|
Environmental Anthropology
Environmental anthropology is a sub-discipline of anthropology that examines the complex relationships between humans and the environments which they inhabit. This takes many shapes and forms, whether it be examining the hunting/gathering patterns of humans tens of thousands of years ago, archaeological investigations of early agriculturalists and their impact on deforestation or soil erosion, or how modern human societies are adapting to climate change and other anthropogenic environmental issues. This sub-field of anthropology developed in the 1960s from cultural ecology as anthropologists borrowed methods and terminology from growing developments in ecology and applied them to understand human cultures. Environmental anthropology is a growing sub-field of anthropology because the challenges of understanding and addressing human caused environmental problems like climate change, species extinctions, plastic pollution, and habitat destruction require an understanding of the compl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Deforestation
Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal and destruction of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. About 31% of Earth's land surface is covered by forests at present. This is one-third less than the forest cover before the expansion of agriculture, with half of that loss occurring in the last century. Between 15 million to 18 million hectares of forest, an area the size of Bangladesh, are destroyed every year. On average 2,400 trees are cut down each minute. Estimates vary widely as to the extent of deforestation in the tropics. In 2019, nearly a third of the overall tree cover loss, or 3.8 million hectares, occurred within humid tropical primary forests. These are areas of mature rainforest that are especially important for biodiversity and carbon storage. The direct cause of most deforestation is agriculture by far. More than ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Water Scarcity
Water scarcity (closely related to water stress or water crisis) is the lack of fresh water resources to meet the standard water demand. There are two types of water scarcity. One is ''physical.'' The other is ''economic water scarcity''. Physical water scarcity is where there is not enough water to meet all demands. This includes water needed for ecosystems to function. Regions with a desert climate often face physical water scarcity. Central Asia, West Asia, and North Africa are examples of arid areas. Economic water scarcity results from a lack of investment in infrastructure or technology to draw water from rivers, aquifers, or other water sources. It also results from weak human capacity to meet water demand.Caretta, M.A., A. Mukherji, M. Arfanuzzaman, R.A. Betts, A. Gelfan, Y. Hirabayashi, T.K. Lissner, J. Liu, E. Lopez Gunn, R. Morgan, S. Mwanga, and S. Supratid, 2022Chapter 4: Water InClimate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Grou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Environmental Social Science
Environmental social science is the broad, transdisciplinary study of interrelations between humans and the natural environment. Environmental social scientists work within and between the fields of anthropology, communication studies, economics, geography, history, political science, psychology, and sociology; and also in the interdisciplinary fields of environmental studies, human ecology and political ecology, social epidemiology, among others. Ideologies, fields and concepts Ideologies, fields, and concepts in environmental social science aim to convey environmental issues as intertwined in societal relations, institutions, and human activities that continually shape the environment or are themselves shaped by the environment. For example, political ecology is based on the premise that the environment is not apolitical. Therefore, the way it is managed, who has access to the environment, how environmental resources are distributed are shaped through political structures, pow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behaviour, while cultural anthropology studies cultural meaning, including norms and values. The term sociocultural anthropology is commonly used today. Linguistic anthropology studies how language influences social life. Biological anthropology, Biological (or physical) anthropology studies the biology and evolution of Human evolution, humans and their close primate relatives. Archaeology, often referred to as the "anthropology of the past," explores human activity by examining physical remains. In North America and Asia, it is generally regarded as a branch of anthropology, whereas in Europe, it is considered either an independent discipline or classified under related fields like history and palaeontology. Etymology The abstract noun ''wikt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ethnoornithology
Ethnoornithology (also ethno-ornithology) is the study of the relationship between people and birds (from " ethno-" - relating to people and culture - and "ornithology" - the study of birds). It is a branch of ethnozoology and so of the wider field of ethnobiology. Ethnoornithology is an interdisciplinary subject and combines anthropology, anthropological, cognitive and linguistic perspectives with natural scientific approaches to the description and interpretation of people's knowledge and use of birds. Like ethnoscience and other cognate terms, "ethnoornithology" is sometimes used narrowly to refer to people's practice rather than the study of that practice. The broader focus is on how birds are perceived, used and managed in human societies, including their use for food, medicine and personal adornment, as well as their use in divination and ritual. Applied ethnoornithological research is also starting to play an increasingly important role in the development of conservation i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ethnoecology
Ethnoecology is the scientific study of how different groups of people living in different locations understand the ecosystems around them, and their relationships with surrounding environments. It seeks valid, reliable understanding of how we as humans have interacted with the environment and how these intricate relationships have been sustained over time. The "ethno" (see ethnology) prefix in ethnoecology indicates a localized study of a people, and in conjunction with ecology, signifies people's understanding and experience of environments around them. Ecology is the study of the interactions between living organisms and their environment; enthnoecology applies a human focused approach to this subject. The development of the field lies in applying indigenous knowledge of botany and placing it in a global context. History Ethnoecology began with some of the early works of Dr. Hugh Popenoe, an agronomist and tropical soil scientist who has worked with the University of Flor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Environmental Justice
Environmental justice is a social movement that addresses injustice that occurs when poor or marginalized communities are harmed by hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses from which they do not benefit. The movement has generated hundreds of studies showing that exposure to environmental harm is inequitably distributed. Additionally, many marginalized communities, including the LGBTQ community, are disproportionately impacted by natural disasters. The movement Environmental racism in the United States, began in the United States in the 1980s. It was heavily influenced by the Civil rights movement, American civil rights movement and focused on environmental racism within rich countries. The movement was later expanded to consider gender, LGBTQ people, international environmental injustice, and inequalities within marginalized groups. As the movement achieved some success in rich countries, environmental burdens were shifted to the Global North and Global Sou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Science And Technology Studies
Science and technology studies (STS) or science, technology, and society is an interdisciplinary field that examines the creation, development, and consequences of science and technology in their historical, cultural, and social contexts. History Like most interdisciplinary fields of study, STS emerged from the confluence of a variety of disciplines and disciplinary subfields, all of which had developed an interest—typically, during the 1960s or 1970s—in viewing science and technology as socially embedded enterprises. The key disciplinary components of STS took shape independently, beginning in the 1960s, and developed in isolation from each other well into the 1980s, although Ludwik Fleck's (1935) monograph ''Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact'' anticipated many of STS's key themes. In the 1970s Elting E. Morison founded the STS program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which served as a model. By 2011, 111 STS research centers and academic prog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Environmental Geography
Integrated geography (also referred to as integrative geography, environmental geography or human–environment geography) is where the branches of human geography and physical geography overlap to describe and explain the spatial aspects of interactions between human individuals or societies and their natural environment, these interactions being called coupled human–environment system. Origins Integrated geography requires an understanding of the dynamics of physical geography, as well as the ways in which human societies conceptualize the environment (human geography). Thus, to a certain degree, it may be seen as a successor of ''Physische Anthropogeographie'' (English: "physical anthropogeography")—a term coined by University of Vienna geographer Albrecht Penck in 1924—and geographical cultural or human ecology ( Harlan H. Barrows 1923). Integrated geography in the United States is principally influenced by the schools of Carl O. Sauer (Berkeley), whose perspective ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ecological Anthropology
Ecological anthropology is a sub-field of anthropology and is defined as the "study of cultural adaptations to environments". The sub-field is also defined as, "the study of relationships between a population of humans and their biophysical environment". The focus of its research concerns "how cultural beliefs and practices helped human populations adapt to their environments, and how people used elements of their culture to maintain their ecosystems". Ecological anthropology developed from the approach of cultural ecology, and it provided a conceptual framework more suitable for scientific inquiry than the cultural ecology approach. Research pursued under this approach aims to study a wide range of human responses to environmental problems. Ecological anthropologist, Conrad Kottak published arguing there is an original older 'functionalist', apolitical style ecological anthropology and, as of the time of writing in 1999, a 'new ecological anthropology' was emerging and being re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Cultural Geography
Cultural geography is a subfield within human geography. Though the first traces of the study of different nations and cultures on Earth can be dated back to ancient geographers such as Ptolemy or Strabo, cultural geography as academic study firstly emerged as an alternative to the Environmental determinism, environmental determinist theories of the early 20th century, which had believed that people and societies are controlled by the Natural environment, environment in which they develop.Peet, Richard; 1990; Modern Geographical Thought; Blackwell Rather than studying predetermined regions based upon environmental classifications, cultural geography became interested in cultural landscapes. This was led by the "father of cultural geography" Carl O. Sauer of the University of California, Berkeley. As a result, cultural geography was long dominated by United States, American writers. Geographers drawing on this tradition see cultures and societies as developing out of their local l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Environmental Archaeology
Environmental archaeology is a sub-field of archaeology which emerged in the 1970s and is the science of reconstructing the relationships between past societies and the environments they lived in. The field represents an archaeological-palaeoecological approach to studying the palaeoenvironment through the methods of human palaeoecology and other geosciences. Reconstructing past Natural environment, environments and past peoples' relationships and interactions with the landscapes they inhabited provide archaeologists with insights into the origins and evolution of anthropogenic environments and human systems. This includes subjects such as including Prehistory, prehistoric lifestyle adaptations to change and economic practices. Environmental archaeology is commonly divided into three sub-fields: * archaeobotany (the study of plant remains) * zooarchaeology (the study of faunal remains) * geoarchaeology (the study of geological processes and their relationship to the archaeologic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
