Pluralism, resilience, and the ecology of survival: Case studies from the Pamir Mountains of Afghanistan

Ecology and Society

Volumn 15, Issue 2, 2010, Pages 9-

  Kassam, Karim Aly S ^a  

^a Program on Infrastructure Policy

Author keywords

Afghanistan; Arab Pashtu; Coupled systems; Human ecology; Kyrgyz; Pamir Mountains; Pluralism; Resilience; Shugni; Wakhi

Indexed keywords

EID: 77954473748     PISSN: None     EISSN: 17083087     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5751/ES-03485-150208     Document Type: Article

References (61)

1. Adger, W. N., T. Hughes, C. Folke, S. R. Carpenter, and J. Rockstrom. 2005. Social-ecological resilience to coastal disasters. Science 309 (5737): 1036-1039.
2. Aga Khan IV. 2008. Where hope takes root: democracy and pluralism in an interdependent world. Douglas & Mclntyre, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
3. Altermatt, F., and D. Ebert. 2008. Genetic diversity of Daphnia magna populations enhances resistance to parasites. Ecology Letters 11: 918-928.
4. Axelby, R. 2007. 'It takes two hands to clap': how Gaddi shepherds in the Indian Himalayas negotiate access to grazing. Journal of Agrarian Change 7 (1): 35-75.
5. Barfield, T. 1978. The impact of Pashtun immigration on nomadic pastoralism in northeastern Afghanistan. Pages 26-34 in J. Anderson and R. Strand, editors. Ethnic processes and intergroup relations in contemporary Afghanistan: papers presented at the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (New York, 1977). Afghanistan Council of the Asia Society, New York, New York, USA.
6. Barfield, T. 1981. The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan: pastoral nomadism in transition. University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, USA.
7. Barth, F. 1956. Ecologic relationships of ethnic groups in Swat, North Pakistan. American Anthropologist 58 (6): 1079-1089.
8. Berkes, F., J. Colding, and C. Folke. 2003. Navigating social-ecological systems: building resilience for complexity and change. Cambridge University Press, New York, New York, USA.
9. Bliss, F. 2006. Social and economic change in the Pamirs, Tajikistan. Routledge, New York, New York, USA.
10. Callaway, R. 1998. Are positive interactions species-specific? Oikos 82 (1): 202-207.
11. Callaway, R., and L. Walker. 1997. A synthetic approach to interactions in plant communities. Ecology 78 (7): 1958-1965.
12. Carpenter, S., B. Walker, J. M. Anderies, and N. Abel. 2001. From metaphor to measurement: resilience of what to what? Ecosystems 4: 765-781.
13. Chambers, R. 1997. Whose reality counts? Putting the first last. Intermediate Technology Publication, London, UK.
14. Chapin, F.S. III, G. Peterson, F. Berkes, T. Callaghan, P. Angelstam, M. Apps, C. Beier, Y. Bergeron, A. S. Crepin, K. Danell, T. Elmqvist, C. Folke, B. Forbes, N. Fresco, G. Juday, J. Niemela, A. Shvidenko, and G. Whiteman. 2004. Resilience and vulnerability of northern regions to social and environmental change. Ambio 33 (6): 344-349.
15. Dietz, T., E. Ostrom, and P. C. Stern. 2003. The struggle to govern the commons. Science 302: 19071912.
16. Engelhardt, T., and B. Jennings. 1989. Contested terrain: pluralism and the good. The Hastings Center Report 19 (5): 33-35.
17. Felmy, S., and H. Kreutzmann. 2004. Wakahn Wolusswali in Badakhshan. Observations and reflections from Afghanistan's periphery. Erdkunde 58 (2): 97-117.
18. Folke, C. 2006. Resilience: the emergence of a perspective for social-ecological systems analyses. Global Environmental Change 16: 253-267.
19. Folke, C., S. Carpenter, T. Elmqvist, L. Gunderson, C. S. Holling, and B. Walker. 2002. Resilience and sustainable development: building adaptive capacity in a world of transformations. Ambio 31 (5): 437-440.
20. Galston, W. A. 1989. Pluralism and social unity. Ethics 99 (4): 711-726.
21. Gellner, E. 1985. Muslim society. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
22. Greenwood, D. J., and M. Levin. 1998. Introduction to action research: social research for social change. Sage Publications, London, UK.
23. Hardin, G. 1968. The tragedy of the commons. Science 162 (3859): 1243-1248.
24. Harmon, D. 2002. In light of our differences: how diversity in nature and culture makes us human. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C., USA.
25. Harmon, D. 2007. A bridge over the chasm: finding ways to achieve integrated natural and cultural heritage conservation. International Journal of Heritage Studies 13 (4-5): 380-392.
26. Heinrich, J. 2000. Does culture matter in economic behaviour? Ultimatum game bargaining among the Machiguenga of the Peruvian Amazon. The American Economic Review 90 (4): 973-979.
27. Heinrich, J., R. Boyd, S. Bowles, C. Camerer, E. Fehr, H. Gintis, and R. McElreath. 2001. In search of Homo economicus: behavioural experiments in 15 small-scale societies. The American Economic Review 91 (2): 73-78.
28. Hodgson, M. G. S. 1974. The venture of Islam. Three volumes. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
29. Holling, C. S. 1973. Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 4: 1-23.
30. Holling, C. S. 2001. Understanding the complexity of economic, ecological and social systems. Ecosystems 4: 390-405.
31. Huntington, S. P. 1996. Clash of civilizations: the remaking of world order. Simon & Schuster, New York, New York, USA.
32. International Crisis Group. 2009. Tajikistan: on the road to failure. Asia Report No. 162. 12 February. International Crisis Group, Brussels, Belgium.
33. Kallen, H. 1915. Democracy versus the melting pot. The Nation (February 18 and 25):190-4, 217-20.
34. Kassam, K.-A. S. 2009a. Biocultural diversity and indigenous ways of knowing: human ecology in the Arctic. University of Calgary Press, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
35. Kassam, K.-A. S. 2009b. Viewing change through the prism of indigenous human ecology: findings from the Afghan and Tajik Pamirs. Human Ecology 37 (6): 377-390.
36. Kreutzmann, H. 2003. Ethnic minorities and marginality in the Pamirian Knot: survival of Wakhi and Kirghiz in a harsh environment and global contexts. The Geographical Journal 169 (3): 215- 235.
37. Langerak, E. 1994. Pluralism, tolerance, and disagreement. Rhetoric Society Quarterly 24 (1/2): 95-106.
38. Lapidus, I. M. 1990. A history of Islamic societies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
39. Maffi, L. 2001. On the interdependence of biological and cultural diversity. Pages 1-50 in L. Maffi, editor. On biological diversity: linking languages, knowledge and the environment. Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., USA.
40. Maffi, L. 2002. Endangered languages, endangered knowledge. UNESCO, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, UK.
41. Maffi, L. 2005. Linguistic, cultural and biological diversity. Annual Review of Anthropology 29: 599-617.
42. Mason, E. 2006. Value pluralism. In E. N. Zalta, editor. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Fall 2008 edition. [online] URL: http://plato.stanford. edu/entries/value-pluralism/.
43. Miller, T., T. D. Baird, C. M. Littlefield, G. Kofinas, F. S. Chapin III, and C. Redman. 2008. Epistemological pluralism: reorganizing interdisciplinary research. Ecology and Society 13 (2): 46. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol13/iss2/ art46/.
44. Mousseau, F. 2005. Food aid or food sovereignty? Oakland Institute, Oakland, California.
45. Murra, J. 1985a. The limits and limitations of the Vertical Archipelago in the Andes. Pages 3-13 in S. Masuda, I. Shimada, and C. Morris, editors. Andean ecology and civilization: an interdisciplinary perspective on Andean ecological complementarity. University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo, Japan.
46. Murra, J. 1985b. El Archipielago Vertical revisited. Pages 15-20 in S. Masuda, I. Shimada, and C. Morris, editors. Andean ecology and civilization: an interdisciplinary perspective on Andean ecological complementarity. University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo, Japan.
47. Naeem, S. 2002. Biodiversity equals instability? Nature 416:23-24.
48. Nanji, A. 1996. The Muslim almanac: a reference work on the history, faith, culture and peoples of Islam. Gale Group, New York, New York, USA.
49. Odum, E. P. 1989. Ecology and our endangered life-support systems. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusetts.
50. Ostrom, E. 2000. Collective action and the evolution of social norms. Journal of Economic Perspectives 14 (3): 137-158.
51. Ostrom, E., J. Burger, C. B. Field, R. B. Norgaard, and D. Policansky. 1999. Revisiting the commons: local lessons, global challenges. Science 284: 278-282.
52. Schlosberg, D. 1999. Environmentaljustice and the New Pluralism: the challenge of difference for environmentalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
53. Shahrani, N. M. 1978. Ethnic relations and access to resources in Northeast Badakhshan. Pages 15-25 in J. Anderson and R. Strand, editors. Ethnic processes and intergroup relations in contemporary Afghanistan: papers presented at the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (New York, 1977). Afghanistan Council of the Asia Society, New York, New York, USA.
54. Shahrani, N. M. 1979. The Kyrgyz and Wakhi of Afghanistan: adaptation to closed frontiers. University of Washington Press, Seattle, Washington, USA.
55. Smith, A. 1976 [1776]. An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
56. Tilman, D., P. B. Reich, J. Knops, D. Wedin, T. Mielke, and C. Lehman. 2001. Diversity and productivity in a long-term grassland experiment. Science 294: 843-845.
57. Turner, N., I. Davidson-Hunt, and M. O'Flaherty. 2003. Living on the edge: ecological and cultural edges as sources of diversity for social-ecological resilience. Human Ecology 31 (3): 439-461.
58. Walker, B., C. S. Holling, S. R. Carpenter, and A. Kinzig. 2004. Resilience, adaptability and transformability in social-ecological systems. Ecology and Society 9(2):5. [online] URL: http://w ww.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss2/art5/.
59. Walker, B., and J. Meyers. 2004. Thresholds in ecological and social-ecological systems: a developing database. Ecology and Society 9(2):3. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/ iss2/art3/.
60. Walker, B., and D. Salt. 2006. Resilience thinking: sustaining ecosystems and people in a changing world. Island Press, London, UK.
61. Windfuhr, M., and J. Jonsen. 2005. Food sovereignty: towards democracy in localized food systems. ITDG Publishing, Warwickshire, UK.