Human Ecology as Human Behavior: Essays in Environmental and Developmental Anthropology

by John W. Bennett

Overview

Human interaction with the natural environment has a dual character. By turning increasing quantities of natural substances into physical resources, human beings might be said to have freed themselves from the constraints of low-technology survival pressures. However, the process has generated a new dependence on nature in the form of complex "socionatural systems," as Bennett calls them, in which human society and behavior are so interlocked with the management of the environment that small changes in the systems can lead to disaster. Bennett's essays cover a wide range: from the philosophy of environmentalism to the ecology of economic development; from the human impact on semi-arid lands to the ecology of Japanese forest management. This expanded paperback edition includes a new chapter on the role of anthropology in economic development.

Bennett's essays exhibit an underlying pessimism: if human behavior toward the physical environment is the distinctive cause of environmental abuse, then reform of current management practices offers only temporary relief; that is, conservationism, like democracy, must be continually reaffirmed. Clearly presented and free of jargon, Human Ecology as Human Behavior will be of interest to anthropologists, economists, and environmentalists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781560008491
Publisher:	Transaction Publishers
Publication date:	01/30/1995
Edition description:	Expanded ed., 1st pbk. ed
Pages:	398
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

John W. Bennett (1915-2005) was emeritus professor of anthropology at Washington University, St. Louis. He served as president of the American Ethnological Society and the Society for Applied Anthropology, and was a member of the editorial boards of the Annual Review of Anthropology and Reviews in Anthropology. Among his books are The Ecological Transition: Cultural Anthropology and Human Adaptation, Classic Anthropology: Critical Essays, 1944-1996, and Human Ecology as Human Behavior: Essays in Environmental and Development Anthropology.

Table of Contents

I: Theory and Concepts; 1: Underlying Ideas: Ecological Transitions, Socionatural Systems, and Adaptive Behavior; 2: Anticipation, Adaptation, and the Concept of Culture in Anthropology; 3: Human Ecology as Human Behavior: A Normative Anthropology of Resource Use and Abuse; 4: Ecosystems, Resource Conservation, and Anthropological Research; II: Field Studies of Resource Management; 5: The Social Ecology of Japanese Forestry Management in the World War II Period; 6: Ethnographic Research on Allocation and Competition for Land and Water in the Canadian Great Plains; 7: Social Aspects of Sustainability and Common Property: Lessons from the History of the Hutterian Brethren; III: Literature Reviews and Field Surveys of Resource Management; 8: Anthropological Contributions to the Cultural Ecology and Management of Water Resources: A Review of Literature to the 1970s; 9: Adaptations by Tribal and Modern Populations to the North American Great Plains and Other Arid and Semiarid Lands: A Survey of Issues and Problems; 10: The Changing Socionatural System of Migratory Pastoralism in Eastern Africa: A Review of Literature to the 1980s; 11: Anthropology and Development: The Ambiguous Engagement; 12: Epilogue: The Rise of Ecophilosophy

Editorial Reviews

Human behaviour and its interactions with the natural environment is at the centre of debates over environmental issues. John Bennett’s collection of essays, dating back some thirty years, is a worthy and thorough examination of this topic from an anthropological perspective and makes a strong case for this perspective to be a more influential force in future analytical environ-mental research.”—Tommy Knowland, Environmental Politics

From the Publisher