Ethnoecology: Situated Knowledge/Located Lives

by Virginia D. Nazarea

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The re-emerging field of ethnoecology offers a promising way to document and analyze human-environment interactions. Case studies by international experts explore the varied views of scholars on the human dimension of conservation and the different views of local peoples regarding their own environments. Filled with peoples' voices from North and South America, Africa, and Asia, these cases cover a range of issues: natural resource conservation and sustainable development, the relationship show more between local knowledge and biodiversity, the role of the commons in development, and the importance of diversity and equity in environmental management. Ethnoecology: Situated Knowledge/Located Lives is intended for a wide range of specialists not only in social and natural sciences but also in agricultural studies. It conveys the overriding importance of this powerful methodological approach in providing insiders' perspectives on their environments and how they manage them. show less

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jakkrits 14 reviews

Here is one of the pioneering books aimed at introducing a comprehensive way of looking at ethnoecological studies in particular, and ethnoscience in general. The 16-chaptered book entitled 'Ethnoecology: Situated Knowledge / Located Lives' was a great collection of works by both natural and social scientists, edited by ecological anthropologist Virginia D. Nazarea of the Universty of Georgia. What I was looking for while reading the book is how the book defined the realm of 'ethno'science distinctively from other studies on local knowledge, what kind of theoretical and methodological agenda the book proposed as to develop the subject as a 'science', and what would be any hot/sexy issues at the time the book had published.

The book show more itself was published in 1999 and the volume was a result of radical-reorientation conference on ethnoecology some times before 99. I had no surprise after reading more than half of the book and found nothing 'new' in this year of 2006.

Though reading the book today where the debates over indigenuos practices, community rights, and local ecological knowledge have been widely discussed in academia, and the issues of situated knowledge is nothing new, the book, however, left us several difficult questions concerning the rise and the development of the discipline that still do not answer satisfactorily until today. For instance, how will ethnoecology as an approach within anthropology have to contribute to the epistemology and methodological refashioning that current self-critical reflection calls for? What role can ethnoecology play in interdisciplinary dialogue and action outside anthropology, especially those of natural sciences?

Yes, I believe ethnoecology today is moving toward what is called 'engaged anthropology'. But what need to be done, and as the book had suggested, is the way ethnoscience can be deployed to criticize and develop the limited ethnographic methodology and the existing positivistic science concerning natural resources. This task remains unsolved. show less

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