Cultural ecology: placing households in human-environment studies - the cases of tropical forest transitions and agrobiodiversity change

Political ecology emerged in the 1980s within the field of geography from cultural ecology and development studies traditions. Initially phrased by Piers Blaikie, an expert in rural development and resource governance, as the multiscale analysis of environmental degradation from a political economy perspective, political ecology rejected neo-Malthusian explanations of human impacts on the environment. Instead, the subfield understands environmental change as a result of power relations, which cause highly variable access to resources. Debate exists on whether political ecologists created a theory of human–environment interactions or whether they established a research framework. Moreover, scholars have debated whether political ecology is sufficiently “political” or “ecological.” In the late 1990s and early 2000s, political ecology fragmented into several subareas that have since developed into vigorous research areas. Political ecologists share affinity with several groups of scholars, including anthropologists who self-identify as political ecologists, economic geographers interested in resources and commodities, political geographers interested in environmental politics, and scholars specializing in cultural ecology and environmental justice.

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Tropical Forest Transitions and Globalization:Neo-Liberalism, Migration, Tourism, and International Conservation Agendas

Society & Natural Resources ◽

10.1080/08941920701329702 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 20 (8) ◽

pp. 723-737 ◽

Cited By ~ 77

Author(s):

Christian A. Kull ◽

Camellia K. Ibrahim ◽

Thomas C. Meredith

Keyword(s):

Tropical Forest ◽

Forest Transitions

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‘Environmental Orientations’ and the Anthropology of the Anthropocene

Anthropological Journal of European Cultures ◽

10.3167/ajec.2018.270107 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 27 (1) ◽

pp. 40-44

Author(s):

Gisela Welz

Keyword(s):

Cultural Ecology ◽

Environment Interaction ◽

Human Environment

In the 1970s, scholar Ina-Maria Greverus was a pioneer in opening German Volkskunde towards international horizons. Her concept of human-environment interaction as “territoriality”, inspired by US-american cultural ecology, is reconsidered as an anthropology of the Anthropocene avant la lettre.

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