Marcela Cely-Santos

2015 SSRC-IDRF Fellow

Cross-Pollinating Agriculture, Ecosystems and Food: Human/Bee Relationships in
Traditional Small-scale Agroecosystems
Final Report
It has been a pretty exciting year. I truly fell in love with bees and I have learned
myriad of invaluable things from the farmers I worked with and the people I have met in
town. The rural is one living experiment in which unpredictability is the rule rather
than the exception, in which everything is impermanent. People fight change through
(more) change and trust; that might have been my biggest lesson.
Fieldwork in Colombia to answer questions that advance knowledge in both
social theory and ecology has been challenging. The nature of the methods and data is
tremendously different and to adjust to that difference I had to redefine the sampling
structure of my data. I conducted an in-depth study with 17 rural families and conducted
additional interviews with neighbors and with actors such as local beekeepers and local
officers from the agriculture municipal department. Overall, I worked in the following
activities:
In-depth study (n=17 households - farms):
Participant observation
Agricultural Calendars
Semi-structured interviews: land uses; knowledge about bees; wellness and
satisfaction; perceptions on conservation and development; risk and agriculture
during the 2015 drought.
Food consumption charts and interviews
Guided tours
Vegetation structure surveys (n=17)
Biological surveys: Floral resources and bee diversity (n=17).
Landscape structure (n=17)
Semi-structured interview with neighbors (to get a more complete understanding about
local land uses)
With the community
Survey on knowledge about bees, agricultural phenology, rural development and
demographics (n= 370, corresponding to 3% of the adult population in the
municipality. 250 completed; 1in progress)
With other local actors
Beekeepers: unstructured interviews, guided tours and participant observation
Municipal Agricultural officers: semi-structured interviews
Municipal agricultural guilds meeting: participant observation and unstructured
interviews
Local traders of food (intermediaries): unstructured interviews
Key informants: unstructured interviews

Social cartography (with the consulting group adjusting the municipal planning scheme):
economic activities, risks and vulnerabilities, and proposed solutions by local
communities). I helped facilitating some of the workshops and the consulting group
shared/donated participatory maps to this research. I am analyzing maps and recorded
meetings constructed in 31 villages with 542 participants in total (17+/- 5 participants
per village).
My original project changed because of adjustments to the death of the one key
informant introducing me to rural families, and to the research design of the natural
sciences component of my dissertation. I had to obtain information from alternative
sources to contact families in such a way that their farms complied with the design of my
ecology project; that represented a big delay in my schedule. I realized that conducting an
in-depth study in the way I had designed itwas not feasible with a high number of
households if conducted by just one person. I decided to work with fewer households and
to complement this in-depth study with neighbors and with a general survey to the
population. As fieldwork progressed, I realized I needed to hear other stories (such as
from beekeepers and local officers) to better understand the relationships between people,
bees and agriculture in town.
One climatic event also brought changes into my research plans. We had a long El
Nio drought in 2015. My ecology project had to be redesigned because of this drought,
which affected all my research. The drought also affected the temporal nature of the
harvest season and the time farmers could share with me. I decided to take advantage of
this event to obtain data about how these external pressures influence the relationship
between agriculture and people in my study region. My plans could not be completed as
expected, so Im staying for a longer time in the region to obtain all the data I need and
share some preliminary findings about my research with the community in some
workshops.
I will finish conducting fieldwork by September 2016 and go back to the US by
December 2016. Afterwards, I will focus on completing the natural sciences component
of my research until November 2016. I plan to share and discuss preliminary findings
with the community in workshops on August and October 2016. I would like to conduct a
final workshop on the summer of 2017, once all information is processed but before I
finish the dissertation. I find it important to include feedback from the community in the
final document.
Courses and other activities
I tried not to be totally apart from academic activities while conducting fieldwork.
I took a graduate course on the Foraging Ecology of Pollination at Universidad Nacional
de Colombia in July 2015, and one on Advanced Methods for GIS at Universidad de Los
Andes in February 2016. I also took a course on beekeeping of Stingless bees with
NaturApis and Universidad de Cundinamarca in November 2015. I participated in two
conferences, the V Latin American Ethnobiology meeting in Popayn, Colombia, and the
XII International Seminar on Rural Development at Universidad Javeriana in Bogota. I
also helped co-organize the public dialogue Bee knowledges: traditional knowledge on
beekeeping with the socio-cultural division of the Bogota Botanical Garden.

Dissemination
My activity in the academy has been closer to biology departments than to social
sciences departments, yet it brought deep concerns regarding the relationships between
these two bodies of science. I gave two guest lectures (April 2016) at Universidad de Los
Andes, one on Hymenoptera (the insect order comprising bees, ants and wasps) in the
entomology course for Biology undergrads, and another one on Agricultural landscapes
and biodiversity conservation in the Ecology: Principles and Applications course for
Engineer undergrads in which I shared preliminary findings. I took advantage of the first
class to estimate what is it that an average biology student knows about a bee before
academically learning what a bee is to science, and relate that with what farmers (and
non farmers/ non biologists) know about bees.1 Thus, disseminating my work served as
an opportunity to feed my work as well.
The above-mentioned talks and some additional conversations with biology students
brought deep reflections to the way I conceive the role of natural sciences (NS)
departments (at least in Colombia). NS departments do not seem to consider the
importance of getting other audiences to understand the biological world (in which
humans play an active and important role) and still teach the natural-social divide.
Fieldtrips still happens in biological reserves and people are still undesired actors
interfering with the natural world. Pedagogic tools are not modified to reach other
audiences, which reflects there is no effort in building bridges with different sciences and
systems of knowledge. Ecologists complain about non-ecologists having no interest in
ecology, and non-ecologists complain ecology and biology are rigid and distant sciences.
I was shocked ecology courses for non-ecologists overlooked discussions in bioethics. I
was also shocked to know bioethics is still not a mandatory course in most biology
departments in Colombia and I was more shocked to know average biologists still treat
organisms as study objects but not as study subjects. I deeply think biology departments
and their institutional foundations could redefine the way they approach life itself to
make it more conciliatory and less distant to the current social context. To me it is
alarming natural sciences department are so unaware of the social role of their science. I
hope to have a different approach with my research and that it serves to open a different
door to the study of wildlife in such a biodiverse country as mine.
Besides fieldwork and academic activities I have engaged in some activism. Since
March 2016 I became part of the Permaculture Network of the Tequendama Bioregion.
This network joins people, especially neo-peasants, interested in developing more
conciliatory relationships between humans and biotic 2 non-humans. We meet regularly
and develop activities trying to follow a sociocratic/holocratic system of governance and
try to conduct outreach activities with the local community. I have learned a lot about this
different system of governance and I have gained important tools to make my research
more participatory through the activities of this network. Also, this group has been of
great importance to reach a different segment of the population I work with and, in turn,
1 It turns out it is not that different.
2 Living organisms and their biophysical environment.

to understand more about some conflictive dynamics between agriculture and ecosystems
in Anolaima.
I still have dissemination activities planned in Anolaima. I have scheduled a talk to
Anolaiman organic coffee growers sponsored by the Coffee National Federation by the
end of July and I am organizing a workshop on bee-human relationships at the restaurant
mini-mal, which works with the Slow Food international movement to revitalize the
culture in agri-culture and food systems. I will also participate with a talk in the V
agroecology international seminar in October 2016, and in the National initiative for wild
bees in November 2016.
Intellectual contribution of the grant
Support from the SSRC-IDRF grant was essential for conducting the activities I
proposed for my dissertation. Interdisciplinary research is considerably demanding in
terms of time and energy, and sadly, is tremendously underfunded. I really thank the
SSRC for trusting a biologist and this type of proposals.
My thinking was undoubtedly influenced by experiences in my research site. I got
a good grasp of how complex rural realities are. I learned humbleness when interacting
with farmers, who are so wise and sensible. I learned invaluable things about plants, bees,
crops and about the different human worlds farmers enact. I learned how to (try to)
integrate theory to understand reality and I discovered how theory may be so biased and
distant form reality. Before going to the field I audited a qualitative data course at
Universidad de Los Andes. I am glad I considered the one that turned to be the best
advice ever: If people ask about your life, you should share something. They are sharing
a lot of their private lives with you. The professor stated that we as social researchers
should be open to share. Social interactions, she said, are two-way and it is selfish when
researchers make it one-way. I think I could make a great relationship with the
households I worked with by following this advice. Not only I obtained data that may be
more reliable but also I got important personal growth from these relationships.
I have gained tremendous expertise at interviewing and reconstructing sotries. I
have also explored environmental history, which also improved and was improved my
skills as a natural historian. At this moment I feel I need to go back to theoretical
approaches and read more in all of the areas resonating with my research, but I am happy
I had the opportunity of getting as much advantage as I could from being in the field.
Although my work and approach have changed considerably from my original
proposal, I kept the thread of my story: human-bee relationships. I have mainly
concentrated on ethnoecology, political and cultural ecology. The comments I received
from the selection committee and from scholars I could talk to give a new direction to a
component of my work. I am willing to explore more multispecies ethnography, as
suggested by the SSRC-IDRF selection committee. Besides that, I am willing to explore
more about the possible contributions of my work as an ecologist to social theory, for
example by trying to bridge actor-network theory with ecological theory in mutualistic
networks, and with some concepts from Buddhism regarding interactions among beings. I
am still a bit in conflict with the nature of ecology and social sciences research (in terms
of the right balance between rigurosity and flexibility they require to obtain quality data),

and I am willing to explore that conflict and other encounters and disencounters into
social theory as well.
Recommendations
iv. Recommendations:Whatsuggestionsor
recommendationsdoyouhavetoimprovetheoperationoradministrationoftheIDRF
program?PleasenotethattheIDRFisnotabletofundapreresearchworkshopfor
fellows.

Personal: I would consider physical exhaustion as a normal component to be

accounted when thinking about a chronogram and working schedule. I also suggest
devoting some time, with a specified regularity, to self-assess your own work and write
monthly memos about relevant findings. I suggest working with daily and weekly to
do lists with realistic but small-pieced products to better visualize the work that needs
to be done. I think my biggest suggestion would be to learn how to manage uncertainty
and to be very patient about it, and to find a strategy to manage fear. Sometimes it is
difficult to jump into the unknown, but that is a lifes constant and learning to handle that
in a big project (such as a PhD dissertation) is a good way. Also, Id suggest to find a
good strategy (which is always too personal) to learn to detect when it is enough and to
be compassionate with yourself. We always do the best we can, despite there would be
better ways to get things done.
From the SSRC: To conduct more skype sessions and/or to give feedback about
partial reports.