Appraising biocultural approaches to sustainability in the scientific literature in Spanish

Abstract

Biocultural approaches that acknowledge the multiple and dynamic relationships between the diversity of cultures and nature are growing in popularity in sustainability research. Scientific contributions to biocultural approaches written in Spanish are numerous, including influential work on biocultural memory, biocultural heritage and biocultural ethics. However, despite linguistic diversity being considered essential in knowledge production for assuring broad and balanced evidence to successfully cope with sustainability challenges, non-English literature is rarely reviewed and taken into account in English-language scientific knowledge production and publications. This review assesses how the scientific literature in Spanish conceptualizes and applies biocultural approaches, showing their richness beyond the Anglophone predominance in academic knowledge production and communication. The results suggest that insights from Spanish-language scientific literature could contribute alternative methodological and theoretical pathways for biocultural approaches that might foster transformations for more sustainable human-nature relationships. We conclude by highlighting avenues that could bring more plural biocultural studies.

Keywords: Biocultural diversity; Decolonization; Endogenous development; Epistemic justice; Indigenous and local knowledge; Latin America.

Fig. 1

Flowchart describing the methodology for the selection of articles and for the identification of the 9 biocultural lenses

Fig. 2

Descriptive overview of the characteristics derived through deductive coding. This includes a type of paper, b main emphasis, c focus, d knowledge type, e environmental value type, f consideration of power, g consideration of gender, h consideration of participatory action, i governance type, and j degree of participation

Fig. 3

Frequency of articles and distribution of emergent primary lenses by year. The collection of bibliometric data for this review was done in October 2021; thus, it does not capture the full set of papers published in 2021

Fig. 4

Results of the detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) of the primary and secondary lenses of the papers for the first two axes. Dots represent individual papers and polygons enclose all papers belonging to a similar primary lens (colored labels). Arrows indicate characteristics of the papers that were significantly correlated to the ordination space (see Table 1 for a description of the characteristics of the papers: For Empirical, Conceptual and Discussion see Type of paper; for Intrinsic value and Instrumental value see Value type; for Traditional knowledge see Knowledge type; and for Bottom-up governance see Governance). Items close to each other are very similar and distant items very dissimilar to each other