Oldal 117 [117]
OCR
THE ENVIRONMENT AND ANTHROPOLOGY 115 Ecological anthropology also inspired the emergence of ethnoscience in the 1960s. Ethnoscience investigates the concepts formed by the members of a given nation or community about the world, including physical objects and abstract ideas alike, as well as how they come to know the surrounding world, the opinions they form of it and how they function in it. Its method and theoretical frames were initially closer to linguistics, then later to cognitive psychology (see cognitive anthropology). The best-known results of ethnoscience are its classifications, most of them highlighting traditional taxonomies (ethno-taxonomy, ethno-botany, ethno-pharmacology). Studies have revealed that the greater their functional use, the more extensive their system of categories and names. In industrialized societies where people are isolated from the natural environment, this taxonomic system is far less differentiated. However, even in these societies there can be exceptions, for instance a community which lives directly from natural resources, e.g. fishermen (in Kempton’s example). (On ethnoscience and cognitive anthropology, see Borsos 2004; Kempton 2001). Ethnoscience arrived at the study of traditional ecological knowledge in a natural way and went on to utilize this knowledge through therapy and nature protection (see the chapter Anna Varga: Nature Conservation and Traditional Ecological Knowledge), or to solutions to contemporary environmental problems. At the end of the 20" century, the focus shifted again in ecological anthropology, owing to the radical change in the relationship between humanity and nature, the increasingly conspicuous environmental problems, and the ensuing social and economic issues. In addition to examining cooperation with the natural environment and forming a balanced relationship, studies of activities which disrupt the equilibrium between humanity and nature have come to the foreground. The reinterpretation of modernization began in the 1980s, with questions concerning the tilting of the ecological balance and dilemmas about the unstable situation not only of nature but also of humankind. The terminological framework was extended‘ and an important concept for the interpretation of contemporary processes — maladaptation — emerged. This term signifies the use of certain forms of subsistence which are incompatible with the environment, for instance if, due to their development, they overexploit their environment, a process which eventually leads to collapse (Borsos 2004; 34-35). Jared Diamonds well-known work Collapse (2004) addresses this situation, as does Thomas Homer-Dixon’s Environment, Scarcity, and Violence (1999), which discusses the correlations between overuse and depletion of natural resources on the one hand and violent conflicts on the other. The attention of anthropologists has thus turned to environmental degradation and overuse of resources. They have begun to study the political, social and economic dynamic that triggers the above-mentioned processes and the conflicts that break out in response (Poncelet 2001: 274). Anthropological research into the relationship between diverse groups and their natural environment and into forms of adaptation and maladaptation, has acquired a new aspect: that of globalization. Local processes are more and more deeply influenced by global processes (climate change and the global economy), so the consideration and understanding of these aspects are indispensable for research. * Bruno Latour considers the most decisive new concept, that of the Anthropocene, as a tool for leaving modernity behind (Latour 2013: 144). On the Anthropocene, see the chapter titled Green history?
