Islands of fertility: a multispecies ethnography of human-termite interactions and their implications for human ecology and the archaeology of gender in the tropics

Abstract

ABSTRACT Using multidisciplinary literature, this paper takes a multispecies approach to human-termite interactions across the tropics to demonstrate how termites exploit ecological effects of human behaviours and in turn provide humans with significant ecosystem services. These provisions are deeply entangled within cultural practices and ideologies. Conceptualisations of human and landscape fertility, and the role of termites in facilitating life, create gendered interactions that are manifested in ecological knowledge and praxis relating to termites and termite mounds. The strong association between termites and farmers in particular, may offer insights into past human settlement patterns and their relationships with ecosystems. This paper proposes the use of geomorphology, thin-section ceramic petrography, and stable isotope analysis to investigate these relationships across the tropics. A multispecies approach creates new possibilities for a diachronic understanding of human ecology and raises important questions for the Anthropocene and the future of farming in the tropics.