Environmentalism: The View from Anthropology (Asa Monographs, 32)

250 Pages·1993·1.76 MB·English

by  Kay Milton

Environmentalism
The environment is one of the liveliest and most topical issues of our day. In
Environmentalism the contributors demonstrate that anthropology has a distinctive
contribution to make to current debates on ‘green’ issues.
Drawing on studies in sociology and law, as well as anthropology, the
contributors challenge the view that environmental issues are the province of
natural science alone and explore the interdisciplinary nature of the environmental
debate. The book brings together a wide range of studies, from environmental
ideology and imagery, and environmental law and policy, through local
environmental activism, to ethnographic analyses of human/environment relations
in indigenous societies. The contributors raise key issues such as the effects of state
interests and bureaucracies on environmental activism, the cultural construction of
‘hard’ principles of law and policy, and the responses of indigenous peoples to
industrial exploitation of their environments. They also explore important
theoretical issues in anthropology, including the globalization of culture, the
analytical value of dualism and the relationship between anthropology and advocacy.
An important contribution to the ‘green’ debate from an anthropological
perspective, Environmentalism also sheds new light on the boundaries between
anthropology and other disciplines. It will be especially valuable to social scientists
with an interest in environmentalism and human ecology and to people actively
involved in environmental policy and planning.
ASA Monographs 32
24 Reason and Morality
Edited by Joanna Overing
25 Anthropology at Home
Edited by Anthony Jackson
26 Migrants, Workers and the Social Order
Edited by Jeremy Eades
27 History and Ethnicity
Edited by Elizabeth Tonkin, Maryon McDonald and Malcolm Chapman
28 Anthropology and the Riddle of the Sphinx: Paradox and Change in the Life
Course
Edited by Paul Spencer
29 Anthropology and Autobiography
Edited by Judith Okely and Helen Callaway
30 Contemporary Futures: Perspectives from Social Anthropology
Edited by Sandra Wallman
31 Socialism: Ideals, Ideologies, and Local Practice
Edited by C.M.Hann
Environmentalism
The view from anthropology
Edited by Kay Milton
London and New York
P15024 Routledge Environmentalism mr
First published 1993
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of
thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
© 1993 Association of Social Anthropologists, the collection as a whole; individual chapters,
the contributors.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN 0-203-44965-7 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-45660-2 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-09474-7 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-09475-5 (pbk)
Contents
List of illustrations vii
List of contributors viii
Editor’s preface ix
Introduction: Environmentalism and anthropology 1
Kay Milton
1 Environmentalism: a new moral discourse for technological society? 17
Robin Grove-White
2 Globes and spheres: the topology of environmentalism 29
Tim Ingold
3 Between science and shamanism: the advocacy of environmentalism 41
in Toronto
Peter Harries-Jones
4 Standing in for nature: the practicalities of environmental 57
organizations’ use of science
Steven Yearley
5 All animals are equal but some are cetaceans: conservation and 71
culture conflict
Niels Einarsson
6 The making of an environmental doctrine: public trust and 83
American shellfishermen
Bonnie J.McCay
7 The precautionary principle: use with caution! 95
Lynda M.Warren
8 Tribal metaphorization of human-nature relatedness: a comparative 111
analysis
Nurit Bird-David
9 Rhetoric, practice and incentive in the face of the changing times: a 125
case study in Nuaulu attitudes to conservation and deforestation
Roy Ellen
vi
10 Natural symbols and natural history: chimpanzees, elephants and 143
experiments in Mende thought
Paul Richards
11 Local awareness of the soil environment in the Papua New Guinea 159
highlands
Paul Sillitoe
12 Political decision-making: environmentalism, ethics and popular 173
participation in Italy
Giuliana B.Prato
13 Environmental protest, bureaucratic closure: the politics of 187
discourse in rural Ireland
Adrian Peace
14 Eating green(s): discourses of organic food 203
Allison James
15 The resurgence of romanticism: contemporary neopaganism, 217
feminist spirituality and the divinity of nature
Tanya M.Luhrmann
Index 231
Illustrations
FIGURES AND MAPS
2.1 Two views of the environment: (A) as a lifeworld; (B) as a globe 30
2.2 The fourteen spheres of the world, as drawn by Giovanni Camillo 31
Maffei of Solofra in his Scala Naturale (Venice, 1564)
2.3 Yup’ik cosmology in cross-section 32
2.4 Lithosphere, biosphere and noosphere 36
9.1 The eastern part of the Amahai sub-district 127
13.1 The towns and villages of east Cork 190
TABLES
11.1 The distribution of sites surveyed between soil resource classes 162
11.2 The distribution of local assessment and land use classes between the 163
soil profile and site components of the soil resource classes distinguished
in this chapter
Contributors
Nurit Bird-David is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at Tel Aviv University.
Niels Einarsson is a doctoral student in the Department of Cultural
Anthropology at the University of Uppsala, Sweden.
Roy Ellen is Professor of Anthropology and Human Ecology at the University of
Kent at Canterbury.
Robin Grove-White is Director of the Centre for the Study of Environmental
Change at the University of Lancaster.
Peter Harries-Jones is Associate Professor of Anthropology at York University,
Ontario.
Tim Ingold is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester.
Allison James is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Hull.
Tanya M.Luhrmann is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of
California, San Diego.
Bonnie J.McCay is Professor of Anthropology and Ecology in the Department of
Human Ecology, Cook College, Rutgers University, New Jersey.
Kay Milton is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at Queen’s University, Belfast.
Adrian Peace is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Adelaide.
Giuliana B.Prato is a doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology at
University College, London.
Paul Richards is Professor of Anthropology at University College, London.
Paul Sillitoe is Reader in Anthropology at the University of Durham and
currently Nuffield Fellow at Wye College, University of London.
Lynda M.Warren is Lecturer in Law, Cardiff Law School, University of Wales,
Cardiff.
Steven Yearley is Professor of Sociology at the University of Ulster.
Editor’s preface
Proposing a conference theme can be like casting seeds to the wind, not knowing
where they will fall, nor whether germination will be fast or slow, nor what fruits
might eventually be born. So it was with the theme of the 1992 Conference of the
Association of Social Anthropologists. ‘Anthropological perspectives on
environmentalism’ represented a tentative step into unknown territory. Would
colleagues come forward with enthusiasm, or maintain an uninterested silence?
The theme was motivated by a concern that an important public debate, perhaps
the most important of our time, was proceeding without a significant input from
anthropology. In a field dominated by the natural sciences, social scientists have, in
any case, struggled for recognition, and those who have made the greatest impact
have been sociologists, geographers and, most especially, economists. And yet, it
seemed indisputable that anthropology, which has explored the breadth of human
possibilities, should have something important to contribute to the search for a
viable future.
The theme was also motivated by a sense of ignorance and personal isolation. My
own research on green issues had brought contact with environmental activists and
social scientists of other disciplines, but not with fellow anthropologists. Was
environmentalism not recognized among anthropologists as an important object for
analysis, or were others also working in relative isolation from their colleagues? The
time for an exchange of views seemed long overdue.
In the event, germination was slow but sure; what started as a tentative step
became an enlightening venture of which this volume is the outcome. The
interdisciplinary nature of the environment as a field of study helped to shape the
character of both the conference and this volume. Although it was envisaged
primarily as an opportunity to explore anthropological perspectives on
environmental issues, it was felt important to do this through a dialogue with other
disciplines. For this reason, contributions were invited from specialists in sociology,
law and geography (and some of mixed ancestry), as well as anthropologists.
The mix of disciplines and the nature of the subject matter generated a lively
conference discussion in which underlying tensions were clearly evident. In
particular there was a tension between the study of environmentalism as a cultural
perspective, and the study of human-environment relations, in which
anthropologists have more traditionally engaged. Less explicit, but perhaps more