Understanding agrobiodiversity and the rise of resilience: analytic category, conceptual boundary object or meta-level transition

The use of resilience as a concept has expanded significantly in scientific research and policy with regard to social-ecological interactions and sustainability. This paper asks first how resilience is being used analytically in studies of social-ecological systems. It then queries how resilience is being applied conceptually as a boundary object in scientific studies and policy formulations that seek to connect across social and environmental systems. It also asks how the use of resilience as a concept may reflect significant political and economic transitions. To address these questions, the article is focused on agrobiodiversity: the biological diversity of agri-food systems and the potential of food sovereignty at spatial scales that are local and national as well as global. It draws on extensive field studies and archival historical research of agri-food systems comprised of staple food plant complexes (maize, potatoes, quinoa, common beans and the Andean tuber crops of ulluco, oca and mashua)in rural and peri-urban societies in Mexico and the Western South American countries of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia. These studies are used to reflect on the increasingly important role of resilience in new social-ecological understandings of agrobiodiversity and sustainability arising through the three principal dimensions: analytic category, conceptual boundary object and meta-level transition.