This larger collaborative project began in March 2015, with a workshop in Uppsala, Sweden to explore a collaborative comparison of agricultural landscapes in Burgundy, France, Sweden, and Romania. Researchers from Sweden (Swedish Biodiversity Centre–CBM), Romania (Museum of the Romanian Peasant) and the USA (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University), had been conducting individual but similar projects and decided to explore a larger comparative study.
The three research sites are almost equidistant, spanning the European continent. Each site has its own specific historical, ecological, and social context, and a comparative analysis of the three could be beneficial to better understanding the changing roles of environment, technology, culture and society in the evolution of agriculture in Europe.
We are interested in the methods and techniques of such analysis, including the analysis of ecological data, historical documents, ethnographic interviews, historical cartography and GIS, and more.
We have recently published a comparative study on changing practices related to meadows and hay production in the transition from traditional to modern farming (Lennartsson et.al in press), and another on operationalizing interdisciplinary collaboration (Jones et.al).
Our collaboration is continuing.
