Ester Boserup’s Legacy on Sustainability, 2014 Orientations for Contemporary Research Human-Environment Interactions Series, Vol. 4

Arising from a scientific conference marking the 100th anniversary of her birth, this book honors the life and work of the social scientist and diplomat Ester Boserup, who blazed new trails in her interdisciplinary approach to development and sustainability.

PART I: Ester Boserup’s Intellectual Heritage.- 1. Ester Boserup: An Interdisciplinary Visionary Relevant for Sustainability.- 2. “Finding Out Is My Life”: Conversations with Ester Boserup in the 1990s.- 3. Boserup’s Theory on Technological Change as a Point of Departure for the Theory of Sociometabolic Regime Transition.- PART II Land Use, Technology and Agriculture.- 4. The Dwindling Role of Population Pressure in Land Use Change – a Case from the South West Pacific.- 5. Conceptual and Empirical Approaches to Mapping and Quantifying Land-Use Intensity.- 6. Malthusian Assumptions, Boserupian Response in Transition to Agriculture Models.- 7. Reconciling Boserup with Malthus: Agrarian Change and Soil Degradation in Olive Orchards in Spain (1750-2000).- 8. Beyond Boserup: The Role of Working Time in Agricultural Development.- PART III: Population and Gender.- 9. Following Boserup’s Traces: From Invisibility to Informalisation of Women’s Economy to Engendering Development in Translocal Spaces.- 10. Daughters of the Hills: Gendered Agricultural Production, Modernisation, and Declining Child Sex Ratios in the Indian Central Himalayas.- 11. Revisiting Boserup’s Hypotheses in the Context of Africa.- 12. An Interpretation of Large-Scale Land Deals Using Boserup’s Theories of Agricultural Intensification, Gender and Rural Development.- 13. Labour Migration and Gendered Agricultural Asset Shifts in Southeastern Mexico: Two Stories of Farming Wives and Daughters.- 14. Working Time of Farm Women and Small-Scale Sustainable Farming in Austria.- 15. A Human Ecological Approach to Ester Boserup: Steps Towards Engendering Agriculture and Rural Development.- 16. Conclusions: Re-Evaluating Boserup in the Light of the Contributions to this Volume.

The first comprehensive scientific publication on the life and work of Ester Boserup one of the pioneers of sustainability research Includes contributions from experts in a wide range of disciplines: agricultural sciences, biology, geography, history, ecology, landscape planning, physics, sociology, environmental sciences and economics Presents a cross-section of contemporary sustainability research, with a special focus on the role of society-nature interrelations, agriculture and gender Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras