Environmental Anthropology Future Directions

This volume presents new theoretical approaches, methodologies, subject pools, and topics in the field of environmental anthropology. Environmental anthropologists are increasingly focusing on self-reflection - not just on themselves and their impacts on environmental research, but also on the reflexive qualities of their subjects, and the extent to which these individuals are questioning their own environmental behavior. Here, contributors confront the very notion of "natural resources" in granting non-human species their subjectivity and arguing for deeper understanding of "nature," and "wilderness" beyond the label of "ecosystem services." By engaging in interdisciplinary efforts, these anthropologists present new ways for their colleagues, subjects, peers and communities to understand the causes of, and alternatives to environmental destruction. Thisbook demonstrates that environmental anthropology has moved beyond the construction of rural, small group theory, entering into a mode of solution-based methodologies and interdisciplinary theories for understanding human-environmental interactions. It is focused on post-rural existence, health and environmental risk assessment, on the realm of alternative actions, and emphasizes the necessary steps towards preventing environmental crisis.

Introduction: Environmental Anthropology of Today and Tomorrow Helen Kopnina and Eleanor Shoreman-Ouimet Pathways: Reflections on the Self and Society 1.The Mundane Bicycle and the Environmental Virtues of Sustainable Urban Mobility Luis A. Vivanco 2. Requiem for Roadkill: Death and Denial on America’s Roads Jane Desmond 3.The Future of Environmental Anthropology: Bringing Smallholder Agriculture Research to the City Shiloh Moates 4. Future Directions in Environmental Anthropology: Incorporating Ethnography of Environmental Education Helen Kopnina Health, Risk Assessment and Prediction 5.Eco-Myopia Meets the Longue Durée: An Information Ecology of the Increasingly Arid Southwestern U.S.A. David Casagrande and Charles Peters 6. Sedna's Children: Inuit Elders' Perceptions of Climate Change and Food Security Ann McElroy 7. Water Wary: Understandings and Concerns about Water and Health among the Rural Poor of Louisiana Merrill Singer and Jacqueline M. Evans 8. Environmental Migration: The Future of Anthropology in Social Vulnerability, Disaster, and Discourse Elizabeth Marino Solutions-Based Research, Alternative Methodologies and Lifeways9.Causal Explanation for Environmental Anthropologists Andrew P. Vayda 10.Possibilities for a Bioregional Anthropology Joshua Lockyer 11.Anthropologies of the Future: On the Social Performativity of (Climate) Forecasts Renzo Taddei 12.Anthropology and Environmental Policy: Joint Solutions for Conservation and Sustainable Livelihoods Susan Charnley and William H. Durham

Helen Kopnina is Researcher at The Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS), University of Amsterdam. Eleanor Shoreman-Ouimetis a member of the Anthropology Department at the University of Connecticut.