This Subject Includes

• Course No: HS 218
• Course:
• Semester: VIII
• Title: Ecology and Society
• Stream: Sociology

• Preamble: The course focuses on the ecology of human societies –human-environment relationships, with reference to cultural ecology and issues surrounding sustainable development. The ecology of human societies is about connections between ecological and human social, cultural, and organizational processes. Based on selected works of ecological anthropologists, this course focuses on the dynamic relationships between human cultures and their ecological environments. It uses basic concepts of anthropology, including the concept of culture as a dynamic system of learned behaviours and beliefs, to better understand how human beings adapt to and change their physical and social surroundings.

  Course contents: Cultural and Human Ecology: concepts, meanings and interpretations, human-environment interactions; Approaches to Nature and Culture: ecological anthropology perspectives; Environmental Ethics: social ecology, deep ecology and shallow ecology; Natural Resource Management: biodiversity conservation, ethnoecology, symbolism, knowledge and indigenous communities.

  Texts:

  1.Descola, P and Pálsson, G. (Eds.), Nature and Society: Anthropological perspectives, Routledge, London and New York, 1996.

  2.Ellen, R, Parkes, P and Bicker, A. (Eds.), Indigenous Environmental Knowledge and its Transformations Critical Anthropological Perspectives, Harwood academic publishers, U.K., 2005.

  3.Gottlieb, S. R. (Eds.), This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment,Routledge,New York and London, 2004.

  4.Rappaport, R. A, Ecology, Meaning, and Religion, North Atlantic Books, Richmond,California, 1979.

  References :

  1.Gadgil, M. and R. Guha, Ecology and Equity: The Use and Abuse of Nature in Contemporary India,Routledge,London, 1995.

  2.Geertz, C, The Interpretation of Cultures, Basic Books, New York, 1973.

  3.Guha, R. (Ed.), Social Ecology, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1994.

  4.Ingold, T, The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill, Routledge, London and New York, 2000.

  5.McGregor, D, “Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Sustainable Development: Towards Coexistence,” in Blaser, Mario (Eds.): In the Way of Development: Indigenous Peoples, Life Projects and Globalization, Zed Books, London & New York, 2004.