The research aimed to analyse and understand how the socio-ecological memory of the páramo materialised through food, which consisted of analysing the practices surrounding crops and vegetable gardens, the preparation of food and the narratives surrounding these processes and recipes from mountainous places in Colombia. To this end, it is essential to take up the process of developing the concept of socio-ecological memory as a collective device for sharing local knowledge and know-how about the territory and biodiversity (plants) from generation to generation. This concept was elaborated based on Perrault (2018) and the reflections on the field of memory, mainly Hallbwachs (2012). However, when reference is made to the construction of memory, this process implies an affective and political dimension about what to forget and what to remember. It has also activated restoration and ecological conservation techniques in high mountain areas, where the relationship between nature and humans has been questioned, with the understanding that the mountain provides all the resources for the existence of communities: water, biodiversity, and food. _x000D_
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In this sense, the construction of a socio-ecological memory responds to the collective needs of the territory. It has also generated a consolidation of strategies for the protection of the paramo and the mountain, which are materialised in ecological restoration processes, understanding the importance of the role of these ecosystems for the production of water and climate change._x000D_
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In the first stage of the research, I set out to identify these narratives from local organisations and the voices of peasant women from the páramo, which is part of the upper part of the Bogotá River. Some of these initiatives have consisted of the consolidation of small vegetable gardens for the recovery of seeds and native species; others have been the work with bees that have helped to reforest part of the paramo.
Juliana Duarte
CEDLA – University of Amsterdam (Master student)
ID Abstract: 817