12. Anthropology & Sustainability

Question 1

Human ecology?

Answer 1

The study of the complex relationships between humans and their environments.
Local understandings of people living in diverse ecosystems

Question 2

What is crucial in order to develop a full etic perspective?

Answer 2

The emic perspective

Question 3

Culture scale?

Answer 3

The scope or reach of culture implies the idea that smaller-scale societies are more sustainable than larger ones

Question 4

Foragers’ relationship with the land?

Answer 4

They needed to have intimate knowledge of the local ecosystem in which they lived in.

Had a more reciprocal relationship with nature

Question 5

How did the rise of intensive agriculture change our relationship with the land?

Answer 5

Large-scale cultivation altered the ecological balance

Question 6

What happened during the industrialization?

Answer 6

Made the world interconnected by a complex web of people and resources
- Largely invisible to the consumer

Question 7

The exploitation of underdeveloped areas for profit?

Answer 7

Social, economical, and political inequalities because the cause of many sustainability issues

Question 8

The Great Acceleration 1950?

Answer 8

Demands for fuel, food, timber, water, and other natural resources exploded

Highest level of deforestation and destruction of ecosystems

Question 9

Anthropocene Era?

Answer 9

The current era, in which humans have drastically altered the planet as a whole

Question 10

Why did society shift its priorities from collective to individual needs?

Answer 10

• Child rearing, independence training
• Nuclear family, no or little obligations to the extended family or community
• Isolation people from each other and the natural worlds -> developed ownership and entitlement over the land

Question 11

Planets resources?

Answer 11

Our planet has a closes-loop system with finite resources that can not support indefinite growth

Question 12

Deine sustainability?

Answer 12

Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their one needs

Question 13

The three pillars of sustainability?

Answer 13

Environmental
Social
Economic

Question 14

Environmental sustainability?

Answer 14

The ability of the environment to renew resources and accommodate waste at the same rate as which resources are being used and waste generated

Question 15

Social sustainability?

Answer 15

The ability of the social system (family, region, community, nation) to provide for the needs of their people so that they can attain a stable and healthy standard of living

Question 16

Economic sustainability?

Answer 16

The ability of the economy to support indefinite growth while ensuring a minimum quality of life for all members of society

Question 17

Economic development generally causes environmental degradation, what can we do about it?

Answer 17

Economic growth needs to find ways to address overconsumption and manage resource use and environmental impact

Question 18

How do the three pillars of sustainability overlap?

Answer 18

If the environment is depleted, social structure will collapse and there will be no economic output.

Therefore, we should first and foremost focus on the environment

Question 19

Participatory action research (PAR)?

Answer 19

An applied anthropological method of field research and implementation of solutions relies on close collaboration with the target community
- Empowering community actors with a sense of agency over their own circumstances

Question 20

The tragedy of commons?

Answer 20

The idea that individual actors sharing a natural resource will inevitably act in their own best interest, eventually depleting the resource

Question 21

What is seen as a solution to the trade of commons and how might it not work?

Answer 21

Privatization of resources by corporations and governmental regulation is seen as the only way to prevent ecological destruction

Unfortunately, conservation does not always result from these policies

Question 22

Why is the model of “tready of commons” not universally applicable?

Answer 22

Individual users of an area may voluntarily cooperate to contain or conserve the use of resources -> self-regulating

Question 23

Julian Steward?

Answer 23

First anthropologist to develop a paradigm ( set of concepts model) based on the iteration of people with their environment

Question 24

Determinism?

Answer 24

Argues that the limitations of the environment determine peoples behavior

Question 25

Cultural ecology? Julian Steward

Answer 25

A framework of understanding culture by examining the limitations of the environment and food-getting practices

Question 26

Cultural core? Julian Steward

Answer 26

Feature of culture that is similar in societies practicing the same food-getting strategies, an aspect of cultural ecology

Question 27

Multilinear cultural evolution?

Answer 27

The idea that the social structure of a group is directly tied to the demand of its environment

Question 28

Universal (or lineal) evolution?

Answer 28

An outdated idea that all cultural groups progress through the same stages of modernization, from simple to complex

Question 29

Ecological anthropology?

Answer 29

A framework of understanding culture that uses systems theory to understand a population as a closed-loop system

Question 30

System theory?

Answer 30

A model of understanding an ecosystem that assumes that its a closed-loop system with finite resources.
Assumes that cultural practices exist to fulfill the needs of human life

Question 31

Political ecology?

Answer 31

A framework of understanding culture that focuses on the complex relationships between the environment, economics, and politics

Question 32

Environmental anthropologist?

Answer 32

An anthropologist interested in the relationship between people and the environment

Question 33

Ethnoecologists?

Answer 33

A person who studies the interactions a group of people have with their natural environment, especially use of flora and fauna

Question 34

Traditional Ecological Knowledge? (TEK)

Answer 34

The collective and cumulative knowledge that a group of people had gained over many generations living in their particular ecosystem

Question 35

How can TEK be applied in policy-making and when can it get problematic?

Answer 35

Use knowledge to plan for resource management and long-term sustainability in a given area

Problematic when the knowledge is put out of its cultural context and simply used as a piece of data

Question 36

Population growth?

Answer 36

• The world’s population is growing faster than resources can support it
• Fewer resources for the majority of the worlds people and environmental depletion

Question 37

We have enough food to feed the whole population, why does food insecurity still exist?

Answer 37

Unequally distributed

Question 38

Conflict minerals?

Answer 38

Natural resources mined in an area where there is conflict (such as civil war) and used to fuel or fund the conflict, commit crimes, or perpetrate human rights abuses

Question 39

Climate change?

Answer 39

• Contributes to unpredictable and sporadic extreme weather which makes agriculture suffer major losses
• Inhabitants, ecosystems, and biodiversity is all effected
• Social and political inequality, some are affected more than others

Question 40

Natural disasters & environmental inequality?

Answer 40

Climate change has devastating effects on people of island nations -> climate refugees
The poorest nations suffer the most

Question 41

34 areas of the world have been identified as biodiversity hotspots. Strong correction with what and why?

Answer 41

Diversity of languages

• Do not need to compete for the same resources -> high social distance
• Historical context, less affected by European settlers

Question 42

What can anthropological practice and theory to learn from an emic perspective be used for?

Answer 42

These insights can provide a deeper knowledge for scientific understandings

Question 43

How can anthropologists help by bringing their knowledge of human history and societies to the larger public?

Answer 43

Helping people understand the effects of their actions

Individual stories have a better effect than statistics because it evokes compassion and is more likely to change behavior

Question 44

What can anthropologist do when they teach at universities and colleges?

Answer 44

Have the potential to affect major change

Question 45

Food Sovereignty?

Answer 45

Asserting right over local food sources, knowledge, livelihoods, traditions, and the enviroment