Symbolism, knowledge and management of soil and land resources in indigenous communities: Ethnopedology at global, regional and local scales

Ethnopedology is a hybrid discipline situated at the interface between natural and social sciences. Over the last decades, the scope of ethnopedological research has moved from descriptive to explanatory and from monodisciplinary to integrated, while at the same time the number of ethnopedological studies has increased exponentially. Current research focuses on integration of the three main domains that structure the social theories of soil and land resources, namely the symbolic (Kosmos), cognitive (Corpus) and management (Praxis) dimensions, forming the K–C–P complex or ethnoecological model. In this paper, ethnopedology is approached in a multi-scalar perspective, from global to regional to local, using the K–C–P model to analyze the soil knowledge systems of indigenous people in a holistic manner. At global scale, ethnopedology is analyzed in the larger context, bringing together indigenous peoples, linguistic–biologic–agricultural diversities and indigenous environmental knowledge, as a framework allowing the assessment of ethnopedology as a mutating and growing discipline. At regional scale, Mesoamerican ethnopedology is analyzed from an ethnohistorical perspective to highlight which elements in the contemporary indigenous soil knowledge system have been inherited from pre-Columbian times and which from the colonial period. At local scale, San Francisco Pichátaro, a Purhépecha community in the Pátzcuaro Lake basin of Mexico, is taken as an example for exploring the K–C–P model handled by indigenous people for soil erosion control and multi-purpose land management. Among others, two main conclusions are highlighted: (1) the existence of universal K–C–P criteria, in particular commonalities between soil classification systems and management practices, developed over time by indigenous peoples living in different agro-ecological zones; and (2) the relevance of perceptions and beliefs in decision-making by local people, which should be taken into account in rural development programs.