Anthropology

Diane Russell
Biodiversity and Social Science Specialist
USAID

Anthropology is the scientific and humanistic study of the human species: humankind’s present and past biological, linguistic, social, and cultural variations. Its major sub fields are archaeology, physical anthropology, cultural or social anthropology, and anthropological linguistics. Within cultural/social anthropology, environmental or ecological anthropology is a major sub field. There is also a distinction made between academic and applied anthropology, mainly based in the fact that academic practice focuses on pursuing scientific knowledge through research, whereas the applied practice of anthropology focuses on inducing changes aimed at solving practical problems. This overview focuses on environmental/ecological anthropology, a sub-discipline with both academic and applied branches.

The discipline emerged from the study of non-Western peoples as a result of travel and colonization during the 1800s. At its outset, anthropology was marred by racism and pseudo-scientific methods of comparing people and societies. Some early anthropologists used Charles Darwin’s concepts of evolution and “survival of the fittest” to bolster notions of Western superiority. In the 1920s, however, Franz Boas in the US and Bronislaw Malinowski in the UK and their students fashioned a modern anthropology that rejected—and in the case of Boas actively fought—racism. They and others developed the hallmark of the anthropological approach: an emphasis on the “cultural” (as opposed to biological) dimension in explaining human behavior and variability and on the need for extended fieldwork using participant observation, language skills and often historical and archaeological investigation, to counter the speculative “armchair anthropology” of days past. For over eighty years modern anthropology has been growing and diverging into sub-disciples and specializations.

An extremely brief history of environmental/ecological anthropology

Both Boas and Malinowski studied the ways that humans make a living from the land and their “material culture”: the artifacts, foodstuffs and other materials that they produced and traded. Theory about the relations between humans and nature evolved with the work of Julian Steward and Raymond Firth, among others. Steward focused on understanding and classifying modes of subsistence such as hunting/gathering and horticulture without situating these modes as steps in an upward cultural evolution. Firth, following Malinowski, was concerned about non-Western economic systems of trade and exchange.

Key concepts in early modern anthropology retain their importance:

• “Adaptation” of humans to an environment is not determined by ecological conditions alone; people can exploit the same resources in very different ways
• Technology mediates human relations with nature but technology is socially produced
• Economics (types of exchange and trade, systems to cope with real and perceived scarcity) determines modes of exploitation of natural resources
• Relations of power, prestige and status significantly shape economics

Roy (“Skip”) Rappaport was a pioneer in scientific studies of humans and their use of natural resources. His Pigs for the Ancestors attempted to show the cycle of energy accumulation and debt among the Tsembaga Maring of Papua New Guinea: as pig populations grew, gardening expanded and then rituals were enacted to distribute these resources within complex relationships of kinship and debt. Rappaport and Gregory Bateson adapted concepts from systems theory to explain these transactions. This work launched modern ecological anthropology.

Anthropologists soon realized that developing theories from studies within isolated small-scale societies posed numerous theoretical dilemmas. Even the most isolated populations were connected to larger economies through trade, commodity production or being part of a colonial state. Few societies are homogeneous; they are complex and multi-layered. All peoples have a history of establishment, migration, change and adaptation to specific places. As colonialism and expansion of the global economy proceeded, “traditional” societies were radically transformed. Many were destroyed or severely damaged by slavery, disease and the depredations of early exploration and colonization. Others adapted to new production and market systems. Understanding how “local people” adapt and integrate into markets and political processes has become central to anthropology. Uncovering and tracing these connections helps us to discern behaviors and practices in relation to use and conservation of natural resources.

Anthropology can challenge conventional wisdom on the relationship between humans and the environment. Archaeology and indigenous history reveal that many if not most areas thought to be “wilderness” have been significantly shaped by human intervention: they are anthropogenic landscapes. Destruction of the environment is not new: important species extinctions and deforestation occurred when peoples employed only stone tools and fire. Anthropologists document the ways in which direct threats to biodiversity from local exploitation are linked to wider sociopolitical and economic pressures and networks.

Anthropology has played a role in highlighting indigenous conservation strategies, such as protecting refugia, taboos on species and seasonal restrictions on hunting. They have helped reveal the importance of indigenous and local knowledge in conservation.

Anthropology and conservation

Anthropologists now contribute to conservation in numerous ways. There is an active section of the American Anthropological Association: Anthropology and the Environment.  Anthropology and Environment Society consists of many professionals who work with, in or around conservation initiatives. The Society for Applied Anthropology (SFAA) also has many professionals working in conservation.

Anthropology contributes with theory, method and practical experience in living and working in remote settings, which are often the places that are set aside for conservation. Although environmental and ecological anthropologists are united in concern for loss of biodiversity and environmental degradation they may take very different approaches to conservation:

• Support to conservation initiatives through fieldwork, data collection, knowledge of local people and societies; methodologies such as linking GIS with fieldwork
• Critical engagement with conservation initiatives from the perspective of indigenous and human rights, concerns about inadequacies of social science inputs into conservation planning including lack of historical and sociopolitical analysis
• Support for alternative paradigms of conservation such as community-based conservation and rights-based conservation
• Planning, funding, implementing and evaluating conservation initiatives

Professional Associations