Environmental Anthropology

Ritual exchange and the fourth obligation: ancient Maya food offering and the flexible materiality of ritual

by Christopher Morehart

Prosperity, power, and change: Modeling maize at Postclassic Xaltocan, Mexico

by Christopher Morehart

Situating Power and Locating Knowledge: A Paleoethnobotanical Perspective on Late Classic Maya Gender and Social Relations

by Christopher Morehart

The Fourth Obligation: Food Offerings in Caves and the Materiality of Sacred Relationships

by Christopher Morehart

Una mirada del habitante en el espacio de la vivienda de interés social

by Adolfo Gomez Amador

Producto del proyecto de investigación de doctorado de Ana Rosa Velasco

Broderick, L.G., 2012. Book Review: Ethnozooarchaeology: The Present and Past of Human-Animal Relationships by U. Albarella and A. Trentacoste. Ethnoarchaeology, 4, 1. 108-110

by Lee Broderick

Mapping indigenous Siberia: Spatial changes and ethnic realities, 1900–2010

by Ivan Sablin

co-authored with Maria Savelyeva, published in Settler Colonial Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, 2011, pp. 77–110.

This article discusses spatial changes in the ethnic territories of Native Siberians from the late nineteenth century... more This article discusses spatial changes in the ethnic territories of Native Siberians from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century. A Geographic Information System (GIS) was developed to model and observe these changes. The GIS also features resource-oriented economic activities, major waterways and railroads. Analysis of the model, textual sources and statistical data made it possible to determine what factors constituted Siberia’s ethnographical pattern of the early twentieth century and led to its changes in the ensuing decades and what impact on the indigenous peoples these changes had. Four special maps showing Siberia in the 1900s–10s, 1930s–40s, 1970s–80s and 2000s–10s were produced from the GIS and are included in the article. The current legal status of the indigenous peoples’ territories was also examined. This article presents an interdisciplinary macroscale case study.

Vom Alltagsrisiko zur Katastrophe

by Ingo Haltermann

published in: 'SWS-Rundschau 3/2011'

Consuming Ourselves to Death

by Richard Wilk

published as
Wilk, Richard 2009 “Consuming Ourselves to Death.” In Anthropology and Climate Change: from Encounters to Actions, edited by Susan Crate.  Duke University Press. Pp. 265-276.

Ultimately climate change is the product of consumption; greenhouse gases are produced by making things and energy,... more Ultimately climate change is the product of consumption; greenhouse gases are produced by making things and energy, moving things, and carrying people around. Simply put, more people are using more energy and creating and using more “stuff” than ever before in the history of the planet. Besides lamenting the passing of low-impact village-level societies, what does anthropology have to say about consumer culture which might actually be useful in thinking our way towards more sustainable levels of consumption? I argue that a drastic re-orientation of the way we teach anthropology is in order; what do we want our students to learn about the world and what kind of skills do they need? The same argument can be made for the public messages we extend in our popular publications.

Lokalność czy ulokalnienie spraw morza na przykładzie sytuacji społeczności rybackich

by Dorota Rancew-Sikora

Konflikt w polskim dyskursie ekologicznym: próba analizy

by Dorota Rancew-Sikora

The Diversity of Bitter Manioc (Manihot Esculenta Crantz) Cultivation in a Whitewater Amazonian Landscape

by James Fraser

Caboclo Horticulture and Amazonian Dark Earths along the Middle Madeira River, Brazil

by James Fraser

Green grabs and biochar

by James Fraser

Habitabilidad, factor equiparable al desempeño ambiental para la sustentabilidad de la vivienda de interés social

by Adolfo Gomez Amador

co-authored with Gabriel Gómez Azpeitia en VI Cátedra Nacional de Arquitectura Carlos Chanfón Olmos. Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas. México, 2011.

El diseño arquitectónico implica un sistema complejo de decisiones cuyas consecuencias se extienden en el tiempo y en... more El diseño arquitectónico implica un sistema complejo de decisiones cuyas consecuencias se extienden en el tiempo y en el espacio. Si la sustentabilidad implica actuar en el presente y en la escala individual pensando en el futuro y a una escala global, la arquitectura sustentable será aquella que atienda al mismo tiempo las necesidades individuales e inmediatas de hábitat de los ocupantes atendidos en el presente con los derechos al mismo tipo de hábitat de los habitantes del planeta en el futuro. Para lograr satisfacer las necesidades individuales del presente con los derechos colectivos del futuro debe lograr el equilibrio entre la habitabilidad entre la habitabilidad y el desempeño ambiental. La consideración de la habitabilidad en la valoración de la sustentabilidad de los edificios, es pertinente dado que la búsqueda de un desempeño ambiental adecuado no debe implicar el sacrificio de las condiciones de habitabilidad. En la presente exposición se analizan los factores de habitabilidad que deben asegurarse para satisfacer las necesidades humanas.

Switched Landscapes - Postcards, memories and gazes on the flatlands of the Tagus River

by Carlos Robalo

ROBALO, Carlos – Paisagens Trocadas: Postais, memórias e olhares sobre a lezíria do Tejo [Em linha]. Lisboa: ISCTE, 2009. Disponível em www:<http://hdl.handle.net/10071/1473&gt;.

With the fall of the rural world, landscapes regain a remarkable expression in the framing of the memory and in the... more With the fall of the rural world, landscapes regain a remarkable expression in the framing of the memory and in the construction of the imaginary of a society that redesigns its image and projects itself in time, past and future, and is forced to question its present.

In the demand of the Tagus Valley landscape representations, picture postcards were elected as primordial research source. To find them required a long and persisting course, identifying local collectors and getting their assent to study their collections, what has revealed new perspectives of inquiry, multiplying the odds of looking the site and its sought objects.

Defying us to examine the perspectives on the place, both in past and present, postcards are the axis of a research where we outlook the modulations of the gaze: the people’s gaze on their space and about themselves, on how they intend to be looked at by the others, how they see the others and how they are seen by them.

This way, it was intended to contribute to the identification of processes that determine the construction of a place, the delimitation of a territory, the recognition of a landscape, and hence, the production of a sense of belonging, where a situated identity is discoursed and represented.

Switched Landscapes - Postcards, memories and gazes on the flatlands of the Tagus River

by Carlos Robalo

ROBALO, Carlos – Paisagens Trocadas: Postais, memórias e olhares sobre a lezíria do Tejo [Em linha]. Lisboa: ISCTE, 2009. Disponível em www:<http://hdl.handle.net/10071/1473&gt;.

With the fall of the rural world, landscapes regain a remarkable expression in the framing of the memory and in the... more With the fall of the rural world, landscapes regain a remarkable expression in the framing of the memory and in the construction of the imaginary of a society that redesigns its image and projects itself in time, past and future, and is forced to question its present.

In the demand of the Tagus Valley landscape representations, picture postcards were elected as primordial research source. To find them required a long and persisting course, identifying local collectors and getting their assent to study their collections, what has revealed new perspectives of inquiry, multiplying the odds of looking the site and its sought objects.

Defying us to examine the perspectives on the place, both in past and present, postcards are the axis of a research where we outlook the modulations of the gaze: the people’s gaze on their space and about themselves, on how they intend to be looked at by the others, how they see the others and how they are seen by them.

This way, it was intended to contribute to the identification of processes that determine the construction of a place, the delimitation of a territory, the recognition of a landscape, and hence, the production of a sense of belonging, where a situated identity is discoursed and represented.

(2012) Un exemple d'écosophie des risques industriels

by Tobias Girard

Published in "Chimères", 76, 2012, p. 41-52.

En prenant appui sur une enquête anthropologique de terrain réalisée de 2005 à 2007 dans la zone industrielle de... more En prenant appui sur une enquête anthropologique de terrain réalisée de 2005 à 2007 dans la zone industrielle de Marseille/Fos-sur-Mer, cet article propose quelques exemples pour illustrer les manières dont différents dispositifs de sécurité peuvent articuler des questions techniques, liées à la nature des menaces, avec des enjeux de pouvoir, des visions du monde et des rapports sociaux, des manières de traiter les informations ou de composer avec une émotion comme la peur. Ces dispositifs étant eux-mêmes instables, nous verrons ensuite comment leur détraquement peut paradoxalement assurer le fonctionnement de la société de contrôle des risques.

Carse A (2012) Nature as infrastructure: Making and managing the Panama Canal Watershed.” Social Studies of Science 32(4).

by Ashley Carse

In: Special Issue on Water and Science and Technology Studies, Samer Alatout & Jessica Barnes, eds. Comments by Karen Bakker & Wiebe Bijker.

The Panama Canal requires an enormous volume of fresh water to function. A staggering 52 million gallons are released... more The Panama Canal requires an enormous volume of fresh water to function. A staggering 52 million gallons are released into the Atlantic and Pacific oceans with each of the 35–45 ships that transit the canal daily. The water that facilitates interoceanic transportation and global connection falls as rain across the watershed surrounding the canal and is managed by an extensive system of locks, dams, and hydrographic stations. These technologies – which correspond with the popular understanding of infrastructure as hardware – were largely constructed during the early 20th century. Since the late 1970s, however, administrators and other concerned actors have responded to actual and potential water scarcity within the canal system by developing a managerial approach that integrates engineered technologies and new techniques of land-use planning and environmental regulation across the watershed. Through this process, techno-politics and environmental politics have become increasingly inextricable in the transit zone. Whereas canal administrators previously emphasized the control of water in its liquid state, watershed management emerged as an attempt to manipulate water flows through the legal protection of forests and restriction of agriculture. As forested landscapes have been assigned new infrastructural functions (water storage and regulation), campesino farmers have been charged with a new responsibility (forest conservation) often at odds with their established agricultural practices. Consequently, I bring together scholarship on infrastructure in science and technology studies and political ecology in anthropology and geography to examine why, how, and to what effect landscapes around the canal have been transformed from agricultural frontier to managed watershed. I suggest that the concept of infrastructure is a useful theoretical tool and empirical topic for analyzing the politics of environmental service provision. By paying attention to the contingent history of engineering decisions and the politics embedded in the changing socio-technical system that delivers water to the canal, we can better understand the distributional politics of environmental service provision in Panama today.

Planning Networks: Processing India's National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan

by Nikhil Anand

2006. Conservation and Society 4(3): 471-487.

This paper explores how NGOs, state agencies and activists par- ticipated in the preparation of India’s National... more This paper explores how NGOs, state agencies and activists par- ticipated in the preparation of India’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Ac- tion Plan (NBSAP). The study is based on three months of fieldwork in the summer of 2003, during which I conducted semi-structured interviews and re- viewed the documents used and produced in the planning process. While some critics view NGO involvement in state policy making with suspicion, others see it as a successful outcome of a long-standing demand for greater partici- pation in governance. I argue that the form and structure of the NBSAP process provided a limited, yet critical, space for activists. On one hand, activists used this space to make strong critiques of state conservation practices, and to promote inclusive conservation practices. On the other, they were continuously pressured to make compromises, because of their new responsibilities as plan makers and in order to increase the likelihood of ‘buy-in’ from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). Rather than being seen as encompassed or ‘co-opted’ by state strategies of power, however, it is more useful to see activists and NGOs as engaging in tactical manoeuvres and practising an imperfect, yet necessary, form of politics. Conscious that they were participating in an unequal and temporally limited space, activists in NGOs sought to make this project of government as plural and fair as possible. Finally, I note that although the planning document was eventually rejected by the MoEF, the network that was initiated to create the plan may produce results that go beyond the NBSAP process itself.