Abstract
Human societies in mountainous areas have evolved specific ways of dealing with the constraints imposed by the environment. A number of anthropological studies have documented the existence of practices that can be considered adaptive in the context of mountain environments. In this paper, I present a case study of a society in transition, in the northwestern Himalayas of India, in which local knowledge—combining aspects of traditional knowledge and practice—is used by farmers to cognize and cope with the uncertainty in their environment. Focusing on the perception of changes in the amount and timing of snowfall over the last three decades, I present a non-reductionist and nested model of human-environment interaction that explains the perception and knowledge of climate as a function of micro-level livelihood practices, as well as enduring and widely shared cultural notions of risk and vulnerability. The model being proposed encompasses agency and cognition at multiple levels, ranging from the local to the regional, and is explicated with ethnographic information, which demonstrates the resilient and dynamic nature of local knowledge. The paper’s major finding is that the perceptions of climate change in the region are shaped both by the local knowledge of crop-climate linkages, as well as the broader historical relationship with the environment.
Abstract
This article scrutinizes the intersection of globalized and localized environmentalism in Lajes do Pico, Azores, Portugal, at the historical juncture when whale-watching superseded whale hunting in this village. In so doing, the article explains how localized environmentalism—including the ecological knowledges and practices of local inhabitants —was reproduced, learned, and transformed within the context of globalized environmental concerns, and vice versa. Using ethnographic materials I collected in Lajes do Pico between 1998 and 2000, I suggest that, rather than constituting two clearly distinct types of knowledge, through comparison and dialogical articulation local and scientific knowledge are typically locked in a process of mutual knowledge formation. This entailed the emergence of ‘glo-cal’ meta-knowledge context for environmental dilemmas. Ultimately, both former whalers and environmentalist scientists overcame some of their differences through mutual learning—an issue that has not often been explored within the scholarly literature on the relation between indigenous and scientific knowledge.
Abstract
This paper examines connections in three case studies of Black churchgoers in Miami and their views toward the natural environment, from environmental attitudes to activism. There were four major findings in the research. First, there is a link between the preservation of Black history and the preservation of the environment among Black churchgoers who feel a strong connection to rural life. Second, these case studies dispute the stereotype of Black churchgoers as less concerned about the environment due to pressing social concerns in Black neighborhoods. This stereotype artificially separates environmental and social issues. Third, public access to public lands is a basic and important right espoused by these Black churchgoing activists. Fourth, spirituality impacts environmental sentiments among Miami’s churchgoing Blacks. Possessing an understanding of how Black spirituality, history and local concerns relate to the environment adds to the sparse literature on the subject. The discussion also provides information for policy makers interested in bridging gaps between Black churchgoers and the “mainstream” environmental protection movement, to the benefit of both local communities and the overall ecosystem.
Abstract
This paper examines county level decision-making regarding swine confinement permits in Iowa. The case study follows a 2003 Iowa State Legislature ruling that gives county supervisors the option to adopt a detailed Department of Natural Resources Master Matrix plan for swine manure management. In this research, I sought to understand environmental policy conflicts associated with industrialized hog production. This study examines four counties in North Central Iowa located in the region of rapidly expanding, corporate-formed, swine confinement operations. Ethnographic field research was conducted from May 2003 to October 2006. Comparison of qualitative and quantitative data for each of these four counties reveals different stakeholder and agroecology dynamics at the level of county decision-making processes. I explain these differences in terms of a family farm-corporate agribusiness continuum which reflects diverse local agricultural attitudes and practices related to environmental values, economic rationales and social investments. In some rural areas where family farm agricultural attitudes and practices related to livestock production persist along side of corporate agribusiness, there exist some county assessors, engineers, and auditors who seek to protect family farm social and cultural interests because of their stabilizing effect on the local environment and economy. This study explains why local county-level decision-makers have become proactive in supporting family farms and local businesses by challenging state policies biased in favor of corporate agribusiness.
Abstract
This article identifies the current explosion of conservation policies in the Pyrenees as the most recent wave of a long-standing tradition of state-driven territorial policies. The very existence of these policies cannot be understood without taking into account the consequences of two hundred years of territorial rationalization, land expropriation and natural resource control. Depopulation, agricultural involution and forest recovery are partial consequences, not necessarily intended, of the expansion of the modern Spanish state. In addition to identifying a similar ideological background for the four phases of the model presented here (municipalization, disentailment, expropriation and parks implementation), I also argue that the territorial composition of the current protected areas would be impossible without the synergistic effects of the preceding state actions. This article establishes a deep historical political genealogy of territorial appropriation that has consequences at all levels of the local landscape.
Abstract
The Brahmaputra is the largest river system in northeast India. Its valley, in the State of Assam, is home to the Assamese people, indigenous Mishing and Karbi tribes, and Kaziranga National Park. A spectacular array of wildlife shares the floodplain including the endangered Asian elephant, tiger, one-horned rhinoceros and wild buffalo. The fertile floodplain and tea estates have attracted immigrants from within India and from neighboring countries. Migration has been linked to Assam's high population density and agriculture expansion. Based on household surveys in 37 villages in the park's periphery, we compared home garden productivity and economic return among residents and immigrants of different ethnic groups and explored the hypothesis that residents had an advantage over immigrants in maximizing gains from home gardens resources. The results indicated that, although resident home gardens were larger, production from immigrant home gardens was over four times higher and their economic returns were greater. Immigrants, who tended to live in low-lying areas close to the park and whose land tenure was less certain, were at higher risk of crop damage by wildlife and floods. They compensated in part by maximizing productivity of home gardens and by choosing crops that yielded greater economic return. We conclude that home gardens provide a basis for distinguishing between resident and immigrant land use practices.
Abstract
Environmental intervention projects aim to re-engineer the cultural landscape. Entering at a particular moment in time, such projects commonly produce a "baseline" analysis. This analysis captures elements in the environment that are later compared to measured changes the project claims to produce. Illustrated through a case study of a Tanzanian community conservation non-governmental organization, the argument made in this paper is that uncritical use of such baselines in measuring and evaluating environmental intervention projects is a practice that tends to impose ahistorical understandings of human-environmental relationships that have deep historical roots. The paper illustrates how an attempt to draw a "basic analysis" of initial conditions, without reference to historical situatedness, hindered accurate evaluation of program success in terms of finding sustainable solutions to the problem(s) addressed. Instead, the baseline survey unwillingly functioned as a tool that impeded local empowerment by missing opportunities for local management input and channeling authority to outside experts. The paper explores an alternative cultural-historical approach that integrates historical and political ecological insights by focusing on cultural memory, political facilitation, multiple temporal scales, and public compromise.
Abstract
This paper focuses on the benefits of incorporating traditional ecological knowledge into the field of ecological restoration. Case studies on indigenous use of sweetgrass in New York State, U.S.A (Haudenosaunee Nation), and beargrass in Washington State, U.S.A (Quinault and Skokomish Nations), are presented. Both studies focus on the restoration of basketry plants by incorporating indigenous knowledge of changes in abundance of culturally significant plants; knowledge of sites appropriate for restoration of culturally significant plants; and knowledge of land management methods to restore species and/or habitats. Open-ended, semi-formal, and informal interviews were conducted with indigenous consultants familiar with the plant and/or habitat of interest. Traditional knowledge of appropriate restoration sites was used in a field experiment to re-establish sweetgrass in an area from which it is believed to have been extirpated. Traditional knowledge of anthropogenic burning was used to reintroduce fire in low-elevation beargrass habitats to manage both the resource and its environment. By incorporating traditional knowledge with published information on sweetgrass biology, it was found that two potential factors influencing its population in cultural gathering sites are unsustainable harvesting and the absence of controlled burns.
Abstract
This paper explores the political ecological basis behind events in New Zealand’s sustainable harvesting regime of native forest species on public land. The case study centers on the mandate of the 1999 newly elected Labour-led government to stop all native forest harvesting on Crown-owned land along the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island. Ethnographic research was conducted from May to July of 2001. This study examined how different members of a given institution or community often have disparate views on logging practices and natural resource conservation while simultaneously exhibiting consensus regarding certain logging and conservation practices. A historical background traces the trajectory of New Zealand’s forestry sector and the relationships between conservationists and logging communities. This is followed by a discussion on the key institutions involved in the Labour-led government decision for the cessation of native forest harvesting and what their primary sentiments were regarding the government mandate. Ultimately, this study illustrates how the appropriate utilization of natural resources shift over time and that the struggles over the ‘proper’ use of resources are politically and historically constructed. These struggles, of course, are pertinent in any context where human-environment interactions occur, regardless of conventional notions on ‘developed’ and ‘undeveloped.’
Abstract
Although the First Nations Elders from the interior of southern British Columbia, Canada, recall times when grass was “belly-high to a horse,” today they worry about the deteriorated state of the grasslands. Using ethnographic and historical research methods, this paper documents recognized First Nations experts’ historical memory of the grasslands. Based on the ethnographic accounts, this paper also attempts to reconstruct the effects of colonization on the grassland ecology and First Nations culture. Secondary sources such as early settlers’ accounts and current grassland ecology research are used to augment the testimony of the experts. Two eras are described: 1) Pre-contact era (the three hundred years prior to contact); and 2) Post-contact era (1846-present). The horse, elk, and sharp-tailed grouse were common on the pre-contact grasslands. Overgrazing of the grasslands occurred soon after the miners and gentlemen ranchers brought in their horses and cattle. Sagebrush increased proportionately to the decrease in grasses. The First Nations culture changed from gathering sustenance off the grasslands to servicing the needs of the new settlers, and then to marginalization by industrial agriculture. A key argument of the paper is that when First Nations’ access to water was diverted by settlers and the wetlands were drained, cultivated, and polluted (both culturally and ecologically), First Nations’ access to the grassland was restricted. The paper concludes by defining grassland restoration from a social and ecological perspective and proposes that water be a key focus of the restoration process.
Abstract
The Lacandon Maya are rainforest farmers who inhabit the tropical jungles of southern Mexico and Guatemala. They number approximately 700 individuals and practice a traditional system of agriculture that incorporates introduced plants and the native flora of their environment. In this essay, we discuss a largely neglected aspect of Lacandon ethnomedicine. Our results include 47 medicinal plants used by the several Northern Lacandon living in the communities of Naha’ and Lacanja Chan Sayab. The plants are cultivated in three zones (house gardens, milpas, and secondary milpas) and wild plants are collected from the jungle. This method of healing exists amid numerous alternatives and intense pressure to use Western medicine. Nevertheless, many Lacandon Maya continue to practice healing with cultivated and wild plants. In this context, Lacandon ethnomedicine represents a dynamic aspect of their culture and serves to challenge an academic model that regularly essentializes their society and predicts their imminent destruction.
Abstract
Conducting and interpreting an interview is more problematic when informants use a word that has multiple meanings and interpretations. In this case, the problematic word, “environmentalist,” labeled several socially-defined identities that were central to the study. The analysis is based on interviews with 156 members of 20 diverse environmental groups (and two comparison groups) in the Eastern United States, including their views on environmentalists, their history with the movement, their self-identification as an environmentalist, and their environmental actions. From these data, principles of classification and naming are used to distinguish the multiple meanings of the identity “environmentalist.” We found that informants use the term to describe four distinct types of people: 1) those who say they care about the environment but take no public actions; 2) those who act to preserve local habitat often through private actions (also called “conservationists”); 3) those who act in the civic or political realm, by writing to representatives or attending hearings (also called “activists”); and 4) those who act via demonstrations, civil disobedience, or “direct action” such as blocking logging operations (also called “radicals”). These differing meanings are sometimes used strategically by participants to position themselves, or opponents, within the environmental movement. The polysemy of the word environmentalist renders it a poor choice for questions in surveys and interviews unless disambiguating paraphrases are added. Additionally, cross-tabulation shows that named environmental identities are indicators of behavior—self-defined environmentalists also reported significantly more environmental actions. Words or paraphrases that distinguish among the multiple meanings of “environmentalist” further improve these identity terms as predictors of behavior.
Abstract
As the ancestors of both the great apes and humans began to separate into two lineages, several distinctions emerged and solidified for the separate genera. It is suggested here that the sequelae to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and subsequent behavioral tendencies to avoid sexually transmitted diseases played an important role in forging the unique character of the Australopithecine/Homo line. In particular, the advantage of pair-bonding versus promiscuity in avoiding STDs would facilitate the crystallization of both the nascent nuclear family and the man-to-child affiliative bond. In addition, the unexpectedly small sexual dimorphism of Homo is suggested to be a partial consequence of replacing (physical) dominance acquisition as a reproductive strategy with the ability and motivation to form an on-going pair-bond. The capacity of males to send and the capacity of females to receive communication signals of male reliance and competence are suggested to be a key dynamic in the separation of the hominid line from the pongids.
Abstract
Forestry management practices can shape patterns of health, illness, and disease. A primary goal for owners of federal, state, and private forests is to craft ecosystem management plans that simultaneously optimize forest health and human health. Firea major forest management issue in the United Statescomplicates these goals. Wildfires are natural phenomena with unpredictable effects. Controlled fires, on the other hand, are often prescribed to reduce biomass fuels, reduce wildfire risks, and protect resource values. While fires can enhance the health of fire-adapted ecosystems, research on the human health impacts of smoke from forest fires is somewhat equivocal. This article synthesizes 30 years of research on the human health impacts of forest fires. It summarizes our current state of knowledge about the following: biophysical effects of environmental contamination resulting from forest fires; psychosocial impacts of forest fires; occupational exposure issues among fire crew; visibility impairment from forest fire smoke; and health care measures that address the impacts of forest fires. This article provides information that may be useful for land managers, researchers, policy makers, health care workers, and the general public in decision-making about forest management practices. It also recommends that future research use integrative health models and adopt ethnographic research methods.
Abstract
This paper has three goals: (1) to define the anthropological subfield of human behavioral ecology (HBE) and characterize recent progress in this research tradition; (2) to address Joseph's (2000) critique of HBE from the perspective of an advocate of that field; and (3) to suggest features that make for effective criticism of research traditions. (1) HBE attempts to understand intra- and inter-societal diversity in human behavior as the product of species-wide adaptive goals which must be realized in highly diverse, socio-environmental circumstances. Theoretically, HBE draws selectively from neo-Darwinism and its cultural-evolutionary analogs, from micro-economics, and from elements of formal decision and game theory. Applications generally use simple, formal models as heuristic devices for generating testable hypotheses about resource use, reproductive and social behavior, and life history traits. (2) Using Kuhn's (1977) and McMullin's (1983) criteria for assessing progress in a research tradition, I examine Joseph's review of HBE, indicating the several points on which we agree and the greater number for which I believe her criticisms are misplaced or in error. (3) Finally, I try to describe general features of effective critique, in the sense of critical commentary that enables the advance of scientific understanding through collective scholarly effort. Such criticism will be necessary if we are to sort out the relative strengths and potential contributions of the several research traditions in human ecology (e.g., cultural ecology, historical ecology, political ecology, etc.).
Abstract
Scholars typically depict traditional ecological knowledge as a vanishing resource, negatively correlated with the capitalization of a community. The default view also tends to conceptualize such knowledge as one cohesive system, unitarily responsive to external forces. Using data from an artisanal shrimping community in Ecuador, this paper argues that current views are not sufficient to capture the complexity of socially distributed knowledge and need to be expanded. In particular, I show that integration into a market economy does not necessarily erode local knowledge about the natural world, but can actually foster the development of a new body of ecological knowledge. This finding brings into question current conceptions of traditional ecological knowledge and suggests that various types of such knowledge likely exist that are differentially subject to evolutionary forces and trajectories.
Abstract
An ecological health movement has emerged in Lebanon in reaction to problems in the mainstream health care system, to environmental conditions affecting agriculture and food sources, and to urbanization. The movement parallels similar developments in other countries. It depends primarily on practitioners of macrobiotics and organic agriculture, and is centered on the belief that good health is obtained through observance of dietary rules requiring consumption of organic food. The practice of these rules necessitates in Lebanon a reversal of trends toward centralization and urbanization in order to reestablish ties between consumers and farmers. It also implies a renaissance of organic farming and of localism in society as a whole. In its current stage it is highly idealistic, tending to deemphasize profit-seeking and favor altruistic principles. Although it is currently a grassroots movement, its evolution and continued expansion may lead it to adopt more economically competitive practices in the future.