In Coastal Louisiana subsistence activities – from gardening to harvesting to hunting -- are both ordinary and pervasive. That is, hunting and harvesting pervade everyday life in coastal communities. However, ecologists may not address the importance of subsistence food gathering as essential to human community structure and function, much less ecosystem structure and function. This research represents the results of a three-year, community-based ethnographic field project to explore the range and significance of subsistence in South Louisiana, including the role of subsistence activities following major storm events.
Results/Conclusions
The results of our ethnographic research indicated that subsistence activities are central to personal, cultural, and regional identity for people in Coastal Louisiana. Commercial activities and wage labor often support and underwrite subsistence activities, making them possible, and that degree of participation in subsistence activities varies across a person’s life cycle. More importantly, we found that participants felt that others may not see what they do (gardening, hunting, crabbing, or shrimping and sharing their harvest with family or neighbors) as one single system (“subsistence”). In addition, subsistence foods are highly valued and fuel family and community celebrations, which help support the community as a whole. We also noted that harvesting and sharing are connected to family and community in complex ways, particularly after a disruptive event such as Katrina. participants worry that rapid environmental change threatens hunting and harvesting. Finally, loss of access to hunting and harvesting can have environmental justice implications with poorer families impacted most heavily.·The results of this study have broad-reaching implications for how ecologists address the importance of subsistence food procurement.