Re: Environmental Anthropology

Dan Antonioli (dantonio@EFN.ORG)
Tue, 31 Oct 1995 16:04:23 -0800

The term "environmental" does seem to be a bit broad, but I took a que
from a post here recently announcing an "environmental anthropology"
position to replace Robert Netting (who recently passed).

I browsed through several texts yesterday, including one edited by Emilio
Moran. All of these "applied" and "ecological" anthropology writings
looked very interesting and seemed to address some of my interestes, such
as sustainable agriculture, our current environmental crisis, the role
that culture plays in understanding our relationship to environment,
etc. One text by Netting (re: labor intensive sustainable agriculture)
looked very exciting.

The other titles listed by Dorothy Cattle are relevant and definitely
play into the larger "environmental" scenario I'm considering.

Overall, I see the potential for PhD work in "environmental" or
"ecological" anthropology to combine my interests in anthropology,
psychology, environmental studies and, more importantly, trying to
realistically create a "sustainable future."

Again, I'd be very interested in what departments across the country (and
globe) are interested in this field (and philosophy). Also, I'd like to
know how anthropologists feel about anthropology as a contribution to the
environmental-sustainable movement.


--Dan Antonioli




On Mon, 30 Oct 1995, Dorothy J. Cattle wrote:

> Dan,
> There's a range of material that probably would fall under your
> "definition" of environmental anthropology. For example, the journal
> Ecology of Food and Nutrition [which I'm assuming your e-mail address
> ISN'T referring to????] often contains articles by anthropologists
> [as well as other specialists]. The book I recently reviewed for EFN by
> K.M. Homewood and W.A. Rodgers, Maasailand Ecology is another example,
> although less a discussion of anthro frameworks. You might want to look
> at Art Hansen and Della McMillan's edited volume of Food in Sub-Saharan
> Africa. Other anthros to look at would be some of Elizabeth Colson's
> work, David Brokensha, Emilio Moran, some papers by Karl
> Schwerin,...[Schwerin & I co-edited a volume on Food Energy in Tropical
> Ecosystems] or you need to reconsider the keywords you may be using in your
> search such as sustainable agriculture, farming systems research,
> eco-tourism, culture and agriculture (that organization of same name has a
> newsletter), Cultural Survival sometimes has enviro articles by anthros,
> tropical forest research [there's a range of people here probably spanning
> 30 years], food resources/food security, look at the development lit/
> nutritional anthro lit/medical anthro lit/applied anthro lit, look in
> relevant sections of intro textbooks for more sources, there's the whole
> subfield of archeology also as well as cultural geographers.
> Hope I haven't simply repeated stuff you already know about...
>
> Dorothy Cattle, Wake Forest University
>