Environmental Anthropology

Catalog description

Environmental anthropologists study the relation between people and environment in cultures and societies around the world. This course examines how small-scale communities traditionally adapted to their local environments in diverse regions, including arctic zones, high altitudes, arid lands, grasslands, and tropical rain forests, and how those adaptations changed over time, in particular, how development and globalization contributed to environmental problems in contemporary societies. A survey of anthropological literature on the environment from E.E. Evans-Pritchard, to Marcel Mauss, Julian Steward, Frederik Barth, Marvin Harris, Roy Rappaport, and Clifford Geertz, adds a historical perspective, while case studies add an ethnographic perspective. Students will also have an opportunity to do their own ethnographic fieldwork in New York City.