ANT 2410 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Environmental Degradation, Ethnobiology, Social Inequality
4 Jul 2018
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Chapter 6, Module 12: Sustainability: Environment and Foodways
World Parks Congress:
Address: environmental protection, conservation, and sustainable development:
Sustainable Development: “development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Representatives of indigenous groups protested, saying that their models of protection
have the view that people need to be removed from protected areas which ultimately
result in the disruption of people and disregard for how natives manage the environment
Conceptions of Nature
People relate to nature differently from one culture to the next
Example: Natives of S. Mexico and Central America v the arriving Spanish in the 1500’s-
Natives used the place as their safe grounds to avoid the Spanish and the Spanish found
the natural environment oppressive; it’s the difference between being a part of nature as
opposed to ruling over nature
Other example: Itzai Maya of Guatemala see people and nature as coexisting where
spirits can and will punish those who treat nature poorly and reward those who treat
nature politely
Landscapes
Cultural Landscapes: “the culturally specific images, knowledge, and concepts of the
physical landscape that help shape human relations with that landscape.”
We view out environment in a metaphorical fashion, which is connected to action,
thought and organization
Foragers tend to use marital/familial metaphors to describe human-nature relations
Example: Cree of N. Canada describe hunting in sexual metaphors
The idea of “Mother Nature” is common metaphor, derived from the Greek goddess Gaia,
which represents nature as nurturing and motherly
Metaphors are telling of cultural insights, and environmental values
Sustainable Food Supply
Intertwined with how people get their living is how they think of their landscapes
Foodways: the structured beliefs and behaviors surrounding the production, distribution,
and consumption of food, and they vary cross-culturally.
Modes of subsistence
Definition: the social relationships and practices necessary for procuring, producing, and
distributing
Four Types:
Foraging: obtaining food by searching for it, as opposed to growing or raising it.
Horticulture: the cultivation of gardens or small fields to meet the basic needs of a
household.
Pastoralism: mode of animal husbandry, which is the breeding, care, and use of
domesticated herding animals such as cattle, camels, goats, horses, llamas, reindeer, and
yaks.
Intensive agriculture: large-scale, often commercial, agriculture.
Which usually corresponds to the size of the population eating
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