[Article] Amazonian Fish Migration as a Social-Cultural-Ecological Process
CECE Postdoctoral Fellow Natalia C. Piland is one of six co-authors of the recently published paper, “Amazonian fish migration as a social-cultural-ecological process,” in People and Nature. The paper was led by PhD candidate LuLu Victoria-Lacy (Florida International University), whose ethnographic research highlights how short and long fish migrations in the Amazon are important to Indigenous social lives and meaning, and how this human-fish relation can contribute to biocultural stewardship and conservation. Read the abstract below and click here to read the article.
1. In this study, we highlight the rich perspectives and explanations of fish migration held by Indigenous groups across the Amazon.
2. We present the aspects of Indigenous cosmological stories, drawing from our exploratory review of cultural ethnographies and grey literature, as well as the authors’ own experiences. We ask, how do Amazonian peoples characterize fish migrations in story and cosmovision? We apply a movement ecology framework to present perspectives on fish migration across the Amazon.
3. Indigenous descriptions of fishes and their movements are specific, relating to particular species, waterscape features, directions of movement and seasons; furthermore, fish migrations are important within Amazonian cosmologies, relating to broader processes of transformation and movement across space, time and worlds.
4. Synthesis and applications. We posit that researchers and conservation practitioners can learn from Indigenous stories about fish and freshwater, and we encourage collaborations that protect biocultural riverscapes of the Amazon.
