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La modélisation d’accompagnement (ComMod) est une démarche d’appui à la gestion des ressources naturelles qui a émergé en opposition aux approches classiques, dites descendantes. Utilisée par les praticiens du développement pour accompagner les parties-prenantes dans la résolution de conflits, elle est aussi utilisée par les chercheurs pour créer des connaissances sur les objets complexes que sont les systèmes écologiques et sociaux (SES). Cette étude montre comment ComMod a permis de créer un outil de recherche et d’élaboration de scénarios sur le fonctionnement d’un SES de front pionnier en forêt dense à l’est du Cameroun. Durant trois années, un processus ComMod a été engagé avec des agriculteurs et des chasseurs-cueilleurs ; il a abouti à la co-construction du modèle AgriForEst (Agriculture et forêts à l’Est Cameroun) traduit sous forme d’un jeu de rôles et de plateau. L’utilisation du jeu en dehors de son arène de concepteurs a servi de validation du modèle par les acteurs locaux. Nous présentons comment les participants se sont approprié l’outil, et ont ainsi développé leur capacité à projeter les états futurs du système. Nous discutons enfin la signification des résultats obtenus : les connaissances produites sont de nature démonstrative et non explicative. Une session de jeu montre comment les femmes et les hommes changent leurs stratégies, et créent de nouvelles normes en réponse aux changements, changent la forêt et sont changés en retour. AgriForEst montre comment se façonne un paysage. Il faut y jouer ou le voir jouer pour s’en rendre compte., Companion Modelling (ComMod) is a support method for natural resource management that emerged in response to top-down approaches. Used by practitioners to support stakeholders in conflict resolution, it is also used by researchers to generate with stakeholders’ involvement, knowledge about complex socio-ecological systems (SES). The approach is well suited to the modelling of systems at the heart of which lies the decision making process of human agents. This study shows how Companion Modelling made it possible to create a research and scenario development tool for the exploration of how a pioneer front operates in a dense forest setting in eastern Cameroon. For three years, a ComMod process was conducted with farmers and hunter-gatherers; it culminated in the co-construction of the AgriForEst model (Agriculture and Forests in East Cameroon), which was then translated into a board and roleplaying game. Gaming with stakeholders other than those involved in the design served as validation. We present here how the participants took ownership of the tool, and in so doing developed their ability to anticipate future states of their system. Finally, we discuss the signification of the results obtained: the knowledge produced is of a demonstrative nature, and not explanatory. A game session shows how women and men change their strategies, and create new norms, in response to changes, change the forest in the process and are changed in return. AgriForEst shows how a landscape is shaped. One has to play it or see it played to realize it.

Cet article s’intéresse à la place actuelle des pratiques informelles de cueillette, chasse et pêche dans les parcs urbains gérés de manière écologique. Il s'appuie sur une enquête ethnographique autour d’un grand parc urbain en Seine-Saint-Denis. L’analyse porte d’abord sur l’introduction de la conser­vation de la biodiversité comme enjeu d’aménagement : celle-ci conduit à la mise en place d’un modèle paysager structuré autour d’un entretien de milieux de vie diversifiés qui s’appuie en partie sur une mise en scène pastorale. L’article présente ensuite un aperçu des appropriations citadines de ces lieux comme support de collecte de ressources matérielles, en particulier comestibles, entre survivance de pratiques anciennes et nouveaux usages, révélateurs d’une diversité culturelle locale. Nous analysons enfin les tensions qui se jouent entre la diversité de ces pratiques et les logiques de conservation du patrimoine portée par l’institution gestionnaire. This paper proposes a study of contemporary informal plant picking, hunting and fishing practices that take place in ecologically managed urban parks. It relies on an ethnographic inquiry conducted in Paris suburbs (Seine-Saint-Denis district). We show that the introduction of biodiversity conservation as a manage­ment goal leads to the creation of a new institutional landscape model, structured by the attention to biologic habitats diversity and pastoral scenery. We present a panorama of city dwellers food collecting practices, which combine old and new motivations, and reveal local cultural diversity. Finally we analyze the tensions that occur between these practices and the biodiversity conservation goals of local public authorities.

This article seeks to enrich the social-theoretical and sociological approach to climate change by arguing in favour of a weak naturalistic ontology beyond the usually presupposed methodological sociologism or culturalism. Accordingly, attention is drawn to the elementary social forms that mediate between nature and the sociocultural form of life and thus figure as the central object of a critical sociological explanation of impediments retarding or preventing a transition to a sustainable global society. The argument is illustrated by a comparison of the current situation of climate change to a similar situation some 10,000 years ago which conditioned the transition from hunting-gathering to farming. The crucial factor in the prehistoric transition had been the newly acquired cognitive fluidity, which not only became the defining feature of the modern human mind, but is also foundational of the corresponding social form of life. The cognitively fluid mind made possible new generative practices and the imagination of counterfactuals possessing an incursive force that is capable of transforming existing practices and social structures. The ultimate question, then, is twofold: whether there is enough potential left in the cognitively fluid mind for its societal significance to be activated to the benefit of a transformation of the current recalcitrant social formation; and whether we today are able and willing to recognize such potential and corresponding realizable possibilities upon which to act.

International audience; It is commonly believed that it is only from the neolithic period that one can speak about economy. Before the developement of this economy of production – based on farming and lifestock farming – the economy of hunther-gatherer is restrained to autarky or subsistence economy. Our purpose is to demonstrate that even during the mesolithic period, the economic activity was already quite developped. Even if it was less developed than during the neolithic period, the mesolithic economy was quite similar by nature to the neolithic one’s. Therefore it should rather be considered as proto-neolithic.; Notre objectif est de démontrer que dans la société de chasseurs-cueilleurs du mésolithique, avant donc l’économie de production agropastorale du néolithique, les activités économiques de production – par transformation de ressources - étaient nombreuses et diverses. Sur cette base et encouragée par la croissance de la population et la sédentarisation, la division du travail s’est intensifiée. Cela a eu pour conséquence, d’une part d’imposer des échanges commerciaux, de motiver l’accumulation de richesse et l’accession à la propriété, et d’autre part, d’accroître le rendement des activités humaines. L’économie pré-néolithique existait donc bien ; moins intensément développée que celle du néolithique mais analogue quant à sa nature, elle peut véritablement être qualifiée d’économie proto-néolithique.

This paper provides an overview of the habitat, natural resources, history, and socioeconomy of a small group of foragers called the Mikea who live in a semiarid forest environment of southwestern Madagascar. The flora and fauna of this forest are made up largely of rare, endemic species to Madagascar and the fragile environment is at risk of destruction by the process of desertification, particularly slash-and-burn agriculture and overgrazing by livestock. It is hypothesized that the Mikea persist as hunter-gatherers as an ecological and socioeconomic adaptation employing resource partitioning and mutualistic specialization with neighboring agropastoralists. Suggestions are proposed how to mitigate the detrimental affects of slash-and-burn cultivation.

Time-budget studies done among contemporary primitive people suggest that the first farmers worked harder to attain subsistence than their foraging predecessors. This makes the adoption of agriculture in the Stone Age one of the major curiosities in human cultural history. Theories offered by economists and economic historians largely fail to capture work-intensification among early farmers. Attributing a key role to human metabolism, this study provides a simple framework for analysing the adoption of agriculture. It demonstrates how the additional output that farming offered could have lured people into agriculture, but that subsequent population increase would eventually have swallowed up its benefits, forcing early farmers into an irreversible trap, where they had to do more work to attain subsistence compared to their foraging ancestors. The framework draws attention to the fact that, if agriculture arose out of need, as some scholars have suggested, then this was because prehistoric foragers turned down agriculture in the first place. Estimates of population growth before and after farming, however, in the light of the present framework seem to suggest that hunters were pulled rather than pushed into agriculture.

Time-budget studies done among contemporary primitive people suggest that the first farmers worked harder to attain subsistence than their foraging predecessors. This makes the adoption of agriculture in the Stone Age one of the major curiosities in human cultural history. Theories offered by economists and economic historians largely fail to capture work-intensification among early farmers. Attributing a key role to human metabolism, this study provides a simple framework for analysing the adoption of agriculture. It demonstrates how the additional output that farming offered could have lured people into agriculture, but that subsequent population increase would eventually have swallowed up its benefits, forcing early farmers into an irreversible trap, where they had to do more work to attain subsistence compared to their foraging ancestors. The framework draws attention to the fact that, if agriculture arose out of need, as some scholars have suggested, then this was because pre-historic foragers turned down agriculture in the first place. Estimates of population growth before and after farming, however, in light of the present framework seem to suggest that hunters were pulled rather than pushed into agriculture.

This article reviews the main theories about the prehistoric shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture. The transition, also known as the Neolithic Revolution, was ultimately necessary to the rise of modern civilization by creating the foundation for the later process of industrialization and sustained economic growth. The article provides a brief historical survey of the leading hypotheses concerning the rise of agriculture proposed in the archaeological and anthropological literature. It then turns to a more detailed review of the theories put forth in the economic literature.

This paper reviews the main theories and evidence regarding the prehistoric shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture, an event which took place for the first time some 10,000 years ago. The transition, which is also known as the Neolithic Revolution, led to the rise of civilisation as we know it, and seems to have borne the seeds for the later process of industrialisation and for economic growth in general. The paper provides a brief historical survey of the leading hypotheses concerning the rise of agriculture proposed in the archaeological and anthropological literature. It then turns to a more detailed review of the theories proposed in the economic literature.

This paper examines the prehistoric shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture. Among hunters and gatherers, all community members were engaged in food provision. Agricultural societies, in contrast, avail themselves of non-food specialists. This paper argues that the adoption of agriculture necessitated the introduction of non-food specialists. Since the release of labour from food generating activities stimulates economic development, this implies that the shift to agriculture literally bore the seeds of later economic growth. The model shows, in accordance with archaeological evidence, that hunters and gatherers, faced with redistribution costs arising from division of labour, delay the adoption of agricultural techniques for a period of time, after which a large step forward in food procurement technology–a ’Neolithic revolution’–is associated with the shift to farming.