CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2026
| Author | Piispanen, Kyle |
|---|---|
| Title | Reassembling the Milpa: Multi-species Entanglements of Foraged Foods in Highland Mexico |
| Summary | This dissertation explores how foraged foods—quelites (edible greens), chapulines (grasshoppers), and cuitlacoche (corn fungus)—reconfigure meanings, ethics, and livelihoods within milpa agroecosystems in the of highland Mexico. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork (2018-2019) in rural communities in the Mexican states of Puebla, Tlaxcala, and Oaxaca, I examine how certain edible semi-domesticated plants, insects, and fungi challenge dominant agronomic categories of crop, weed, pest, and pathogen. Framed though a lens of political ecology, and explored through both conventional and multi-species approaches to ethnography, I develop the concept of milpa reassembly to describe how campesinos navigate overlapping pressures of ecological disturbance, cultural erasure, and market commodification. Rather than treating the milpa as a static model of traditional agriculture, I argue that its vitality emerges through adaptive, often contested, reconfigurations of multi-species relations. Each empirical chapter centers a different foraged species to illuminate broader dynamics: the ethics of weediness in quelite collection; the contradictions of pest management and commodification in chapulín harvesting; and the fungal agency and aesthetics of cuitlacoche cultivation. Across these cases, I show how campesinos enact moral ecologies grounded in a multi-species ethic against purity, of cohabitation (comunalidad) with other species. This dissertation contributes to debates in agroecology, anthropology, and political ecology an milpa studies by foregrounding the entangled agency of plants, insects, and fungi in shaping agroecosystems. It also offers a methodological reflection on conducting multi-species research in collaboration with Indigenous and campesino communities across shifting and lively landscapes. This dissertation builds on the following discussions: The Milpa as Multi-species Assemblages: This research reconceptualizes the milpa not merely as a resilient polycultural farming system but as a dynamic multi-species assemblage wherein human and non-human actors, including plants, fungi, insects, and microorganisms, collaboratively shape landscapes for more-than-human multi-species thriving. Cultural and Ecological Significance of Liminal Foods: This foregrounds the adaptive and cultural significance of quelites, chapulines, and cuitlacoche, species marginalized in industrial agriculture that are central to agroecological resilience and food sovereignty in the Anthropocene. Ethical Dimensions of Diversity: This dissertation challenges purity-driven paradigms and advocates for multi-species ethics that recognize the ecological contributions of weedy, pesty, and smutty species in milpa agroecosystems. Critique of Agricultural Simplification: Drawing on a multi-species political ecology, this dissertation critiques industrial agriculture’s emphasis on purity, monocultures, and homogenization, exposing their ecological and epistemic consequences.Deterritorial ization– Reterritorializ ation: This dissertation investigates the ways in which milpa agroecosystems are shaped by deterritorialization, defined as the displacement or unraveling of socio-ecological relationships, and reterritorialization, which refers to the reconfiguration of new forms of adaptation, particularly in response to climate change, urbanization, and industrial agriculture. Agroecology serves as a reterritorializing force that challenges the simplification of industrial agriculture by fostering biodiversity, enhancing resilience, and valuing local knowledge. This approach allows campesino and Indigenous farmers to resist and transform the pressures that aim to homogenize their landscapes. Keywords: Keywords: milpa agroecosystem, multi-species assemblage, environmental anthropology, agroecology, multi-species ethnography, multi-species political ecology, visual methods, deterritorializ ation–re territorializat ion, recampesinización (re-peasantization), weediness, quelites, chapulines (Sphenarium purpurascens), huitlacoche or cuitlacoche (Mycosarcoma maydis or Ustilago maydis), Mexico. |
| Supervisor | Aistara, Guntra |
| Department | Environment Sciences and Policy PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2026/piispanen_kyle.pdf |
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