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120 JUDIT FARKAS Obviously, anthropologys research attitude to small local communities does not perish when national and global frames of reference are included within the examination. This is confirmed by several anthropological studies on the effects of climate change (see Crate — Nuttall 2009), which aim to expose the impacts of climate change on local cultures, and “to stop the gaps in defective Western knowledge on anthropogenic modifications” (Moore 2016: 34). One of the motives which drives them is the strong West-centrism and through-politicization of the dominant ideas and guidelines about environmental problems and climate change, which also deeply influence indigenous communities, marginalized groups and the poor. In this situation, “anthropologists should stand firm in their tradition of committed localism and ethnographic reflexivity” (Roncoli — Crane — Orlove 2009: 88). BIOREGIONALISM AND ECO-COSMOPOLITANISM In our contemporary world, the notion of locality is being reassessed and we need to take a new approach to it within the framework of globalism. Bioregionalism and ecocosmopolitanism are (local and global, respectively) concepts and interpretive frames that reflect upon this demand. Bioregionalism Bioregionalism holds that human activities and collective structures — politics, economy, architecture, etc. — are formed and take place within the boundaries of bioregions. The border of a bioregion is determined by nature, typically the outline of a catchment area or the features of the terrain. One definition holds that a bioregion “is the general pattern of the natural features of a given area’, including relief, climate, seasons, configurations of the terrain, soils, plants, animals and insects (Berg 2002). Bioregionalism is also a movement which appeared in the 1970s with writings by Allen Van Newkirk, Peter Berg, Raymond Dasmann, Kirkpatrick Sale, Gary Snyder and others. Bioregional thought has exercised considerable influence on the American environmentalist and sustainability movements and plays a central role in the socioecological vision of the environmental philosopher Murray Bookchin, in which cities are decentralized semi-autonomous city-states integrated within commonly managed natural resource regions (Hubbell — Ryan 2022: 81). On Bookchin’s social ecological vision, see the chapter on Environmental Philosophy; on bioregionalism, see also the chapter of Dorottya Mendly and Melinda Mihaly on the global challenges of food supply. Eco-cosmopolitanism In response to the predominance of bioregionalism and place-based discourse, environmental humanist Ursula K. Heise elaborated the theory of eco-cosmopolitanism in her book Sense of Place and Sense of Planet (2008). Its essence is that each individual and group should be envisioned as part of a planetary community, which ought to involve, besides humans, other kinds of living beings. The point is that people and communities in any part of the world should be viewed as the inhabitants and cothree ecological and social movements and anthropology. On bioregionalism and permaculture, see the chapter, Food as a global challenge; on ecovillages, see the chapter Ecovillages.
