How do humans interact with their environments? How do their actions influence biodiversity loss, climate change and pollution? And how do differently situated people respond to these transformations in specific ways?This book serves as an introduction to the research and practice of environmental anthropology. It presents current concepts and debates, and highlights key social-ecological issues. Readers will learn about the origins of the field, and about recent approaches to landscapes, infrastructures, Anthropocenes and ontologies. They can delve into environmental-anthropological research on water, plants, animals and human bodies, and are invited to explore issues around climate change, disasters, extractivism, conservation and environmentalism.

Anthropology, Ecology and Environments: an Introduction 8Why Environmental Anthropology? 8What Does This Book Offer? 10Part I Roots 131 Cultural Ecology 14Humans and Environments in Early 20th Century Anthropology 14What Is Cultural Ecology? 15Comparative Accounts of Foraging Societies. 19The Emergence of Ancient Civilisations 21Cultural Ecology in Modern Complex Societies 23Alternative Roots of Environmental Anthropology 242 Multiple Ecologies 29From the 1960s: Multiplying Approaches 29Cultural Materialism 29Ecological Anthropology 32Symbolic and Linguistic Ecology 37Into the 1990s: The New Ecologies 38Political Ecology 38Environmental History and Historical Ecology 41Research into Coupled Human-Environment Systems 44Local Knowledge . 45Part II Approaches 513 Landscapes 52A Stroll through the Eifel 52Landscapes for Transdisciplinary Anthropology 54Natural and Cultural Landscapes 54A Very Short History of Landscape 57Temporal Landscapes 59Contested Landscapes 624 Infrastructures. 67Of Fences, Waterholes and Wildlife Corridors 67Infrastructure - Approaches, Definitions, Challenges 68Environmental Infrastructure 73Multispecies Infrastructure 745 Anthropocenes 79The Anthropocene: Why, What and When?. 79Anthropological Engagements with the Anthropocene Concept 84Responsibility in a Patchy Anthropocene 906 Ontologies 95Tirakuna 95Anthropology and Ontology 96Beyond the One-World World 96How Many Worlds Are There? 101Ontological Politics 103Part III Foci 1097 Water 110Water Wars? 110Water and Anthropology 111Social Waters 112Managing Waters 117Meaningful Waters 1208 Plants and Fungi 128Lawn Culture 128Planthropology 129Knowing and Using Plants and Fungi 129The Politics of Travelling Plants 132Relating with and through Plants and Fungi 135Growing Plants and People 1399 Animals 147A Self-sacrificing Animal 147Animals as Sustenance 148Animals as Symbols and Knowledge 154The Animal Turn and Multispecies Anthropology 158Extinctions and Rewilding 16110 Bodies 166Kidney Failure or State Failure? 166Bodies in Their Environments 167Bodies Beyond the Skin 167An Embodied Anthropocene 172Local Biologies, or Becoming Human in Company 178Part IV Fields 18511 Climate Change 186Misunderstanding Rising Sea Levels 186The Perception of Weather 188The Influence of Scientific Narratives on Local Knowledge 189Explanations for a Changing Climate 191Making Rain 192Climate Change in Focal Regions of the Globe 194And What about Europe? 19812 Disasters 204An (Un)natural Disaster 204What Is a Disaster? 205Hazard, Vulnerability and Resilience 205Disaster Temporality 209Illusions of Certainty, Stability and Progress 213Knowledges and Beliefs 21613 Extractivism 223Cursed Resources? 223Anthropologies of Resource Extraction 224What Is Extractivism? 224Resisting Extractivism. 227Transforming Extraction 230Waste: Extractivism's Conditions and Afterlives 23414 Conservation 240Lands Lost to Conservation 240What Is Conservation? 241A View of Global Conservation Efforts 242The Environmental History of Conservation 243Community-based Conservation 246Conservation and Changing Livelihoods 248Conservation and Socio-political Dynamics. 250Ecological Effects 253Emergent Perspectives 25415 Environmentalisms 261Global Protest against a Hydropower Project 261What Is Environmentalism? 262The Historical Emergence of Western Environmentalism 265Non-Western Environmentalisms 268Indigenous Environmentalisms and Decolonisation 277Glossary 282Index 287