical Community Archive of the Uru of Lake Poopó
• Implementation of Guided Historical Walking paths in the Sajama National Park (in progress)
• Submission new project application
Work Package 6 – Communication & Engagement
• Communication & Public Engagement Plan
• Social media presence
• Publication of 3 accessible, online text or multimedia outputs (blog post, magazine, podcasts). 1 blog post in progress (2026).
• Co-organisation and facilitation of online and in-person public events, webinars and trainings (Bolivia, Belgium, international)
Work Package 7 - Project management
• Secondment at Ghent University, 2023
• Administrative and financial organisation of the project, obtaining required permissions and documentation, and managing international and intersectoral partnerships
• Job Shadowing in digital scholarship support – Humanities (scholarly publishing, research data management, digital tools for the humanities)
First, HI-LANDeS has developed two case studies in wetland areas of the Andean highlands, situated in 1) the Lauca altiplano across the Bolivian-Chilean border and 2) the Lake Poopó basin, Bolivia. Archival research was conducted in ten collections of archival and library institutions, in Bolivia and Chile. Ten field work visits were organised across the two case areas, including participatory observation, interviews, focus groups. The collected data allow to demonstrate how land and water management practices been mobilised, adapted, and reinvented as part of communities’ negotiations over state- and market-oriented infrastructures and related environmental change since the mid-19th century.
Second, HI-LANDeS has developed a global analytical framework that allows to process the empirical data from the case studies in relation to the structural drivers and multispecies entanglements at play in the transformation of Andean rural landscapes. This framework was also nurtured by interdisciplinary and intersectoral collaborations with archaeologists, anthropologists, geographers, practitioners in community-driven environmental and territorial management, amongst others.
Third, HI-LANDeS has facilitated a co-creational process with local communities, civil society organisations, and public institutions. Through community meetings, participatory community workshops, liaising with public institutions, and a secondment at NGO Agua Sustentable (La Paz, Bolivia), the project continuously and critically assessed how the obtained historical insights can inform and strengthen inclusive environmental governance practices. This co-creation has resulted in tangible community-oriented outputs that aim to strengthen the (recognition of) traditional ecological knowledge, territorial management, and data sovereignty of indigenous communities.
Outcomes per work package:
Work Package 1 – Case studies
• Implementation of data management and ethics protocols
• Archival research at Archivo Histórico Vicente Dagnino (Universidad de Tarapacá) and the National Archive (Santiago) in Chile; at the Bolivia National Archive (Sucre), the MUSEF and Fundación Xavier Albó libraries (La Paz), the Historical Juridical Archive, the Gobernación Archive, the INRA-Oruro archive, and the archives of NGO Centro de Ecología y Pueblos Andinos (Oruro), and the Poopó Provincial Juridical Archive (Poopó) in Bolivia.
• 10 field work visits in the two case areas, 1) Sajama and 2) Oruro - Lake Poopó basin (community meetings, participatory observation, interviews, focus groups)
Work Package 2 - Analytical framework
• Literature review
• Discussion and feedback: research group meetings, seminars, invited lectures, colloquia.
Work Package 3 - Co-creational research
• Participatory community workshops with communities in both case areas: Aymara communities of Sajama National Park; Uru communities of the Lake Poopó basin.
• Interdisciplinary workshop and podcast participation on Decolonial Participatory Research (University of York, UK)
• Two secondment periods with NGO Agua Sustentable (La Paz, Bolivia)
Work Package 4 - Training
• Personal Career Development Plan
• Teaching activities at Universidad de Tarapacá and Ghent University (Bachelor, Master, and PhD programmes), as well as guest lectures in Latin American and European universities
• Editorial work for international journals
• Reviewer for international publishers
Work Package 5 - Dissemination & Exploitation
• Submission of Dissemination and Exploitation plan
• Presentation of the project before community assemblies
• Presentation of 19 conference papers and invited talks; organisation of 4 panels at international conferences; moderator and discussant in academic events.
• Publication of 3 scientific articles, 1 book chapter, and 3 book reviews. 1 accepted scientific article; 1 accepted book chapter.
• Creation and presentation of Digital Historical Community Archive of the Uru of Lake Poopó
• Implementation of Guided Historical Walking paths in the Sajama National Park (in progress)
• Submission new project application
Work Package 6 – Communication & Engagement
• Communication & Public Engagement Plan
• Social media presence
• Publication of 3 accessible, online text or multimedia outputs (blog post, magazine, podcasts). 1 blog post in progress (2026).
• Co-organisation and facilitation of online and in-person public events, webinars and trainings (Bolivia, Belgium, international)
Work Package 7 - Project management
• Secondment at Ghent University, 2023
• Administrative and financial organisation of the project, obtaining required permissions and documentation, and managing international and intersectoral partnerships
• Job Shadowing in digital scholarship support – Humanities (scholarly publishing, research data management, digital tools for the humanities)
The case studies have resulted in original data based on largely untapped archival collections and oral histories that contribute to Andean ethnohistory and environmental history as well as to interdisciplinary collaborations. The results are disseminated through international conferences and articles in international journals.
By facilitating communities’ access to archival collections, HI-LANDeS is contributing to the revitalisation and recognition of indigenous communities’ collective memory and their wider political or social agendas. In the Lake Poopó basin, the project has co-produced a Digital Historical Community Archive of the Uru communities, which will strengthen the communities’ indigenous data sovereignty and their strategy towards territorial reconstitution. In Sajama, HI-LANDeS contributes to communitarian tourism plans led by the National Park Management Committee, co-led by the region’s indigenous authorities and the National Park Agency, to foster awareness and recognition of the region’s socio-cultural, economic, and ecological history.
The project’s embeddedness in an international and intersectoral collaboration has demonstrated potential to contribute to internationalisation of the institutions involved.
By facilitating communities’ access to archival collections, HI-LANDeS is contributing to the revitalisation and recognition of indigenous communities’ collective memory and their wider political or social agendas. In the Lake Poopó basin, the project has co-produced a Digital Historical Community Archive of the Uru communities, which will strengthen the communities’ indigenous data sovereignty and their strategy towards territorial reconstitution. In Sajama, HI-LANDeS contributes to communitarian tourism plans led by the National Park Management Committee, co-led by the region’s indigenous authorities and the National Park Agency, to foster awareness and recognition of the region’s socio-cultural, economic, and ecological history.
The project’s embeddedness in an international and intersectoral collaboration has demonstrated potential to contribute to internationalisation of the institutions involved.