Dear Ecolog-L members: I am a human geographer interested in the relationships between environmental disasters and agrarian political economy. Parallel to my dissertation project -which explores the articulation of flood-induced disasters and agrarian development in Northern Colombia- I am starting a research project about locust outbreaks and rural transformations in Colombia 1880-1920. Between 1880 and 1920 (especially during dry times), locust invasions became an alarming catastrophe throughout Colombia. This catastrophe severely affected rural inhabitants, who repeatedly lost their crops and, as a consequence, were experiencing a critical situation of hungry and impoverishment. I've been collecting different types of sources in local and national archives in Colombia such as newspapers, policy reports, and scientific articles. I order to contextualize this information, I've also been collecting papers published during that period in Latin American and North American journals, since locust invasions were taking place throughout the whole continent as well. Surprisingly, the locust question disappeared after 1920 from Colombian newspapers and other sources that previously devoted many pages to this catastrophe. The sources I've read contain lots of interesting information that lays bare not only the catastrophic situation that peasants were facing, but it also shows all sorts of political and scientific discussions among government officials, scientists, and other persons regarding the origins of locust invasions and the potential methods to counteract them.
As I'm trained in social sciences, it has been difficult to know how accurate these discussions were. I have the feeling that there was a lot of speculation about the ecological and biogeographical dynamics of locust invasions. So I would like to know if people of this list may suggest key readings on the ecology and biogeography of locusts and grasshoppers. As I have already some data regarding dates and places where locusts were destroying crops, I would also like to make some maps, but I first need to understand why, and how these catastrophic invasions took place from an ecological perspective. I would also appreciate any suggestion and information regarding researchers I could get in contact with. Thanks so much for your attention. Alejandro Camargo Ph.D. Candidate Department of Geography Syracuse University Syracuse, NY, USA
