William Balée (born 1954) is a professor of

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private university, private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into ...

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

. He was born in

Fort Lauderdale A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

, Florida and educated at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

, Gainesville, where he received a B.A. in Anthropology before moving on to

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

where he earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology (1984). Balée was appointed research fellow in 1984 by the

New York Botanical Garden The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, ...

, collecting plants for an

ethnobotany Ethnobotany is the study of a region's plants and their practical uses through the traditional knowledge of a local culture and people. An ethnobotanist thus strives to document the local customs involving the practical uses of local flora for m ...

project sponsored by a Noble Grant. Later he took up a research position with the Museu Goeldi in

Belém Belém (; Portuguese for Bethlehem; initially called Nossa Senhora de Belém do Grão-Pará, in English Our Lady of Bethlehem of Great Pará) often called Belém of Pará, is a Brazilian city, capital and largest city of the state of Pará in t ...

, Brazil. His primary ethnographic work was with the

Ka'apor The Ka'apor are an indigenous people of Brazil. They live on a protected reserve in the state of Maranhão. They were the subject of a book by anthropologist Dr. William Balée in an exhaustive study of their ethnobotany lifeways and the histo ...

indigenous culture of

Maranhão Maranhão () is a state in Brazil. Located in the country's Northeast Region, it has a population of about 7 million and an area of . Clockwise from north, it borders on the Atlantic Ocean for 2,243 km and the states of Piauí, Tocantins and ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

(Balée 1994). During his time in Brazil, however, he also carried out fieldwork with the

Tembé The Tembé, also Timbé and Tenetehara, are an indigenous people of Brazil, living along the Maranhão and Gurupi Rivers, in the state of Amazonas and Pará. Their lands have been encroached and settled by farmers and loggers, who do so illega ...

, the Assurini of the

Xingu River The Xingu River ( ; pt, Rio Xingu, ; Mẽbêngôkre: ''Byti'', ) is a river in north Brazil. It is a southeast tributary of the Amazon River and one of the largest clearwater rivers in the Amazon basin, accounting for about 5% of its water. ...

, the

Araweté The Araweté (also Arawate, Araueté or Bïde) are an indigenous people of Brazil. They are swidden horticulturalists native to the state of Pará. Territory The Araweté live on the Igarapé Ipixuna, a tributary of the Xingu River, near Altami ...

of the Ipishuna, which is also a tributary of the Xingu, and the Guajá. However, he is most renowned as a proponent and foremost expert of

historical ecology Historical ecology is a research program that focuses on the interactions between humans and their environment over long-term periods of time, typically over the course of centuries. In order to carry out this work, historical ecologists synthesiz ...

(Balée 1998). Balée has proposed four interdependent postulates, which set historical ecology apart from other more traditional research programs. Basically summarized, these postulates are: (1) Humans have affected nearly all environments on Earth; (2) Humans do not have an innate propensity to decrease biotic and landscape diversity or to increase it; (3) Various types of societies impact their landscapes in dissimilar ways; (4) Human interactions with landscapes can be comprehended holistically. Historical ecologists study the interaction between the human and natural worlds and the subsequent human responses to environmental influences. Humans often respond to these environmental stimuli by altering their landscapes, but maintaining their culture and practices. Due to the constant human adaptation of the environment, it is increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to behold an environment anywhere on the planet that is untouched. These human-created modifications are known as human-mediated disturbances, and are studied to learn of humans’ role in the history of the land. The second and third postulates emphasize the fact that humanity is not homogeneous, and therefore, our impacts will not be either. Humans have been known to both increase and decrease the biodiversity of landscapes throughout time. Broadcast fires, for example, can often create niches for new species in the landscape, while simple deforestation can drastically decrease the biodiversity. Human impacts on the landscape are as varied as the languages, political systems, and societies present in the world. Finally, people and the landscape can be studied holistically because the landscape incorporates both people and the environment. The landscape is visual evidence of the interaction of culture and the environment. Currently he is working on issues of applied historical ecology. Dr. Balée has won the Mary W. Klinger Book Award from the

Society for Economic Botany The Society for Economic Botany is an international learned society covering the field of economic botany. It was established in 1959. Its official journal is ''Economic Botany'', published on their behalf by Springer Science+Business Media and th ...

for two of his books, in 1996 (Footprints of the Forest) and 2014 (Cultural Forests of the Amazon). He was appointed Officer of the

Order of the Golden Ark The Most Excellent Order of the Golden Ark ( nl, Orde van de Gouden Ark) is a Dutch order of merit established in 1971 by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. It is awarded to people for major contributions to nature conservation. Although not ...

, a Dutch conservation merit order, by Prince Bernhard in 1993. In 2016 he received the President’s Award for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Teaching from Tulane University. He is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow. Balée is the 2023 recipient of the Distinguished Ethnobiologist Award from the Society of Ethnobiology.

References

Sources

*Balée, William. 2013. ''Cultural Forests of the Amazon: A Historical Ecology of People and their Landscapes.'' Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. *Balée, William 2012 ''Inside Cultures: A New Introduction to Cultural Anthropology.'' Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. *Balee William. 2016. Inside Cultures. Second Edition. New York and London: Routledge. *Balée, William (editor) 1998 ''Advances in Historical Ecology.'' Historical Ecology Series, New York: Columbia University Press. *Balée, William 1994 ''Footprints of the Forest: Ka’apor Ethnobotany—the Historical Ecology of Plant Utilization by an Amazonian People.'' New York: Columbia University Press. *Balée, William (editor) 1989 ''Nomenclatural patterns in Ka'apor ethnobotany'' (Journal of Ethnobiology). {{DEFAULTSORT:Balee, William American anthropologists Tulane University faculty Ethnobiologists Living people 1954 births Environmental studies scholars

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