History and the question of causation

North Atlantic lessons on environmental and social change

Bibliographic Data

ID9849622
AuthorsKirsten Hastrup (University of Copenhagen, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume112
Issue2
Pages117-125
Publication date2012-11-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeografisk Tidsskrift-Danish Journal of Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-7223 • E-ISSN: 1903-2471
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00167223.2012.741883
OpenAlexW1996783237
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited22

Dealing with processes of environmental change in an anthropological perspective inevitably implicates people. With people come notions of society and history, complicating matters of causation. In this article, I shall present two empirical cases from Icelandic history and current Greenlandic society. These cases shed light on the natural–social entanglements in a long-term historical perspective and in a highly charged present, respectively. My ambition is to open up for a renewed sense of causation in the social domain in view of the manifest complexities with which we are faced in the present era of globalization and rapid social changes. The reasoning is ethnographic rather than conceptual, if not exactly letting the cases speak for themselves, then at least avoiding both linear explanation and other normative stands on causation

Causation · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Icelandic · Normative · Perspective (graphical · Political science · Positive economics · Social change · Sociology · Arctic and Russian Policy Studies · Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Law · Philosophy

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