Anthropology is traditionally broken into several subfields, physical/biological anthropology, social/cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, archaeology, and sometimes also applied anthropology. Anthropology of the environment, or environmental anthropology, is a specialization within the field of anthropology that studies current and historic human-environment interactions. Although the terms environmental anthropology and ecological anthropology are often used interchangeably, environmental anthropology is considered by some to be the applied dimension of ecological anthropology, which encompasses the broad topics of primate ecology, paleoecology, cultural ecology, ethnoecology, historical ecology, political ecology, spiritual ecology, and human behavioral and evolutionary ecology. However, according to Townsend (2009: 104), “ecological anthropology will refer to one particular type of research in environmental anthropology—field studies that describe a single ecosystem including a human population and frequently deal with a small population of only a few hundred people such as a village or neighborhood.” Kottak states that the new ecological anthropology mirrors more general changes in the discipline: the shift from research focusing on a single community or unique culture “to recognizing pervasive linkages and concomitant flows of people, technology, images, and information, and to acknowledging the impact of differential power and status in the postmodern world on local entities. In the new ecological anthropology, everything is on a larger scale” (Kottak 1999:25). Environmental anthropology, like all other anthropological subdisciplines, addresses both the similarities and differences between human cultures; but unlike other subdisciplines (or more in line with applied anthropology), it has an end goal—it seeks to find solutions to environmental damage. While in our first volume (Shoreman-Ouimet and Kopnina 2011) we criticized Kottak’s anthropocentric bias prioritizing environmental anthropology's role as a supporter of primarily people's (and particularly indigenous) interests rather than ecological evidence. In his newer 2 publication, Kottak (2010:579) states: “Today’s ecological anthropology, aka environmental anthropology, attempts not only to understand but also to find solutions to environmental problems.” And because this is a global cause with all cultures, peoples, creeds, and nationalities at stake, the contributors to this volume demonstrate that the future of environmental anthropology may be more focused on finding the universals that underlie human differences and understanding how these universals can best be put to use to end environmental damage. This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge/CRC Press in "Environmental Anthropology: Future Directions" on 7/18/13 available online: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203403341 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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Theoretical trends and schools of thought in the field of anthropology evolve rapidly. Anthropological literature must keep abreast, not only of these intellectual shifts, but also of pressing global, political, and social issues. Thus, this volume, like others before it, seeks to provide updates on the state of the science and the theoretical and methodological trends of the day. Yet, there is another, more important reason why such a volume is necessary now, ‘today’, of all days, and another reason why this will serve as more than just another update on the discipline. Today, we face some of the greatest environmental challenges in global history. Understanding the damage being done by communities, large and small, and the varied ethics and efforts contributing to its repair is of vital importance. For these reasons, environmental anthropology today is different and arguably more critical than ever before. This volume thus poses the question and raises the challenge: What can increasing the emphasis on the environment in environmental anthropology, along with the science of its problems and the theoretical and methodological tools of anthropological practice do to aid conservation efforts, policy initiatives, and our overall understanding of how to survive, culturally and physically, as citizens of the planet? This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge/CRC Press in "Environmental Anthropology Today" on 8/5/11 available online: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203806906 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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How is an academic philosopher, humanities researcher, or scientist with an interest in philosophy able to imagine, understand and reproduce a philosophical theory that’s highly abstract in a way, because the theory is a priory by nature and doesn’t use a lot of examples that relate to daily life? For example, Helmuth Plessner’s Die Stufendes Organischen und der Mensch(1928)? Talking from my own experience as a trained academic philosopher with a master’s degree and a PhD in philosophy of anthropology and technology (Müller 2009), it takes a lot of analytical training and many years of study to build a huge‘internal mental mind map’–looking like a gigantic spider’s web or grid with interrelated philosophical and other scientific concepts–that serves as a road map to compare ideas, deepen the understanding of formerly read texts and gain new perspectives on philosophy as a discipline and life in general. Working in academia, this way of reading texts, understanding theories, producing papers and a dissertation, worked very well for me for quite some time. Until I startedtoteachphilosophy myself as a PhD student. In university, students are used to lectures accompanied by PowerPoints with lots of slides packed full of theories, definitions, andquotes, and sometimes a few images are added. I liked doing ‘traditional knowledge transfer education’ during my lectures but enjoyed the work groups even better as Ilearned a lot myself from the discussions with my students. Although being the‘master’ in front of a class of‘students’ has its beautiful sides (standing in a long tradition ofteaching regarded as a craft, where knowledge is passed over like a‘guild system’), I preferred the ’democratic ways of the work group’ joining efforts together in gaining a better understanding of philosophical theories and the way they relate to history and the cultures we live in–and our own lives. I always had the feeling that teaching philosophy could be done in a different way. This made me think. Could I invent a set-ting where the traditional ways of knowledge transfer would intertwine with the spicy‘agree to disagree’ discussions and moments of synergy?
