Browsing by Author "Stepp, John Richard"
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Journal Article Increased Market Integration, Value, and Ecological Knowledge of Tea Agroforests in the Akha Highlands of Southwest China(2010) Ahmed, Selena; Stepp, John Richard; Toleno, Robban A. J.; Peters, Charles M."This study assesses the persistence and change of traditional land use patterns and ecological knowledge in response to expanded commercialization of tea (Camellia sinensis var. assamica (L.) Kuntze Theaceae in an indigenous Akha (Hani) community in the midlevel montane forests of southwest Yunnan, China. Surveys were conducted in 2005 and 2008, over a period corresponding to a regional tea market boom and bust cycle, to compare the valuation smallholders attribute to land use types and to determine the role that value systems play in shaping environmental behavior and knowledge. At the community level, increased market integration of tea agroforests is associated with reconfiguration of land use, intensified management, reorganization of labor structures, and generation of knowledge on tea resources. Akha have tapped into customary resources and forged new social networks with tea industry agents to take advantage of emerging market opportunities. They have resisted state reforms calling for the cultivation of high-intensity plantations and introduced cultivars. Consequently, they have benefited from price premiums through niche market networks for tea sourced from agroforests and proprietary landraces not available to other communities disempowered by market cycles. Subsistence agriculture, home gardening, and foraging persist for food security despite tea wealth. However, as traditional values are reoriented toward market-based ideologies, the community may risk a breakdown of the social institutions that support sustainability."Journal Article A New Ecosystems Ecology for Anthropology(2003) Abel, Thomas; Stepp, John Richard"Conversation between anthropology and ecosystems ecology was interrupted in the early 1980s, due to several well-reasoned critiques of then-popular applications of ecosystems theory in anthropology and due, especially perhaps, to the appearance of promising alternative ecological and evolutionary paradigms and programs. Since then, ecosystems ecology has been both refined and transformed by the study of complex systems, with its radical critique of science. The resulting 'new ecology' answers most of the early criticisms of ecosystems, and proposes theory and methods to address the dynamics of ecosystems as complex systems."Journal Article Remarkable Properties of Human Ecosystems(2003) Stepp, John Richard; Jones, Eric C.; Pavao-Zuckerman, Mitchell; Casagrande, David; Zarger, Rebecca K."This paper explores some of the remarkable properties that set human ecosystems apart from nonhuman ecosystems. The identification of these properties provides a framework for bridging the theoretical and methodological divide between biological ecology and human ecology. The unique information-processing capability of humans in ecosystems is central to this framework. We discuss several manifestations of human cognitive and behavioral abilities, termed "remarkable properties" of human ecosystems. A cross-cultural and historical approach is taken in demonstrating some of these properties. Related to these properties are the ways in which complex functional and dysfunctional or maladaptive processes take place in human ecosystems. We assert that one of the greatest challenges for human ecology is to integrate belief systems as a major component of human ecosystems."