Understanding Human Ecology

Knowledge, Ethics and Politics

Geetha Devi T. V.

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429644078
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Biological Sciences

This book examines the domain of human agency–environment interaction from a multidimensional point of view. It explores the human–environment interface by analysing its ethical, political and epistemic aspects – the value aspects that humans attribute to their environment, the relations of power in which the actions and their consequences are implicated and the meaning of human actions in relation to the environment. The volume delineates the character of this domain and works out a theoretical framework for the field of human ecology.

This book will be a must-read for students, scholars and researchers of environmental studies, human ecology, development studies, environmental history, literature, politics and sociology. It will also be useful to practitioners, government bodies, environmentalists, policy makers and NGOs.

Part I
Human ecology

The domain and its dimensions

Introduction

The book is an attempt to characterise the domain of human agency–environment interaction (i.e., the domain of human ecology) from a multidimensional point of view. The emergence of innumerable environmental problems due to human interaction with nature has made it imperative to understand this domain. The domain of human ecology can be defined as one which human ecology as a science purports to explain. In other words, this domain provides a representation of a world of interconnected events, for example, real situations of environmental changes created by humans that take place in the ecosystem or have the possibility of happening in the future. This domain can also be represented in terms of the features that limit the possibilities of the events that may occur there. The nature of these events is largely determined by the kinds of intersection formed by the relation between human agency and environment. The notion of human agency mentioned here is to be understood in terms of the capacity of human actions to produce adverse or beneficial effects in the domain. As effective human actions are largely bound to the structures of the social systemic life of human beings, human agency is a complex notion. Thus, when human actors function as government officials, corporate bodies, legislators, members of communities and so on, they become part of those institutions, and such institutional roles and positions form human agency. What influences human actors as individuals or as social agents is not directly evident in many cases. These questions can be explored only through a characterisation of the domain under investigation. However, since human ecology as a science would limit the notion within the boundaries of explanation, it will not be able to fulfil the purpose of this inquiry, that is, to characterise the domain in the sense just detailed. The meaning of human actions, the value humans attribute to their environment, the relations of power in which the actions and their consequences are implicated – all make the domain so complex as to demand a more comprehensive approach to understanding it. Thus, the book proposes imagining the domain of human–environment interaction from a multidimensional perspective. In this attempt, the ethical (value questions) and the political find equal emphasis alongside the scientific in the characterisation of this domain.

A basic assumption of the book is the idea of interconnectedness, mentioned earlier. An understanding of this notion would help the inquirer to relocate the significance of the social life of human beings as forming part of a larger ecosystem. In other words, it underscores the ecological significance of human actions. A realisation of this role of human beings would require a redefinition of the notion of human agency, which has many implications as far as environmental issues are considered. That is, the socially mediated actions of humans need to be treated at another level as interventions in an ecosystem involving non-human members, with the potential to bring about changes in the ecosystem that cannot be understood from a social perspective alone.

In addition, most environmental issues with ethical and political implications generally arise in the ‘development’ context; understanding it from that perspective is of utmost importance. Development ideas pervaded the world consequent to the adoption of economic policies worldwide in the twentieth century, especially those of neo-liberalisation and globalisation policies, which have serious adverse environmental consequences. Thus, how human actors deal with environmental situations is highly influenced by the economic and political ideologies followed worldwide. Hence, a serious inquiry into human-induced environmental issues (that is, the human–environment intersecting area) cannot be delimited to the boundaries of a specific region or a particular nation.

The present work examines the following aspects pertaining to the domain of human–environment interaction:

1. (1) The dynamics of the questions of ‘value’ as raised and deliberated upon in existing thought systems, such as reform environmentalism, deep ecology, ecofeminism and social ecology.
2. (2) The ‘political’ dimension of the issues arising from the domain, as is evident in the lived experiences of the affected people and their expressions in various environmental movements.
3. (3) The nature of explanations provided by various multidisciplinary theoretical efforts that broadly agree with the goals of what can be termed human ecology.

Through these points, the book aims to establish the irreducibility of the dimensions of value and politics to each other and both of these to a scientific account of the events.

The attempt to view the three dimensions of value, politics and knowledge as characteristics of the domain that human ecology as a discipline addresses, and to integrate these aspects to inform an adequate understanding of the domain, can be claimed to be a novel approach in comparison to the existing studies on the area. The treatments accorded to these aspects in the available works present them as independent, rather than mutually exclusive fields of study. The eco-philosophical literature centres around questions regarding value judgement that have a bearing on the debates on human–nature dualism. These works adopt either a human-centred approach or a nature-centred one, to which the former is attributed an instrumental value and the latter intrinsic. The studies addressing the political aspect of environmental problems generally fail to contextualise the political struggles in terms of human agency–environment interaction, or in other words, these accounts overlook the political intricacies arising from these situations as determined by power relations among human (social) agents that will have a bearing on the environment. Scientific works in the area of human ecology confine themselves to the discovery of causal connections in order to provide an explanation of the process under study. The present study identifies the three dimensions and represents them as the defining features of the domain that intersects the human agency– environment. Another point of divergence relates to the status of human ecology. Human ecology as presented in the historical literature provides us with some ideas constructed from the sociological and the geographical viewpoints with a biological orientation. While these ideas throw some light on the nature of the domain theoretically, they do not qualify for providing an explanatory framework adequate to the domain. The present work tries to situate human ecological theorising within the theoretical works by other disciplines of similar or related concern. This is to locate the discipline reasonably in the interdisciplinarity formed by inquiries with family resemblances among each other.

This study proposes to conduct a conceptual level research and follows, in part, a textual analytic method. The philosophical literature of the 1960s and 1970s, study reports of NGOs and various descriptive accounts of environmental movements that have emerged in and around India, Asia and worldwide form the textual material for the study. The study also relies on actual research works conducted in the areas of ecology, some versions of human ecology and natural history, with a view to developing a larger theoretical framework for situating the discipline of human ecology. The choice of the studies is guided by the idea of what constitutes the domain of human ecology. The analysis is aimed at culling relevant, social scientific and ecological insights that would give the direction in delineating the features of the domain that may characteristically enter into the definition of the discipline of human ecology. The book presents ideas in such a way that arguments are analytically examined by first surveying all available debates about them, followed by an account that summarises the author’s observations at the end of each part: the nature of human–nature relationship in each thought system that represents the ethical dimension (in Part II), analysis of the conflicts of human living in various life contexts that elicit the political dimension (in Part III) and a critical analysis of the development of the idea of ecology and human ecology that forms the epistemic dimension (in Part IV).

As a prelude to this study, it is relevant to familiarise the readers with the concepts that guide the discussion. The terms ‘nature’ and ‘environment’ are generally used interchangeably; it is a contested area. In this study, there is reference to ‘nature’ as an all-encompassing entity, but the main focus here is on ‘environment’, which is defined as any part of nature, including biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere, that forms the living and non-living surroundings of all living beings, where human (or social) agents come to interact with, directly or indirectly, and transform it for human purposes, in the process of which human beings themselves or other living beings can be adversely affected. Another term that needs elucidation is ‘environmental problem’ (environmental issue), which is a concept that directs the study; hence, the question of how to perceive it is of much importance here. In the context of human agency–environment interaction, an ‘environmental problem’ is conceived as any disturbance created in the living and non-living environment of human beings by the harmful activities of human (or social) agents that will have repercussions in the lives of beings such as plants, animals and human beings themselves and also in those parts of nature such as mountains, rocks, rivers, wetlands, lakes and so on. With this background, the author presumes that all instances of human action that can have an adverse impact on the habitat of other living beings and on the environment will be addressed by the domain of human ecology. This conversely means that instances of any natural calamity, which are not traceable to human actions, will not fall within the purview of human ecology.

Situating the book

In this section, only literature that either claims to take an integrated approach to the domain of human ecology or focuses particularly on the human–environment interacting sphere is included. Works that undertake a theoretical endeavour on the human–environment interacting sphere are very limited in number, and the available works do not adequately address this domain. Though many researchers have placed emphasis on understanding the domain in an interdisciplinary manner, these attempts end up in identifying it as science or social science discipline; the actual point of establishing linkage of human agency with environment is not evident in these works. Moreover, although many researchers begin their inquiry with environmental problems as the reference point, most of them fail to make a proper theorisation of the domain.

Marten (2001) conceives human ecology as science and understands human–environment interaction as the interaction between the human social system and the rest of the ecosystem. While the social component of human is identified, it is termed a social system, which is defined as everything about people, their population and the psychology and social organisations that shape their behaviour; however, this is not developed further. He focuses on how people and the environment function together by tracing chains of effects through ecosystems and human society; hence, the book forms a practical guide to human actions, as claimed by the author. Bennett’s (1996) book also falls into this category. He recognises environmental problems as the result of human behaviour, where the realm of interaction with nature (or dependence on nature, as he conceives) is identified as complex ‘socio-natural systems’. The study by Dyball (2010) belongs to this category of science; it approaches the ‘wicked’ problems in the environment from the perspective of a human ecologist, that is, from a transdisciplinary perspective. In other words, it takes up the methodological challenge of blending knowledge from different disciplinary sources and other ways of knowing as well to produce a coherent new knowledge that differs from the sum of its parts. Moreover, it adopts the accepted notions of human ecology – that it is about the interrelationships between humans, their cultures and their ecosystems. However, the study recognises the normative aspect that distinguishes it from other branches of science and the power dimension of all decision-making and human action. The study is illustrated by an example of the Snowy Mountains Programme, which used the methods of human ecology and the key principles of a transdisciplinary inquiry such complexity, realism, partiality, pluralism, provisionally, ethical and critical.

Moran’s (2010) book, titled Environmental Social Science, focuses on human– environment interaction and realises it as a cross-disciplinary area. As observed before, an effort to theorise the domain is lacking, and the book rather makes accessible the theories, methods and concepts from both social science and natural science disciplines, across disciplines. Though Kormondy and Brown (1998) also take an integrated approach to human ecology, they end up in blending biological ecology with social sciences approaches. The book edited by Lopes and Begossi (2011) tries to link human beings to their environment through social, cultural, economic and ecological processes in the context of the accelerating negative changes currently being witnessed on our planet. The approach taken in this book claims to be only one of many ways of defining human ecology. Case studies from different branches of human ecology are shown as feasible alternatives to understanding the interactions of human culture and behaviour with the natural environment from all parts of the world. Along with this, theoretical aspects are included and examined in every case, including the evolution of culture, values and webs of information within cultures.

The article by Rasmussen and Finn Arler (2010) deviates and focuses on the problems involved when one tries to study the issues that lie at the human– environment interface. The authors identify problems at three levels – sociological, institutional and epistemological – that make the study of interdisciplinary studies difficult. The study focuses on exposing the inability to carry out interdisciplinary studies at the human–environment interface but does not advance any constructive suggestions. While the paper emphasises the differences between disciplines in terms of methodology, ontology and epistemology, it fails to put forward feasible suggestions for solving the issues. Williams et al. (2012) claim to have taken a radically new direction in their edited book, compared to the existing perspectives, to study the relation between natural and social environments. This book is concerned with intercultural and indigenous approaches and explores the power of indigenous and traditional people’s epistemologies both to critique and to complement insights from modernity and post-modernity. This book seems to take an alternative and unique approach for understanding and tackling environmental issues.

The book by Glaeser (1995) goes in line with the present one to a certain extent as far as the orientation of the book is considered. He begins his inquiry with environmental problems as the thrust of the research. Moreover, the author recognises human ecology as an area of research that can be placed between natural and social sciences and characterises the area with a definite social science component. He also distinguishes this research area from the conventional academic scientific research disciplines. However, the book does not construct a theoretical framework for the domain of human agency–environment in the manner the present one does; rather, the book focuses on the philosophical and social science aspects of human ecology. Further, it tries to find out the relationship between environmental ethics and environmental policy and also to explore what ecologically sustainable development is with the support of case studies.

Thus, we can see a lacuna while examining studies that are pertaining to the human–environment interacting sphere in particular. Works that lie on par with the present volume are not available when the main objective of the present book (i.e., perceiving the domain of human ecology in an in-depth way) is considered. The actual point of establishing linkage between human agency and environment is missing in most of the works, and the novelty of the current work lies in establishing this connection in a reasonable manner. This can be verbalised in the following way. Various kinds of modern institutions give rise to human agency, through which diverse modes of human–environment interactions take place in different fields of life. Hence, the structure and nature of these institutions will determine the role of human agency pertaining to each field. This is referred to in this book as the ‘socially mediated actions of humans’. Those actions of humans that are capable of making (adverse) impacts on the environment result in environmental issues. Hence, this attempt to understand the domain that human ecology addresses, from a multidimensional point of view, seems to be a promising one, considering the scope it has in tackling environmental issues and in making decision-making and policy drafting more effective.

Chapter presentation

The book consists of five parts, including an introductory part. The first and fifth parts stand alone, while each of the other three parts contains two chapters. The second part examines existing literature that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, such as reform environmentalism, deep ecology, ecofeminism and social ecology, which were offered as various socio-economic and political critiques of modern ways of living and have resulted in large-scale exploitation of nature and unintended consequences in the functioning of the ecosystem. This literature is largely philosophical in nature, and different schools of thought raise important value-oriented questions in their approaches to the issues that emerge in human–environment interaction. The attempt here is to elucidate the value dynamics inherent in each system of thought, which would provide us with analytical tools for identifying and analysing the value orientation as reflected in the actions of human agents in any conceivable environmental setting. Reform environmentalism considered humanity as part of the ecological system and followed an anthropocentric perspective. While the conservation and preservation movements of earlier times highlighted the importance of nature for its wilderness, the reformist group showed a concern for ‘quality-of-life issues’, which reflected the shift in the way life was conducted by people in the late modern period and the corresponding value system. Deep ecology attributes intrinsic value to all human and non-human life on Earth and conceives of all beings in nature as having equal right to live and blossom. Deep ecologists base their principles of analysis and norms of judgement on the notion of intrinsic value. Ecofeminism advances a value-oriented approach to nature and women by arguing for their liberation from dominant forces like patriarchy and capitalism. The political overtone in their analysis is only subtly presupposed by the alternative value system they propose. In some cases, at least explicit mentions of ‘feminine’ virtues like care, friendship and love etc. are made as opposed to the values of the male-dominated social world. Social ecology emphasises the processes of natural evolution and finds value in culture (called ‘second nature’) supposed to have evolved from the (first) nature’s evolutionary processes. It traces nearly all present ecological issues to deep-seated social ramifications like hierarchy, dominance, patriarchy, classes, the State and others. Therefore, the ways human beings deal with each other as social beings are shown to be crucial to addressing the ecological crisis. Social ecology advances an ethics of complementarities in which human beings must play a supportive role in perpetuating the integrity of the biosphere, as potentially, at least, the most conscious products of natural evolution. Part II is divided into two chapters (1 and 2). Chapter 1 tries to situate these approaches in the larger schema of environmental scenarios of the twentieth century. These thought systems emerged as part of the response to modern developmental activities and consequent environmental deterioration. In this context, Chapter 1 provides an account of the conservation and preservation movements that started from the eighteenth century, transition to the idea of environmentalism after World War II and the pragmatic changes that took place in the political arena corresponding to the shift in environmental concern. Chapter 2 elicits the value dimension inherent in the thought systems or approaches mentioned above.

Part III presents a descriptive account, randomly selected, of environmental ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of abbreviations
• Preface and acknowledgements
• Part I Human ecology: the domain and its dimensions
• Part II Ethics
• Part III Politics
• Part IV Knowledge
• Part V Ethics, politics, knowledge: a multidimensional approach
• Bibliography
• Index