Swiddening in the 21st century and beyond: history and diversity between regional and global perspectives

This concluding chapter reflects on the achievements of the volume as a whole in relation to the current status of studies of shifting cultivation or swiddening. It offers a broad overview with a comparative dimension, emphasising biocultural mutualism and how this production environment is typified by a seemingly endless ability to adapt, regenerate and diversify. The chapter covers themes that tie the volume together, and which in turn connect it to previous volumes, and to other attempts to synthesise the literature. These themes include its critical appraisal as a subject of investigation and analytic category, its deep history, its character as a dynamic situated knowledge system and way of life, in relation to carbon balance, burning alternatives and the conservation of biodiversity, and finally it addresses some possible futures in the face of its long-anticipated demise.