Seasonal rounds are deliberative articulations of a community’s sociocultural relations with their ecological system. The process of visualizing seasonal rounds informs transdisciplinary research. We present a methodological approach for communities of enquiry to engage communities of practice through context-specific sociocultural and ecological relations driven by seasonal change. We first discuss historical précis of the concept of seasonal rounds that we apply to assess the spatial and temporal communal migrations and then describe current international research among Indigenous and rural communities in North America and Central Asia by the creation of a common vocabulary through mutual respect for multiple ways of knowing, validation of co-generated knowledge, and insights into seasonal change. By investigating the relationship between specific biophysical indicators and livelihoods of local communities, we demonstrate that seasonal rounds are an inclusive and participatory methodology that brings together diverse Indigenous and rural voices to anticipate anthropogenic climate change.

Villagers in the Pamir Mountains of Afghanistan and Tajikistan integrated the human body into the seasons and rhythms of their ecological relations to generate “calendars of the human body.” These calendars illustrate that culture does not exist outside of its ecological foundation (i.e. nature), but is firmly situated within it. Farmers undertook agro-pastoral and hunting activities using their own bodies not only for labor, but as a measure of the changing tempo of the seasons. Their bodies both interacted with life on the land and acted as organic clocks to mark the passage of time. While these calendars are no longer widely used, memory of their usage survives, and words from the calendars marking specific ecological events in local languages are still in use. This paper (1) investigates the historical presence and human ecological significance of a calendar of the human body; (2) illustrates the diversity of these calendars based on the specific context of their use from valley to valley in the region; (3) demonstrates the complex connectivity of the users (agro-pastoralists) within their habitat; and, (4) explores the efficacy of this calendar in developing anticipatory capacity among villagers in order to reduce anxiety associated with climate change. The calendar of the human body not only measures time, but gives it meaning.

Across Central Asia, surface temperatures have been significantly rising due to anthropogenic climate change, resulting in detrimental consequences for local communities (Finaev et al., 2016;Haag, Jones, et al., 2019;Hu et al., 2014). One direct consequence is food insecurity. Based on the Climate and Food Vulnerability Index, Tajikistan has high food insecurity, while being ranked among the countries least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions (Ware & Kramer, 2019). High elevations with poor accessibility and elevated susceptibility to natural hazards exacerbates the vulnerability of certain villages in the mountains of Central Asia. These communities are usually characterized by a low diversification of livelihoods, primarily being subsistence-based farmers and herders (Gentle & Maraseni, 2012;Kohler et al., 2010;Manandhar et al., 2018). Neighboring villages in the Bartang Valley of Tajikistan, Savnob and Roshorv, historically managed to ensure food security by aligning the timing of their seasonal agropastoral activities with the occurrence of biotic indicators. Knowledge about seasonal activities and their relation to indicators is embodied in the communities' ecological calendars (Kassam et al., 2011).

Pastoralists and researchers (and others) are finding new ways of working together worldwide, attempting to sustain pastoral livelihoods and rangelands in the face of rapid and profound changes driven by globalization, growing consumption, land-use change, and climate change. They are doing this partly because of a greater need to address increasing complex or “wicked” problems, but also because local pastoral voices (and sometimes science) still have little impact on decision-making in the governmental and private sectors. We describe here, using six worldwide cases, how collaborative rangelands partnerships are transforming how we learn about rangelands and pastoralists, whose knowledge gets considered, how science can support societal action, and even our fundamental model of how science gets done. Over the long-term, collaborative partnerships are transforming social-ecological systems by implementing processes like building collaborative relationships, co-production/co-generation of knowledge, integration of knowledges, social learning, capacity building, networking and implementing action. These processes are changing mental models and paradigms, creating strong and effective leaders, changing power relations, providing more robust understanding of rangeland systems, reducing polarization and supporting the implementation of new practices and policies. Collaborative partnerships have recurring challenges and much work is yet to be done. These challenges rest on the enduring complexity of social-ecological problems in rangelands. At a practical level, partnerships struggle with listening, amplifying and partnering with diverse (and sometimes marginalized) voices, the time commitment needed to make partnerships work, the bias and naivete of scientists, the recognition that partnerships can promote negative transformations, management of power relations within the partnership, and the need to attribute impacts to partnership activities. We think that the future of this work will have more focus on systems transformations, morals and ethics, intangible and long-term impacts, critical self-assessment, paradigm shifts and mental models, and power. Overall, we conclude that these partnerships are transformative in unexpected and sometimes intangible ways. Key transformations include changing mental models and building the next generation of transformative leaders. Just as important is serendipity, where participants in partnerships take advantage of new windows of opportunity to change policy or create new governance institutions. We also conclude that collaborative partnerships are changing how we do science, creating new and transformative ways that science and society interact that could be called “transformative science with society.”

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