Environmental Anthropology

Catalog description

Environmental anthropology is the study of the relationship between different cultures and their natural environments. This course examines how human communities traditionally adapted their subsistence strategies and social organization to their local environments and how these adaptations changed over time. The emphasis is on the diversity of these adaptations in different places, e.g. in arctic zones, highlands, arid lands, grasslands, and tropical rain forests. The course also investigates how economic development and globalization influenced these adaptations and thereby contributed to contemporary environmental problems that in turn affect cultures and continue to change them. A historical survey of anthropological contributions to environmental studies covers the following topics: Population, economic development, biodiversity, environmentality, indigenous groups, consumption, and globalization. Finally, the course looks at the different forms of environmentalism that have emerged from these perspectives.