ORCID Profile
0000-0002-2169-4668
Current Organisation
Colorado State University
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Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 09-2018
DOI: 10.1098/RSOS.171897
Abstract: How humans obtain food has dramatically reshaped ecosystems and altered both the trajectory of human history and the characteristics of human societies. Our species' subsistence varies widely, from predominantly foraging strategies, to plant-based agriculture and animal husbandry. The extent to which environmental, social and historical factors have driven such variation is currently unclear. Prior attempts to resolve long-standing debates on this topic have been h ered by an over-reliance on narrative arguments, small and geographically narrow s les, and by contradictory findings. Here we overcome these methodological limitations by applying multi-model inference tools developed in biogeography to a global dataset (818 societies). Although some have argued that unique conditions and events determine each society's particular subsistence strategy, we find strong support for a general global pattern in which a limited set of environmental, social and historical factors predicts an essential characteristic of all human groups: how we obtain our food.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 15-09-2021
DOI: 10.1111/ECOG.05205
Abstract: Land ownership shapes natural resource management and social–ecological resilience, but the factors determining ownership norms in human societies remain unclear. Here we conduct a global empirical test of long‐standing theories from ecology, economics and anthropology regarding potential drivers of land ownership and territoriality. Prior theory suggests that resource defensibility, subsistence strategies, population pressure, political complexity and cultural transmission mechanisms may all influence land ownership. We applied multi‐model inference procedures based on logistic regression to cultural and environmental data from 102 societies, 71 with some form of land ownership and 31 with no land ownership. We found an increased probability of land ownership in mountainous environments, where patchy resources may be more cost effective to defend via ownership. We also uncovered support for the role of population pressure, with a greater probability of land ownership in societies living at higher population densities. Our results also show more land ownership when neighboring societies also practiced ownership. We found less support for variables associated with subsistence strategies and political complexity.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2011
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2020
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 08-07-2016
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2021
DOI: 10.1017/EHS.2021.32
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 07-2013
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 2015
DOI: 10.1068/A140054P
Abstract: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) is an expanding global initiative oriented at slowing or reversing carbon emissions from forests in the Global South. The programme is based on the principle of payment for environmental services, where the carbon sequestration services of forests are seen to have a financial value which can be paid for through grant and market mechanisms. In this paper we explore how REDD+ is implemented, drawing upon the concept of governmentality. We focus on REDD+ practices in Indonesia, concluding with a case study focused on the Sungai Lamandau REDD+ project in Central Kalimantan. A cross-scalar approach is adopted that explores the different but overlapping strategies of actors congregating at international, national, and local scales. We detail the neoliberal strategies employed by international actors the more disciplinary approaches evident within national planning processes and local forms of engagement being practised by a forest community. Our findings reveal REDD+ to be comprised of a heterogeneous regime of disjointed practices that reflect the existing political ecologies and interests of differently located actors. Rather than consolidate these approaches we argue that the strength of the programme lies in its fluidity, which is creating new cross-scalar opportunities, and risks, for those pursuing forms of social and environmental justice.
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 27-03-2019
Abstract: Although many hypotheses have been proposed to explain why humans speak so many languages and why languages are unevenly distributed across the globe, the factors that shape geographical patterns of cultural and linguistic ersity remain poorly understood. Prior research has tended to focus on identifying universal predictors of language ersity, without accounting for how local factors and multiple predictors interact. Here, we use a unique combination of path analysis, mechanistic simulation modelling, and geographically weighted regression to investigate the broadly described, but poorly understood, spatial pattern of language ersity in North America. We show that the ecological drivers of language ersity are not universal or entirely direct. The strongest associations imply a role for previously developed hypothesized drivers such as population density, resource ersity, and carrying capacity with group size limits. The predictive power of this web of factors varies over space from regions where our model predicts approximately 86% of the variation in ersity, to areas where less than 40% is explained.
Publisher: Resilience Alliance, Inc.
Date: 2014
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 29-08-2021
Abstract: Humans currently collectively use thousands of languages1,2. The number of languages in a given region (i.e. language “richness”) varies widely3–7. Understanding the processes of ersification and homogenization that produce these patterns has been a fundamental aim of linguistics and anthropology. Empirical research to date has identified various social, environmental, geographic, and demographic factors associated with language richness3. However, our understanding of causal mechanisms and variation in their effects over space has been limited by prior analyses focusing on correlation and assuming stationarity3,8. Here we use process-based, spatially-explicit stochastic models to simulate the emergence, expansion, contraction, fragmentation, and extinction of language ranges. We varied combinations of parameter settings in these computer-simulated experiments to evaluate the extent to which different processes reproduce observed patterns of pre-colonial language richness in North America. We find that the majority of spatial variation in language richness can be explained by models in which environmental and social constraints determine population density, random shocks alter population sizes more frequently at higher population densities, and population shocks are more frequently negative than positive. Language ersification occurs when populations split after reaching size limits, and when ranges fragment due to population contractions following negative shocks or due to contact with other groups that are expanding following positive shocks. These findings support erse theoretical perspectives arguing that language richness is shaped by environmental and social conditions, constraints on group sizes, outcomes of contact among groups, and shifting demographics driven by positive innovations, such as new subsistence strategies, or negative events, such as war or disease.
No related grants have been discovered for Michael Gavin.