The seedling grant offered by the Institute for Agroecology offered our team vital resources for supporting our ongoing individual and collective research examining livelihoods and resilient food systems in the Northeast. For this blog, we share group reflection on the current state of our work and our next steps examining hunting, agroforestry, and fiber systems.

What methodological approaches are you taking and how do you navigate the transdisciplinary nature of your work?

Teresa: My project is using a largely ethnographic approach to understand fibersheds and fiber production and use in New England. At this point I'm doing a lot of participant observation and field work, kind of informally. The transdisciplinary stretch that I'm doing with this project is moving into the arts as well and trying to understand the anthropology of art and fiber farming, essentially.

Krizzia: I'm doing something similar to Teresa in terms of methodology. I'm doing a lot of interviewing and participant observation and a lot of fieldwork with hunters and trappers where they take me out and show me what they're doing and talk me through it. In terms of navigating the transdisciplinary nature of the work…my research has so many elements from so many different fields, namely wildlife ecology, anthropology, ecological economics and also looking at non market systems, and it does all tie together quite well through the Department of Fish and Wildlife, which is quite culturally informed. It’s been really interesting to see how hunters and trappers interpret things like climate change and climate science and wildlife ecology and wildlife management. How those affect hunters and trappers in their daily lives, but are interpreted in a way that's very different from the professionals in those fields.

Michelle: My project combines a literature review, qualitative research, and participatory action research (PAR), funded through this grant. This has meant working with stakeholders to develop an agroforestry learning garden on a 43-acre property in Westport, Massachusetts. The land has historically been managed by the Wainer family, whose legacy is intertwined with abolitionism, whaling, farming, and community—bringing together African American and Pocasset Pokanoket Wampanoag histories. It is the longest-held land tenure of any Pocasset Pokanoket tribal member, and I have been working closely with Chief Nij-Pajikwat-Mo`z (Chief Two Running Elk), who is leading efforts to restore the site as a place for learning about Indigenous agriculture and land stewardship practices. Over the last year, field visits and ecological assessments have been central to understanding the site’s potential and designing an agroforestry system that aligns with both ecological and cultural priorities, but it has also been a lot of community building and hanging out.

What makes the Northeast a unique place to study?

Teresa: So one of the things that I have found through this project is that fiber farming in New England has a really long and diverse history and I've been uncovering things like the history of silkworm cultivation in Vermont that I never knew about, and the more contemporary forms of animal husbandry and even hemp production. It’s a cold place so it has to think about textiles and clothing in ways that are maybe distinct from some other geographic areas.

Krizzia: The northeast is a place that I don't think was very expected to be affected by climate change, especially Vermont. A lot of people moved here during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is still going on, but they moved here thinking that this was going to be a really safe place. A lot of them are transplants from cities in the northeast and rural culture in Vermont has seen a big shock since people started moving here from the city. It also means that the way of life of many rural communities, which is quite informed by hunting and trapping, has been pushed back on by people who have come into Vermont and seen that as an affront to their moral constitution, essentially. So the Northeast, particularly Vermont, where I'm working is a really unique place because we are kind of seeing it change before our very eyes in ways that were really unexpected, especially in terms of rural communities staying rural, and in terms of climate change, which is affecting hunters and trappers. A lot of people here subsist on hunting and trapping in more forms than just meat.

Michelle: I think I would start by saying agroforestry is not new anywhere. People have been growing food and raising animals with trees and within forest landscapes/ecosystems across time and space. But, in the Northeast, it is only more recently that we’ve seen it gain traction as a formalized approach. Regions like the Midwest, Pacific Northwest, and Southeast are more established in research and practice. Still, on a national scale, agroforestry is only practiced on 1% of land where it could be. It is definitely a budding practice and gaining more attention than ever and through the Inflation Reduction Act, there was a huge influx funding for agroforestry- it was a historic amount (*unfortunately a lot of that is being pulled back under the new administration*). This excitement has led to people just wanting to get trees in the ground. It makes the Northeast an important place for attention and intervention. 

What synergies do you see across your co-investigators' research with your own?

Teresa: That's a fun question. I think all of us are trying to think about how people are meeting basic needs in compromise times and how cultural practices, as far away as hunting and growing fruit and nut trees and fiber farming are really important strategies for meeting needs and retaining cultural knowledge and practices when there's a lot of forces that are threatening that continuity. I think we're all really committed to learning from and working with communities and decentering our own expertise while we do that but we're also all really curious to learn from experts in the field about the distinct practices that we're looking at.

Michelle: I think all of us are trying to look back to look forward. Maybe it’s a little bit of a cliche, but I think that in trying to better understand how these different livelihood strategies can support people going forward, we're all interested in the cultural and historic forces that shape those strategies.

Krizzia: Ditto to all the above.
 

What's next for your work?

Teresa: So for me, what's next is to connect with some ongoing efforts around fiber shed revitalization. Most of the work that I've done so far on this project has been historical and archival so connecting with current efforts to revitalize and to protect fibersheds in New England, is what's directly ahead of me. Also, doing some ethnographic work on some animal farms and with animal farmers to understand their role within sustaining fibershed in New England.

Krizzia: Finishing my dissertation! What's next for my work is looking into New England regional food planning and seeing how big the hunting and trapping gap is within that planning and justifying the inclusion of hunting and trapping in a regional food plan. I think there's a lot of ways that hunting and trapping is really useful and generative in communities, but also in this entire region. We can really leverage our very skilled hunters and trappers to support communities beyond their own homes, streets, and towns. I think what's next for my work is trying to see how we can fit hunters and trappers into regional food planning. Also, I’ll be getting these interviews archived for posterity through the Vermont Folklife Center.

Michelle: I’m excited for the actual installation of the agroforestry site that is going to happen in the next year and beyond. We've already started to order plants and I’m in the process of doing more site design. Chief Two Running Elk is working with the Natural Resource Conservation Service at the USDA to get a few contracts funded to do restoration work, but there is so much uncertainty around that funding right now. So, I’m really glad to have independent research funding to support the vision for the land there. Going forward, we want to host workshops that highlight the contribution of Indigenous people to agroforestry and are tailored to support BIPOC farmers and land stewards who are interested in adopting agroforestry as a practice. I think that perspective has been left out, especially in demonstration sites.  I hope Wainer Woods will become a hub where people can gather, learn, and grow the agroforestry movement in the Northeast.