History and scope of environmental anthropology

Bibliographic Data

ID23612830
AuthorsE S Brondizio (0000-0001-9376-8366), Eduardo Brondízio, Ryan T Adams, Stefano Fiorini (0000-0002-1388-0866)
Year2016
Pages10-30
Publication date2016-08-12
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueRoutledge Handbook of Environmental Anthropology (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.4324/9781315768946-2
OpenAlexW4230707808
ISBN9781315768946
LanguageEN
Citations received3

Environmental Anthropology is the general designation for the anthropological investigation of human–environment relationships. This chapter begins with a brief discussion about the evolution of terminology as applied to Environmental Anthropology and fields of specialization within it. It then highlights how different specialties developed – one dominated by an ecosystem-oriented approach, one by a political-economy-oriented approach, one by a historical landscape approach, and another by a symbolic-oriented approach. The chapter discusses how these approaches developed with different degrees of overlap into the various specialties that comprise contemporary Environmental Anthropology. It presents an overview of the history of Cultural Ecology, Ecological Anthropology, Political Ecology, Symbolic Ecology, Historical Ecology, and Ethnobiology. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the continuous challenge to overcome intellectual differences among these specialties, moving the discipline towards a new synthesis commensurable with the complexity of human–environment interactions in a world of accelerated and interconnected changes.

Economic history · Environmental ethics · Environmental history · Scope (computer science) · Sociology · Anthropology · Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration · Computer Science · History · Philosophy

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