Environmental Anthropology Domain Is Potentially A More Pluralistic and Activist Stance On Environmental Issues: An Overview of Trends in Ecological Anthropology.

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Environmental Anthropology Domain is potentially a more Pluralistic and Activist

Stance on Environmental Issues: an Overview of Trends in Ecological Anthropology.
Article in Indian journal of physical anthropology and human genetics · January 2011
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Ind. J. Phys. Anthrop. & Hum. Genet. Vol. 30. Nos. 1-2, (2011) : 1-32
ENVIRONMENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY DOMAIN IS

POTENTIALLY A MORE PLURALISTIC AND ACTIVIST
STANCE ON ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES: AN OVERVIEW
OF TRENDS IN ECOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Krishan Sharma
ABSTRACT
Over the past several decades, the environment has become the focus of increasing scientific
interest and mounting concern. This introductory article focuses more on ‘ecological
anthropology’ than on ‘the anthropology of environmentalism’, because the latter explores
the insights that anthropology can bring to the debate on environment and environmentalism.
There are two major perspectives of ecological anthropology; one deals with the analysis of
the complementary political and human cultural ecology research programs is known to be
structured around four theoretical and methodological areas: transformations in the
ecological paradigm, Articulation levels and analysis, temporal dynamics developed in the
analysis people using historical analysis, and the re-emergence of space for an interaction
which enables adaptation within a system to meet environmental demands. Environmental
anthropologists critically examine the connections between nature and society, based on
the assumption that environmental change can only be understood by including the human
component. Ethnographic analyses of the social forces of environmentalism specify to
emergence of civil society as an important protagonist of environmental issues leading to
environmental movements and discourses on bioethical issues. The anthropological approach
concerning the topics of environmental pollution, habits, concerns and social behaviour
focuses on the cultural perceptions, meanings, and values attached to clean and dirty, purity
and impurity, healthy and unhealthy environments, and on the consequences of pollution
in terms of expression of discrimination, class, urban poverty, social hierarchies, and ethnic
segregation in cities. There is emergence of many new fields and approaches in environmental
anthropology. Each has the potential of taking central elements of new ecological thinking
seriously, which may in turn result in practical consequences for planning, intervention
design, and management. The second major approach deals with the premise that during
entire human history of existence on this earth, environment has never remained constant;
which led to biological adaptations, generation of biological diversity, human evolution.
These biological and cultural parameters have implications in health and disease. Some
current trends in this field have been reviewed.
Keywords: Human ecology paradigms, Climate change and adaptation, Food ecology, Urban
ecology
Krishan Sharma, Department of Anthropology, Panjab University, Chandigarh-160014

2 Ind. J. Phys. Anthrop. & Hum. Genet. Vol. 30. No. 1-2, 2011
INTRODUCTION
Environment broadly refers to the ‘surroundings’ of an organism or a group of
organisms. It is a complex whole of climatic, edaphic (characteristics of the soil),
biotic and socio-cultural factors that surround an organism or an ecological
community and influence its life, activity and viability. There has been a long
tradition of describing the natural history of phenomena like earth, climate,
atmosphere, natural events and happenings and their influences on the form and
survival of plants and animals including humans. One can ask what the difference
between ecology and environmental studies is. The most common definition of
ecology is the study of interrelationships between organism and their environments.
First concrete definition of ecology seems to have been by Ernst Haeckel (1866)
who popularized Darwinism in Germany. He was highly inspired by Darwinian
concept of economy of nature given in Darwin’s (1859) book, ‘The Origin of Species’.
Haeckel (1866) gave organism-environment definition whereby defining ecology
as body of knowledge concerning the economy of nature, investigating total
relationships of animals to their inorganic and inorganic environments including
non-evolutionary perspectives too. Over the years, the field of ecology has grown
and multiplied into numerous schools and sub-schools. The number of these is
more than one hundred, while the number of ecological paradigms or perspectives
is more than two hundred.
Since beginning, Anthropology focuses on the interaction between biology and
environmental factors including socio-cultural aspects, their variations, and
evolutionary transformations. Research in environmental anthropology falls into
two major areas and both have distinct methodologies and objects of study.
Ecological anthropology uses ecological methodologies to study the interrelations
between human groups and their environment. The anthropology of
environmentalism uses ethnographic methodologies to study environmentalism
as a type of human action.
Looking retrospectively, by the 1950s, systems concepts formed the basis of
ecosystem ideas, wherein closed, regulated, and homeostatic systems were defined
(Odum, 1953). Under ecosystem approach, regulated and stable concepts like
trophic webs and nutrient and energy flows were identified. Conservation biology,
based on the principles of island biogeography (MacArthur and Wilson, 1967),
represents another area of ecological theory wherein a stable relationship between
species diversity is seen (Scoones, 1999). These concepts of human ecology, cultural
ecology, ecosystem, ecological niche and the like created, among anthropologists,
a special interest in ecological issues subsequently giving rise to a sub-field of
Ecological Anthropology. Human ecology concentrates on systematic and
evolutionary aspects, while social ecology emphasizes behaviour. Both study
human-environmental relationships in distant past or present. Sociobiology is a
paradigm within human social ecology. Cultural ecology and cultural geography
examine adaptive strategies and are cognizant of the role of culture in human
adaptation, but not interested in long term change. Environmental History is the
Environmental Anthropology Domain is Potentially a More Pluralistic and Activist Stance... 3
intellectual history of the environmental movement, including the political and
economical implications of environmental interaction. Environmentalist term is
used for a political activist in the field of environmentalism. Environmental Ethics
explores value systems as they relate to human conduct. Landscape ecology
recognizes human influence on non-human species (see Little, 1999). Due to
multiplicity of subdisciplines, it has become very difficult to distinguish between
apparently similar looking subdisciplines like population ecology versus
community ecology. The need for integration within the fields of ecology has been
recognized by many theorists (see Allen and Hoekstra, 1992). Integral ecology
provides a way of integrating the multiple fields of ecology and environmental
studies into complex multidimensional transdisciplinary approach (see Esbjorn-
Hargens, 2005). The field of ecological modeling has pioneered efforts to identify
patterns across ecological approaches to provide comprehensive ecosystem theory
(see Jorgensen, 1997).
Anthropology has been called “the most humanistic of the sciences, and the most
scientific of the humanities”, since it follows a holistic approach to study humans
as a member of animal kingdom. Borofsky (2002) from the survey of articles
published in last hundred years in the American Anthropologist found that only
9.5% of them could be considered “holistic,” in the sense that the research
represented substantive collaboration across the sub-disciplines. Having done so,
Borofsky (2002) ponders why this myth of subfield collaboration still exists within
anthropology, concluding that for the most part we as anthropologists (biological,
cultural, linguistic, and archaeological alike) have really only been ‘talking the talk’
rather than ‘walking the walk.’ Due to this dualism of culture and biology built in
its model, Anthropology has been always at a crossroads and is torn between its
two paradigms that is culture and biology. There has always been debate among
anthropologists over its role inside and outside of academia. There are often tensions
between the paradigms of theory and practice, modernism and postmodernism,
constructionism and deconstructionism, scaling up and scaling down, and many
other seeming dichotomies that really contain many shades of gray. Some of these
paradigm issues and their diversity are discussed hereunder.
The major concern of Biological Anthropology is the place of humans and their
nearest relatives, the Primates, within the biological world. Biological Anthropology
includes a variety of different approaches and sub-specialties to the study of human
biology, inter alia including paleoanthropology, skeletal biology, human variation
and adaptation, anthropological genetics, primatology, and comparative primate
anatomy. The central paradigm of Biological Anthropology is the notion that the
humans as a species (Homo sapiens) is the result of the evolutionary process, that
evolved like all other living things, and that their biology provides a necessary
base of knowledge from which to interpret their behaviour and place in the animal
world. Most biological anthropologists today take a biocultural approach in their
work, in which they recognize the importance of both human biology and the
varieties of human culture in making us who we are, and the same approach is
followed while dealing with environmental anthropology.
THEORETICAL RESEARCH PARADIGMS, LEVELS AND
THEIR DIVERSITY
Chalmers (1982) defines a paradigm as “made up of the general theoretical
assumptions and laws, and techniques for their application that the members of a
particular scientific community adopt”. Chalmers (1982) further points out that a
paradigm has five components: (1) Clearly stated laws and theoretical assumptions;
(2) Accepted ways of applying the fundamental laws to a variety of situations;
(3) Instrumentation and instrumental techniques that bring the laws of the paradigm
to bear on the real world; (4) General metaphysical principles that guide work
within the paradigm; (5) General methodological prescriptions about how to
conduct work within the paradigm. Denzin and Lincoln (2005) define a paradigm
as a basic set of beliefs that guide action of an individual and are first principles or
ultimates. They are constructs of human intellect which define the world view of
the researcher-as-interpretive-bricoleur. Lévi-Strauss (1966) developed the
comparison of the Bricoleur and Engineer in The Savage Mind. The bricoleur, has its
origin in the old French, is a “jack-of-all-trades”, who uses few, non-specialized
tools for a wide variety of purposes. Bricoleur metaphorically and in a postmodern
or post-formal (Kincheloe & Steinberg, 1999) sense is used to represent methods,
practices and cultural materials that the scholar-practitioner uses as s/he interacts
in the complex web of relationships among knowledge, inquiry, practice, and
learning.
A research paradigm is the set of belief, norms, ethics, values and principles that
guide the actions of a researcher from selection of research topic to the execution of
research with writing a report. Research paradigm can be understood at three levels:
philosophical, contextual and technical. The philosophical approach considers the
basic belief about the world, while the contextual aspect considers the social
guidelines (ethical considerations) about how a researcher should conduct research
or inquiry and the technical level considers the method or techniques of conducting
the research. Habermas (1984) in his theory “theory of communicative action” (TCA)
that represents a critical synthesis of the leading sociological theories distinguished
three non reducible quasi-transcendental cognitive interests. They are the technical,
the practical, and the emancipatory.
The philosophical level is the highest level at which generally researchers discuss
about five sets of assumptions in subjective-objective dimensions: ontological
(nature of social reality), epistemological (the nature of knowing and construction
of knowledge and is divided into the positivist and anti-positivist stance),
axiological (regarding the role of values; related to the epistemological),
methodological, and human nature. Human nature can have deterministic or
voluntarist view. The former views individuals as products of their environment,
the other believes individuals create their own environment (Putman, 1983).
Epistemology and methodology are intimately related; the former involves the
philosophy of how we come to know the world and the latter involves the practice.
In case of research methodology, there are assumptions that underlie the process
of research. Nomothetic methodology focuses on an examination of regularities
and relationships to universal laws, while ideographic approaches centre
on reasons why individuals create and interpret their world in a particular
way (Putman, 1983). The social world can only be understood by obtaining
first hand knowledge of the subject under investigation. Methodology focuses
on the best means of acquiring knowledge about the world (Denzin and Lincoln,
2005).
Broadly speaking paradigms can be divided into three categories: modernism
(positivism (quantitative, scientific approach)/post-positivism (where many of the
assumed stereotypes of the science no longer hold up), post-modernism
(interpretivism/ constructivism, criticalism, representationalism) and post-post-
modernism (integralism). These paradigms have their own focus, methods, and
quality standards that guide researchers to address the issues regarding designs,
tools, validity criteria and interpretation of data.
Modernism was highly influenced by science and technology during the first half
of the 20th Century. The research emphasis is to prove or disprove, predict or
measure the variables. Under this approach, experimental designs became the
dominant approach followed by rigorous quantitative data analysis and objective
interpretations. Postmodernism saw a societal shift from modernism and included
poststructuralism as one of the aspects. The term poststructuralism is broadly used
for a loose agglomeration of theories and ideas which arose in the mid-1960s as a
reaction to the then prevalent structuralism approach of Claude Levi-Strauss, Louis
Althusser and Jacques Lacan. Under postmodernism, interpretivism or the
qualitative approach is used to gain insights through discovering meanings by
improving our comprehension of the whole. Qualitative research explores the
richness, depth, and complexity of phenomena. Qualitative research, broadly
defined, means “any kind of research that produces findings not arrived at by
means of statistical procedures or other means of quantification” (Strauss & Corbin,
1990). The rise of constructivism led to the foundation of criticalism. Researchers
within critical paradigm believe that knowledge is socially, historically, culturally,
and politically situated with multiple realities. Under representationalism paradigm,
researchers tried to view the social phenomena from the perspective of self and
others.
The post-postmodernism (integralism) paradigm originated in 2000s as an
‘aftermath of post-modernism’ or ‘emerging postmodernism’, and brought a shift
in the research through acceptance of diversity and viewing the world of research
as a whole (holism, pluralism) in order to reconstruct seemingly fragmented and
pulling apart approach. This paradigm brought the idea of open course and wisdom
as a source to resolve social conflicts and injustices. The wisdom of thought,
philosophy and practices based on the holistic approach has tried to address the
interest of all sectors of society. The political commitment is a must for this to
happen. Political commitment is viewed as a social and economic order based on
justice; equity and all inclusive approach (see Taylor, 2007). This approach seeks to
move beyond relativistic pluralism, and sees “emergent thinking” and “integralism”
as better alternatives to both modern reductionistic rationalism and relativist
pluralism (see Atkinson, 2002 and Hicks, 2004 for a review of postmodernism).
The emergence of a new paradigm usually results in generating a lot of hype and.
Similar is the situation with the emergence of new paradigms of criticalism,
representationalism and integralism. However, they do not isolate or remove the
old paradigms but create their own place under the social and cultural context.
Traditional paradigms of research in social sciences that is positivism post-
positivism still are in more common use.
ECOLOGICAL PARADIGM IN
ANTHROPOLOGY
Like Anthropology, the ecological paradigm of anthropology is also very vast and
diverse. Macro/global scale ecology of 1960s has over the years lost political ground
to micro-scale ecological studies. Ecosystem ecology deals with the study of the
living and nonliving components within the environment, how these factors interact
with each other, and how both natural and human-induced changes affect how
they function. Evolutionary ecology concentrates on systematic and evolutionary
aspects, while social ecology emphasizes behavior (both these approaches study
human-environmental relationships in distant past or present). Landscape ecology
recognizes human influence on non-human species. Cultural ecology and cultural
geography examine adaptive strategies and are cognizant of the role of culture in
human adaptation. Environmental history deals with the history of the
environmental movement, including the political and economical implications of
environmental interaction. Environmental Ethics explores value systems as they
relate to human conduct.
New Ecosystem Ecology

Dialogues between anthropology and ecosystems ecology were briefly interrupted
in 1980’s due to several radical critiques (Ellen, 1982; Winterhalder, 1984; and Moran,
1990). Consequently ecosystem ecology was transformed into new ecology that
addressed most of the early criticisms of ecosystems (Scoones, 1999). Later on
worldwide interest in ecosystem ecology again sprung up. A list of ecological-
environmental specializations is ever growing, which inter alia include historical
ecology, environmental history, political ecology, ecofeminism, environmentalism,
environmental justice, symbolic ecology, ethnoecology, human ecology,
evolutionary ecology, environmental anthropology, ecological anthropology,
ecological economics, sustainable development, traditional ecological knowledge,
conservation, environmental risk, and liberation ecology. A number of insightful
reviews have been produced (Biersack, 1999; Kottak, 1999; Little, 1999; Scoones,
1999).
Some major paradigms/models of ecological anthropology are being discussed
hereunder in more detail.
SELECT MODELS AND APPROACHES OF
ECOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Ecological Structure Models and Anthropology
Ecological anthropologists formed new schools of thought, including the ecosystem
model, ethnoecology, and historical ecology (Barfield, 1997). In the 1950s and mid-
1960s anthropology tended increasingly to use models and fit their ecological niche-an
approach popularized by Marvin Harris (Harris, 1997). Ecological structure is
usually found in a homogeneous environment, when ecological conditions over
large surface differ little. Competition, predation, disturbance are key factors and
there are indication of the influential role of evolution. Darwinian Theory also
emphasizes competition among species and within species. Long records of
organisms and environments provide unique opportunities to evaluate the
ecological and evolutionary responses of populations and ecological communities
to environmental change over hundreds of thousands to millions of years. The
historical perspective is important for studying the dynamics of biotic change from
ecological and evolutionary time scales and for understanding processes that
transform ecosystems over geologic time.
Despite contradicting the principle of “survival of the fittest”, Neutral theory suggests
that how communities are assembled is largely agnostic to evolutionary processes.
Hubbell’s unified neutral theory of biodiversity explains the diversity and relative
abundance of species in ecological communities assuming that the differences between
members of an ecological community of tropically similar species are “neutral,” or
irrelevant to their success. The proponents of a controversial theory of biodiversity
argue that immigration and other random demographic events can account for much
of the apparent makeup of communities. As a result, ecologists have a long way to
go to come up with formulas that predict how communities might arise and change.
Yet the ability to make predictions is important for the restoration and management
of ecosystems impacted by invasive species or climate change (Stokstad, 2009).
The Geographic Mosaic Theory

The geographic mosaic theory focuses on how spatial variability in the abiotic and
biotic environment shapes ecological and evolutionary dynamics of interspecific
interactions. The geographic mosaic theory explicitly identifies coevolution as the
driving force underlying the ecological dynamics and structure of biological
communities. The development of a robust mathematical framework for the
geographic mosaic is essential for interpreting existing data and designing future
empirical studies.
Cultural Ecology
Human ecology has two major foci: humans effect their environment and vice versa.
Environmental concerns arising out of human activity are a major issue today. In
anthropology, ecological approaches have been employed in a variety of ways.
The analogue of the Darwinian argument to explain sociocultural phenomenon is
the principle of techno-environmental determinism and techno-economic
determinism. This laid the foundation of the environmental determinism approach.
Some anthropologists accepted this approach and used it as mechanism for
explanation. The earliest attempts at environmental determinism mapped the
cultural features of human populations according to environment information.
Environmental determinism paradigm has its roots in the theory of ‘humours’
developed by Hippocrates. Climatic factors under this theory were considered
important for the humours in many for the varying abilities of people for strength
or weakness of their body and mind. Emphasizing the importance of environment,
Steward (1938, 1955) asserted that the physical and biological environment affects
culture and emphasized the importance of technology in understanding human
ecology. He developed the concept of ‘culture core’ as the behaviour patterns most
closed linked to the environment. Under this model, cultural ecology recognizes
that ecological locale plays a significant role in shaping the cultures of a region.
Steward’s ideas of cultural ecology became widespread among anthropologists
and archaeologists of the mid-20th century, but later these were critiqued for their
environmental determinism approach of anthropology.
Some of the renowned early anthropologists like Franz Boaz and Alfred Kroeber
also adopted an environmental possibilism position (see Hardesty, 1977; Moran,
2000), and in this perspective, the natural environment sets certain possibilities or
options from which cultures, conditioned by their history and particular customs,
may choose. Possibilism in cultural geography is the theory that the environment
sets certain constraints or limitations, but culture is otherwise determined by man’s
actions. The concept of environmentalism and possibilism are applicable because
the forest acts as a limiting factor in shaping activities related from their subsistence
to their house types; and the concept of environmental possibilism holds the view
that culture is active and environment is passive (Hardesty, 1977; Anderson, 1997).
Due to restrictions and absence of opportunities, the subsistence technologies remain
unutilized and therefore are unable to develop in their own lines among populations
living at subsistence level like tribals in India and Africa.
In Cultural ecology, Marshall Sahlins (1976) used this concept in order to develop
alternative approaches to the environmental determinism. Sahlins’ work has focused
on demonstrating the power that culture has to shape people’s perceptions and
actions. He has been particularly concerned to demonstrate that culture has a unique
power to motivate people that are not derived from biology. A paradigmatic shift
from positivism to interpretivism is also noticed in the research and theory of
ecological anthropology. Environmental determinism and possibilism,
functionalism, culture-area approaches, racism, evolutionism, and historicism were
some of the conceptual and theoretical perspectives during the late 19th and first
half of the 20th centuries in cultural anthropology. It is an accepted preposition
that ecocultural adaptation is an important process of survival mechanism in human
populations, and the levels of adaptive interaction are of different kind depending
upon the geographical and cultural diversity in an area.
Historical Ecology: Ecology and Archaeology
Historical ecology is concerned with the interactions through time and space
between human groups and their environment and the consequences of these
interactions for understanding the formation of contemporary and past cultures
and their. Humans over the years, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not,
have reshaped their biophysical environment landscapes (see Bailee, 2006). These
human interactions may lead to stable sustainable or not sustainable systems. Non-
industrial societies cannot be assumed to be either, as Balée (1998) puts it, Homo
destructivist or Ecologically Noble Savages. The task of historical ecology is to
understand the human environmental dynamic in a particular landscape over time,
influenced by local environmental conditions, climatic changes, local human actions
and the larger human systems that impinge on the local group and its activities.
The practitioners of this approach from ethnohistory and archaeology fields have
built their theory on ideas from landscape ecology, geography, archaeology, history,
and ethnohistory. Their writings have resulted in many new research paradigms
like landscape ecology, ecosystems ecology, ecology of health and adaptability and
ecology of reproduction. Agroecological biodiversity as a result of generations of
careful landscape planning by indigenous groups is just beginning to be recognized
by conservation biologists as an important means of in situ conservation.
Anthropological Evolutionary Ecology

Anthropological Evolutionary Ecology (AEE) paradigm has been developed by
utilizing the method for theory framework developed by Pickett et al. (1994). Joseph
(2000) is of the opinion that AEE can contribute to our understanding of human
behavior in many ways through methods and techniques derived from neo-
Darwinian theory in addition to current approaches in animal behavior and decision
theory. The evolutionary ecology school takes into account the importance of
subsistence activities. It also adds assumptions from sociobiology that observed
that human behaviour is an optimal foraging strategy for finding the most
nutritional reward for the least effort (see Balée, 1998). The human adaptations
observed in the field, under evolutionary ecology paradigm, are assumed to have
been in place long enough that natural selection has yielded an optimal strategy,
and thus variation are seen as adaptive strategies across human groups by
understanding how differing environments will favor different strategies (see Balée,
1998). Reviewing AEE as a theoretical paradigm, Joseph (2000) finds it inadequate
for its failure to consider how historical and cultural processes impinge upon the
structure and function of human ecological structures and practices and also for its
failure in terms of its basic conceptual devices.
Landscape Ecology
Landscape ecology is perspectives on place and space and this perspective of land
use is becoming increasingly popular among the anthropologists. It deals with
how people and places constitute each other, how the environment is perceived
and known by its inhabitants and what it means for people to “belong” to a place.
It helps in the understanding of the complex and multifaceted ways in which
landscape and environment are imagined, constructed, experienced and contested.
It also looks into the role of ideas and knowledge of place and space, nature and
culture.
Forest Conservation and Development

United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in the
year 1992, underlined the necessity for all countries to develop harmonised
approaches in the management, conservation and sustainable development of global
forests is essential to meet the socio-economic and environmental needs of the
present and future generations. The tradition of conserving forests is built within
the cultures of many human communities.
Culture and Biodiversity Conservation: Forests as Sacred Groves

Sacred groves are traditionally protected by the communities in reverence to their
deities. India has about 13000 documented sacred groves. Similarly there are repots
from many countries of Africa and Asia. There is an ancient adage,” God is a forest;
Worship forest”. The wisdom behind the saying lies in the harmony and balance
observed in the forests where there is a space for everything. Life in forests embodies
plentiful and consequently none there takes more than one’s needs. Despite such
cultural controlled measures to protect the forest wealth by the communities for
their survival and perpetuation, the forests are cut indiscriminately. About 32 million
acres of forests are cut down every year and this area is about the size of England.
Deforestation for logging, cattle grazing and crops has made Indonesia and Brazil
the world’s third and fourth biggest emitters of green house gases. The cutting of
trees is blamed for 20% of global emissions.
Ethnic Variation in Environmental Belief

Beginning in the early 1980s, efforts to link conservation and development focused
attention on the alarming rates of deforestation. Then there are many other
environmental concerns. Due to stronger technological, financial, political, and social
ties due to globalizations of these activities, few would argue with the statement
that the global environmental situation is precarious at best. Every day we lose
species and ecosystems that might hold answers to some of the most basic questions
of mankind. For example, how did the world come to be the way it is now, and
what is the proper role of humans in this world? The rate at which the inter-group
group variations among the people are lost is alarming and with this the world
would lose people who might have different answers to these questions as well as
questions other groups cannot even think to ask. The loss of cultural, linguistic,
and biological diversity leaves would leave human species poorer and more
ignorant. These problems are to be combated by the anthropologists who must
examine the political processes behind biological and cultural extinctions. Marvin
Harris once said, “If it be anthropology to struggle against the mystification of the
causes of inequality and exploitation, long live anthropology” (Quoted from
Hitchner, 2005).
Dominant Social Paradigm (DSP) pervaded Western societies until the 1960s with
its anthropomorphic emphasis on nature domination and resource extraction in
which humans are viewed as being outside and immune to nature and in which
nature is instrumental for the benefits of humans. DSP contains a belief in growth
and prosperity, as well as in science and technology. The problems of diminishing
energy resources, pollution of unspoiled nature and general environmental
degradation have gradually eroded this view of anthropocentrism. The reaction to
DSP was the formulation of NEP (Dunlap and Van Liere, 1978; Dunlap and Van
Liere, 1984), which emphasizes a rejection of human immunity, limits to growth,
with a belief that all progress must pay careful attention to the ways in which
humans interact with nature. Inglehart (1990) argued that the modern
environmental movement gained momentum in the late 1960s. It ushered in an era
of fundamental attitude shifts with respect to nature, and the NEP is thought to
measure generalized beliefs about the biophysical environment and the human
relationship to it.
Stern et al. (1995) and Dietz et al. (1998) proposed an environmental concern model
in which generalized environmental beliefs or worldview is positioned within a
causal relationship where social structural variables are a precursor of such beliefs.
These authors argued that the environmental values literature contain important
information on environmental trends and public opinions, but lacks a social,
psychologically derived theory base relating environmental values to social
structure, environmental beliefs and attitudes, and behaviour. Dietz et al. (1998)
believed that New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) is a better indicator of environmental
belief than the environmental questions used in their analyses. According to Stern
et al. (1995), the NEP measures a folk ecology or lay person’s view of relationships
in the natural world.
Medical-Ecological Approach: Anthropology in Public Health

Medical ecological paradigm in anthropology deals with those aspects of the
environment that have a direct bearing on human health (see McElroy and
Townsend, 1989). The concept of ecosystem functions and services helps to describe
global processes that contribute to our well-being, helping to cleanse the air we
breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. Environmental degradation often
leads to alterations in these aspects, leading to various states of ill health. The
ecological model has been built on some key assumptions: The disease causes are
many rather than one and is a consequence of a chain of factors related to ecosystem
imbalances; Health and disease are integrated part of a set of physical, biological,
and cultural subsystems that continually affect one another; The ecological model
provides a framework for the study of health in an environmental context, yet it
does not specify factors that maintain health within any given local system.
Public health is focused to study the population or community as its patient, in
contrast to the individual-level focus of clinical medicine. This orientation on
community creates a natural partnership between public health and anthropology
as the primary focus of the latter is also on the people in groups, and especially in
local communities. The field of medical anthropology emerged as a coherent
subdiscipline in the 1950s. Since then, it has rapidly grown to become one of the
largest areas of research and practice within anthropology. The richness of this
subdiscipline is apparent in the range of theoretical perspectives encompassed by
it. Anthropology has made important methodological contributions to public health
by employing ethnographic method for the systematic collection of field data;
qualitative methods for the collection and analysis of descriptive, interpretative,
and formative data; and the integration of qualitative and quantitative approaches
(see Scrimshaw et al., 1991; Beebe, 1995; Trostle and Sommerfeld, 1996; Hahn, 1999).
They have translated scientific knowledge into effective practice at the community
level.
Bacteria, viruses, and diseases move across the globe today with unprecedented
speed, never seen in the history of humankind. This aspect requires that
anthropological ecological research focus on viral environments and the multiple
types of human interrelations that serve to channel, propagate, deflect, and/or
disrupt the transmission of these microorganisms. The floating human population
is increasing with globalization leading to fast spread of infectious diseases like
HIV AIDS, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARC), avian influenza. Since the
first report of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in 1980s, and over
the short time-span AIDS has rapidly become a global pandemic with millions of
cases officially reported from 173 countries. Millions of people have died due to
this disease alone. The literature on AIDS is voluminous. The research is being
conducted on epidemiological history, demography and disease, and the new,
uncharted terrain of the cross-transmission of viruses between humans and
nonhuman animals, such as the recent cases of British mad cow scare and the Hong
Kong chicken slaughter show (see Little, 1999; Sharma, 2007).
Parasitic Prevalence and Cognitive Ability

There are reports on worldwide variations in cognitive ability in the form of average
national intelligence quotient (IQ) scores (see Lynn, 1991; Lynn and Mikk, 2007 for
details). Barber (2005) reported that, across 81 nations, average national IQ correlated
with enrolment in secondary school (r 0.72), illiteracy (r -0.71), agricultural labour
(r -0.70), gross national product (r 0.54), health and nutrition may affect intelligence,
and found that average national IQ correlated negatively with rates of low birth
weight (r -0.48) and with infant mortality (r -0.34). Lynn (1991) and Rushton (2000)
proposed that temperature and climate provide important Darwinian selective
pressures for intelligence, with cold climates favouring higher intelligence, because
low temperatures would provide more fitness-related problems for humans that
would require cognitively demanding means to solve those, and through more
complex social organization. Kanazawa (2004) hypothesized that intelligence
evolved as a domain-specific psychological adaptation to deal with environments
that are evolutionarily novel. This hypothesis was tested and supported at the
crossnational level (Kanazawa, 2008).
Eppig et al. (2010) have hypothesized that the worldwide distribution of cognitive
ability is determined in part by variation in the intensity of infectious diseases.
From an energetics perspective, a developing human will have difficulty building
a brain and fighting off infectious diseases at the same time, as both are very
metabolically costly tasks. Using three measures of average national intelligence
quotient (IQ), they have found that the zero-order correlation between average IQ
and parasite stress ranges from r -0.76 to r -0.82 (p ≤ 0.0001). They point out that
infectious disease remains the most powerful predictor of average national IQ when
temperature, distance from Africa, gross domestic product per capita and several
measures of education are controlled for.
Ecology of Reproduction
Reproduction takes place in an ecological sense as external factors impact
physiological mechanisms of human reproduction. Personal life circumstances and
intrauterine environment influence reproduction in enumerable ways. Conventional
approach of studying interactions between environment and reproduction,
evolutionary ecology adds a Darwinian perspective and thus has much in common
platform with other known approaches under the labels of behavioural ecology,
sociobiology, or socioecology. Voland (1998) emphasized those demographic data
sets that characterize our different historical, cultural, ecological, and familial milieus,
may provide good descriptions and even make those problems visible, the elaboration
of which would be worthwhile from the point of view of reproductive ecology.
Overpopulation and Ethical Issues

Overpopulation is the greatest ethical problem we face as a species as we begin to
recognise our pivotal impact on the planet and start to actually do something about
carbon emissions, pollution and poverty. The population overgrowth is resulting
in growing demand for resources. The environment change will result in
tremendous changes in crop patterning and their yield. The question that can be
raised here is that how much and what parts of the whole Earth system must adjust/
adapt to this. These examples show that how culture creates the ideologies which
induce people to respond in different ways to various issues and problems faced
by different human groups including climate or environment crisis, in particular
in the ways peoples view themselves as being apart from nature (global capitalism),
as being a part of nature (environmentalism), or as lacking a human/nature
dichotomy entirely (some traditional indigenous perspectives).
CLIMATE CHANGE AND ANTHROPOLOGY

The topic of climate change and anthropology deals with the relationship between
culture and climate from prehistoric times to the present; changing anthropological
discourse on climate and environment; the diversity of environmental, human
evolution and sociocultural changes of the past and present occurring around the
globe; and the unique methodological and epistemological tools anthropologists
bring to bear on climate research.
Adaptation and Human Cultures: Issues and Concerns

The issues surrounding climate change loom large in the research agendas of many
disciplines. Anthropology and its subfields-biological, cultural, archaeological, leans
heavily on the environmental paradigm in understanding of how societies around
the globe perceive and adapt to climate change both biologically and culturally.
Perspectives on climate change are not a new phenomenon per se, but rather one
that has recurred throughout human pre/history, and therefore we could learn
from our past remains too. The natural environment has always made a strong
influence on human society in all cultures. Anthropology examines the responses
of the human societies to climate variability and to other environmental factors,
both from historical and present perspectives following comparative method. The
terms ‘climate variability’ is usually used to refer to climate fluctuations that are
non-anthropogenic and ‘climate change’ to refer to the current shifts, in which a
major part of the change can be explained as the result of anthropogenic causes.
Despite such preferences, this distinction is difficult to maintain in many cases. For
example, many societies in the past created strong negative environmental impacts
as their economic activities led to environmental change that increased their
vulnerability to climate fluctuations.
The studies on anthropology of climate change are an emerging area of study with
respect to cultural anthropology (see Gold, 1998; Rudiak-Gould, 2009). Culture
system is discussed in terms of three cardinal inter-relationships: man-man, man-
environment and man-self. In the bio-medical model epidemiological triad of
relationships between host (Man), agent (causative factor) and environment
(physical/ psycho-social/ economic-political) determine the disease causation and
control. These relationships are likely to vary in different communities. When the
successes and failures of human cultures in the past relative to their environmental
contexts are analyzed, their successes and failures are measured with reference to
the relevant social, political, economic, and religious conditions that existed at the
time.
The term ‘adaptation’ is correlated with environment change and has a number of
different meanings. The biologists take into account measures of well-being at the
individual level or species level or group level, since there are some ready measures
of human well-being, like increases in life expectancy, nutrition and health, and
perhaps in general flexibility and responsiveness; the reduction in vulnerability to
external fluctuations might also seem a sign of adaptation. A contrarian term is
non-adaptation.
The questions which may be raised include: How have people’s interactions with
the environment in the past led to environmental degradation or not? Whether
these interactions resulted in (regional) climate change or not? How have people
responded when climate change occurred? Whether their responses solved the
problem or have their cultures collapsed? There are examples failures of human
cultures in the past relative to their environmental contexts leading to their either
extinction or migrations. For examples, Maya Civilization of South America is one
of the major civilizations of the world. It represents one of most important cases of
the autonomous development of civilization, since they arose in the New World,
with no contact with the early civilizations in Africa, Asia and Europe. The Maya
societies grew in scale and complexity. Agriculture in this area has relied heavily
on rainfed agriculture of maize and beans. The Maya civilizations developed in
areas of intensive agriculture despite the relative scarcity of domesticated animals,
since dogs and turkeys were the only domesticated animals. During the Pre-Classical
(1500 B.C. and earlier) and Classical periods (from 250 to 900 A.D.), they used land
more intensively, with some practices of intensive agriculture and water storage,
and reduced the forest cover significantly to increase the availability of agricultural
land (see Orlove, 2005 for details). Similarly, there is case of collapse of Indus Valley
Chalcolithic Civilizations that flourished about 3000-2500 B.C. in the Northwest of
the Indian subcontinent. All such centres of civilization faced climatic fluctuations
that threatened the food production systems on which they rested. The available
options were either to adapt or to modify the environment or migrations in the
event of failure of the first two options or to perish.
There are different ecological wisdoms today, in the sense of western science,
indigenous science, and about the different cultural responses to climate change.
The globalization of the world economies has made a collective response to climate
change a difficult preposition to achieve. There are issues regarding consumption
of energy by different categories of societies as well nations as to how much energy
per capita per person is used in the different groups, how they came to do so based
on their cultural background and how their culture has shaped their perception of
climate change. Canada and the States (about 5% of the worlds population), use
more than double the energy per capita of Europeans, more than seven times that
of Latin Americans, ten times that of Asians, and twenty times that of Africans.
ECOLOGY AND BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

The major subfields of biological anthropology, namely human variation,
primatology, human osteology and paleoanthropology have ecology as a major
component. Ecology provided intellectual model for interpreting genetic
polymorphisms as adaptations to the local environments. In 1950s, new phase of
biological anthropology emerged by shifting its focus from the typological approach
to the study and understand the process and mechanism of human variations and
evolution. In this new approach, the models of the science of ecology and population
and evolutionary genetics were used. Biological human ecology focuses on how
the natural and cultural environment affected the biological characteristics of a
given population.
Climate and Human Biological Adaptations
Under out of Africa theory of evolutions, humans evolved in Africa and they spread
over the rest of the world through demic diffusion. As a result, migrant humans
faced a number of climatic and other stressors in their new ecological settings.
Human populations are now scattered over at various latitudes and longitudes.
Theoretically, a chronic stress would require a biological response for adaptation
to improve homeostatic response to that stress. A number of questions can be raised
while discussing adaptive responses. For example, how long can homeostatic
responses are sustained by humans? When during the lifecycle do adaptations
occur? What are the tolerated limits of normal population variations in an
ecosystem? How much phenotypic change can occur without a change in genotypic
frequencies? How fast can allele and genotypic frequencies change? A lot of work
has been done in finding answers to these questions. Human responses to the
stressors include both biological and cultural adaptive responses.
Thermal (temperature) stress is one of the most important constraints to which
humans have had to adapt to the changing climatic conditions or depending upon
their geographical location. Under conditions of heat stress, selection favours
mechanisms for reducing metabolic heat production, whereas in cold environments
increased heat production is favoured. Coon (1950) developed the environmental
adaptation paradigm to explain geographical variations in body morphology to
various climate extremes. These concepts were further developed by Schreider
(1951), Roberts (1952), Weiner (1954), Newmann (1956) and Baker (1958). The first
systematic evaluation of the link between energy metabolism and environmental
temperature in human populations was presented by Roberts (1952, 1978). He noted
a strong negative correlation between basal metabolic rates (BMR) and mean annual
temperature, suggesting that adaptation to regional climatic stressors plays an
important role in explaining human variation in metabolic heat production.
Research over the years has shown that arctic populations have higher metabolic
rates as a response to cold and marginal climate (see Leonard, 2005 for references
and details).
The studies on human biological adaptation to higher altitude were pioneered by
Baker in 1960s (Baker, 1969). The high-altitude offers natural experimental setting
for investigating the evolutionary and other changes that occurred during the course
of adaptation as well as those ongoing processes. At high-altitude, hypoxia is a
severe physiological stress caused by lowered barometric pressure. Evidence has
accumulated over the years demonstrating that the indigenous inhabitants of the
Andean and Tibetan Plateaus differ quantitatively in some respiratory, circulatory,
and hematological traits that are thought to offset the stress of high-altitude hypoxia
(Baell, 2001). Both Andean and Tibetan high-altitude natives have descended from
sea-level ancestors, and thus both initially encountered chronic, lifelong high-
altitude hypoxia with the same homeostatic toolbox that evolved at sea level for
responding to brief and transient hypoxia. Tibetans have been living at an altitude
of 13000, breathing air having 40% less oxygen than at sea level and yet they hardly
suffer from mountain sickness. It has been argued that the Tibetans are better
adapted than many high altitude populations because adaptation is time dependent
and Tibetans have been at altitude for about 25,000 years or possibly upwards of
50,000 years for the length of habitation of the Tibetan Plateau (Niermeyer et al.,
1995; Moore et al., 1998). It has been further argued that Andean and Tibetan
highlanders have adapted differently as a result of different microevolutionary
processes in the two continents (Beall, 2000).
Ecological Genetics
For studying human variations, human eecological genetics deals with the study
of genetics in the context of the interactions among humans and between the humans
and their environment. It also studies evolutionary aspects from the genetic
standpoint. The general field of ecological genetics was founded by a legendary
ecologist and geneticist E. B. Ford, whose book, published in 1964, with the similar
title of Ecological Genetics is well known.
Within humans too, there is balancing mechanisms under the control of body
homeostasis processes that maintains a balance, i.e. homeostasis, by countering
environmental stressors acting on humans. Humans vary in their susceptibility to
disease which besides other factors is also determined by genetic factors. One may
suffer from lung diseases like lung cancer due to exposure to environmental
pollution or occupational hazards like smoke, asbestos etc. But there are humans
who may not be smokers or purposefully never exposed themselves to known
carcinogens and they still get lung cancer. Human ecologists may study the social
reason for prevalent smoking habit. They may also study the reason that society
has allowed known carcinogens such as lead, to remain in the environment.
Human genetic diversity is linked with health outcomes in many ways. Balanced
genetic polymorphism system is a classic example, identifying genetic variation in
health in an environment where malaria is endemic. There are many examples of
ecologically sensitive genetic adaptations in humans, e.g. sickle cell gene and Duffy
negative blood group, in environments where Malaria was endemic; lactase
persistence gene among pastoralists and agriculturists. Lactase persistence is the
production, after infancy/babyhood, of the enzyme lactase, which breaks down
the milk sugar lactose into glucose and galactose so that it can be further processed
in the intestines (see Sharma, 2010).
Environment Change and Human Evolution

The tropics are called as the heat engine that drives global circulation, as most
solar energy received at the top of the atmosphere strikes the tropical latitudes.
Evolutionary, the seat of human evolution and first hominins is Africa under out
of Africa theory. What lead to migration is an important anthropological question.
The climate of tropical Africa is known to be dominated by variability in effective
moisture, rather than temperature as in higher latitudes, and is driven by the
circulation of the African monsoon and the seasonal migration of the Intertropical
Convergence Zone (Scholz et al., 2007). In West Africa, the monsoon transfers
moisture to the continental interior from the equatorial Atlantic, whereas East
African moisture is obtained mainly from the Indian Ocean (Goddard and Graham,
1999). Orbital precession has induced 19- to 23-thousand-year (kyr) fluctuations in
insolation at the top of the atmosphere, and has prompted changes in tropical
African climate during the Pleistocene (Rossignol-Strick, 1985; deMenocal; 1999;
Leuschner and Sirocko, 2003). Scholz et al. (2007) are of the opinion that a series of
megadroughts occurred in the region around 135,000 to 75,000 years ago and they
caused extreme drying of Rift Valley Lakes. During the most severe drought periods,
Lake Malawi’s water volume was reduced by at least 95 per cent while water levels
fell to below 15 per cent current levels. Other African lakes dried out completely
and populations of African plant and animal populations fluctuated dramatically.
According to them, the cores show that around 70,000 years ago, the climate
stabilized and became much wetter, evidently creating conditions favorable for
human populations, which expanded and eventually spread out across the globe.
The authors are of the opinion that these climate changes may have stimulated the
expansion and migrations of early modern human populations.
The drought conditions and human migration dates coincide with the marked
expansion of early modern human populations, suggested from studies of modern
mtDNA inherent in maternal lineages (Forster 2004) and Y-chromosome analyses
(Templeton, 2002). Although still controversial, several early studies of mtDNA
deduced that modern human ancestry is traceable to a single individual who lived
in South or East Africa before 130 kyr ago (Cann et al., 1987). Similar studies
demonstrate the importance of the founder effect, in that all modern-day non-
Africans are descended from a small group of individuals who departed northeast
Africa after the early Late Pleistocene (Forster, 2004). Coincident with the expansion
of the African lineages is the expansion of early modern human populations that
apparently experienced orders-of-magnitude increases by about 50 kyr ago
(Releford, 1998). Before 70 kyr ago, the tropical lake data sets indicate a period of
heightened climate variability, when tropical refugia expanded and collapsed
repeatedly. Whether a series of climatic crises before 70 kyr ago produced a true
human population bottleneck is still uncertain (Stringer, 2002). The question arises
as to whether the observed change to a more hospitable climate after 70 kyr ago,
the dramatic late-Pleistocene population expansion, and the only successful early-
modern human African exodus are mere coincidence.
It is well known that demic diffusion of human populations from Africa saw
demographic expansion as well as geographic expansion. Certain cases of
punctuated evolution may result from this demographic growth from an initially
small sized population into a large area (Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza, 1984).
According to the standard model of human evolution (Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman,
2003), this is the way in which modern humans radiated from an initially small
population in east Africa to the whole world over the last 50,000 years. This
conclusion has been supported by archeology (Klein, 1999), by the genealogies
reconstructed with polymorphisms of the nonrecombining portion of the Y
chromosome (NRY) (Underhill et al., 2001), by a similar analysis of mitochondrial
DNA (mtDNA) data (Mishmar et al., 2003), and by examination of autosomal
microsatellites (Zhivotovsky, et al., 2003).
Food and Nutritional Anthropology

Following dispersal of Homo sapiens to different parts of the world, they adapted
to their new environments. Their dietary habits also underwent change due to
geographical conditions and local availability of food resources. Consequently,
every human society acquired some uniqueness with regard to its food habits,
processing and cooking of foods. Since food is essential for human survival and
body functioning, it enjoys a supreme importance in human lives. Food touches
them in numerous ways. The study of food and eating has a long history in
anthropology as ecological variation in food availability has been an important
stressor to humans and continues to shape the biology of traditional human
populations (see De Garine and Harrison, 1998).
Depending upon their ecosystems in which human populations live, they have
developed their own cooking styles and food processing and preparation techniques.
Many religions follow strict dietary laws. Class distinctions in some societies are
determined by what foods are put on the table. Food has influenced technology, too.
The water wheel, developed for the milling of grain, became a primary tool during
the Industrial Revolution. In the prehistoric world, man was a successful predator,
and was able to cook, to cultivate plants, and to tame animals. By Holocene, that is
10,000-12,000 years ago, the climate changed on earth, the glaciers melting and
retreating provided conditions for fast-growing plants to take hold. Settlements began
to appear around the crops, so that humans would be ready and available for harvest.
The grain that was grown attracted herbivorous animals, and sheep and goats became
domesticated. It followed, then, that milk became a part of the human diet.
Nutrition has been variously defined. It is through various biochemical networks
and pathways that food is digested. The various enzymes determined by genes
result in metabolizing food to obtain optimal nutrition that provides metabolic
support for the development of functions. Nutritional anthropology examines
ecological, cultural and biological processes through the lenses of food and its
constituent nutrients. There are interpopulational variations in nutrition and
metabolism. The subject is concerned with questions like how resources become
culturally defined and made into foods and how food and nutrition come to have
biological, ecological, and sociopolitical consequences. The main questions that we
address concern eating patterns and behaviors; the effect of various nutrients on
health and disease; what are the health consequences of the globalization of diets?
What is the health status of the community with reference diet and nutrition? How
undernutrition does persist along with a growing epidemic of overnutrition
(obesity) within a community? What determines the diet of a community? In other
words, here we examine food and nutrition with the perspectives of the
interrelationships among ecology, human biology and society.
Many bio-social models have been built to explain food processing and human
dietary diversity. Maize processing by using alkali products by Amerindian
populations is an example of lock-and-key biocultural interaction whereby
increasing the concentration of niacin to increase the nutritional quality (see Katz
et al., 1975). Similar is the story for potato processing and processing of many other
food articles. A number of biocultural models have been given to explain
interpopulational variation in the prevalence of lactase intolerance, hypertension,
non-insulin-dependent diabetes and obesity.
Human growth is the result of many physiological pathways and is the outcome of
many processes that can be deranged by environmental influences, including
pollutants. The methodology for this is simple and clear without any intervention
studies. Human growth is considered ecosensitive (Johnston, 1995; Johnston and
Low, 1995), and Tanner has promoted the idea that patterns of growth can be studied
to determine where conditions of society are not meeting basic biological needs of
children (Tanner, 1978, 1986).
Nutrigenomics
Nutrigenomics is the study how diet constituents interact with genes, and their
products, to alter phenotype. It includes how genes and their products metabolise
these constituents into nutrients, antinutrients, and bioactive compounds. Genomes
evolve in response to many types of environmental stimuli, including nutrition.
Therefore, the expression of genetic information can be dependent on, and regulated
by, nutrients, micronutrients, and phytochemicals that are found in food. The diets
which are unbalanced alter gene–nutrient interactions, thus increasing the risk of
developing chronic diseases. Differences in allele frequencies and DNA haplotype
blocks within and between human subpopulations, along with the chemical
complexity of food, make the study of nutrient–gene interactions highly complex
(see Kaput et al., 2005). A lot of work is being done in this field with anthropological
applications.
Human Energetics
As all human activity, voluntary or involuntary, involves energy expenditure, the
conversion of food into body, energy is the fundamentals of life. Human Energetics
in biological anthropology considers various ways in which measurements of energy
intake, expenditure and balance have been used to study human populations by
biological anthropologists and human biologists. The concept of adaptation and
adaptability, placed in an ecological context by considering such processes in
traditional subsistence economies in the developing world is central to this approach
(Ulijasjak, 1995).
Energetics and Human Evolution

Since early 1900s, researchers have studied the determinants of variation in energy
requirements of various mammalian species. The studies have shown that an animal’s
basal metabolic rate (BMR) has been strongly determined by body size, though this
relationship is not linear. Homo ergaster (the African Homo erectus) has been in existence
between 1.9 and 1.5 Ma. Homo ergaster is distinguished from earlier possible members
of the genus Homo such as H. habilis (2.3–1.6 Ma) or H. rudolfensis (2.4–1.8 Ma) by a
complex of skeletal and dental features reflecting a lifestyle that was more similar to
that of modern humans as compared with earlier and contemporaneous hominins.
These skeletal and dental features include a larger body mass, more human-like body
proportions, relatively long legs, obligate bipedalism coupled with a limited facility
for climbing, relatively small teeth and jaws suggesting major dietary change, and a
tendency towards an extended period of growth and development (Wood and
Collard, 1999; Aiello and Well, 2002). Aiello and Well (2002) have reviewed the
energetic correlates of the emergence of the genus Homo and suggest that there were
three major changes in maintenance energy requirements: First, there was an absolute
increase in energy requirements due to greater body size; Second, there was a shift
in the relative requirements of the different organs, with increased energy diverted
to brain metabolism at the expense of gut tissue, possibly mediated by changes in the
proportion of weight comprised of fat; Third, there was a slower rate of childhood
growth, offset by higher growth costs during infancy and adolescence.
Womb Ecology and its Effects on Child

Intrauterine environment has varied and long-term effect on the child’s physical
growth, development of body and mind and varied susceptibility to diseases.
Hundreds of studies detecting correlations between states of health in adulthood,
adolescence or childhood and situations when the mother was pregnant have been
done. The conventional ways of separating and contrasting genetic and
environmental factors in the genesis of states of health, behaviours, and personality
traits are obsolete. It has been reported that the intrauterine environment may
influence the development of obesity. Salsberry and Reagan (2010) have identified
intrauterine factors as having significant long-term effects on BMI and may be a
critical source of non-shared environmental influence.
Researchers who wanted to explore the long-term effects of human milk pollution,
which is easily detected and therefore well-documented, provided the first warnings
regarding neurological and intellectual development (Jacobson and Jacobson, 1996;
Patandin et al., 1999). Studies of tooth development also implicated the significance
of intrauterine pollution ((Alaluusua et al., 1999). Power and Jefferis (2002) have
found there is a long-term effect of intrauterine environment on adiposity, possibly
through fetal nutrition, although other mechanisms should be investigated in future
studies of obesity. They argued that an elevated risk of obesity among the offspring
of smokers was not accounted for by other known influences.
URBAN ECOLOGY
From sociological perspective, Wirth (1938) characterized cities as large dense
communities comprising socially heterogeneous individuals having anonymity and
impersonal relations. Recent findings indicate that more pronounced community
heterogeneity is associated with lower levels of social capital (Coffe 2009). The
Chicago School of Urban Ecology examined the parallels between natural and social
systems. It also incorporated biological approach to explore the notion of an
ecological niche, or “natural area”, emphasizing that competition for space
leads to cooperative relations. Park et al. (1925), belonging of this school,
introduced ecology into sociology. He used ecological concept of o competition,
dominance, invasion, succession to explore human organization and behaviour.
Cities are looked as ecosystems with trophic organization with heavy inflow of
materials and energy.
Anthropologists from Horace Miner (1953) to Aidan Southall (1998) have drawn
attention of the researcher undertaking urban studies to pay attention to the full
range of the urban experience, instead of concentrating on and generalizing from
Western cities (Miner, 1953; Southall, 1998). Cities have always been key sites for
transcultural connections such as long-distance trade and the transmission of
innovations. Rural-to-urban migrations are one of the dominant trends in human
populations over the last century. It has been estimated that cities occupy about
4% of the world’s terrestrial surface, yet they are home to almost half the global
population. They consume about three-fourth of the world’s natural resources,
and generate similar magnitude of the anthropogenic pollution and wastes. The
UN estimates that virtually all net global population and economic growth over
the next 30 years will occur in cities, leading to a doubling of current populations.
This growth will require unprecedented investment in new infrastructure and create
undreamed of challenges for political and social institutions due the problems
related with the urbanization regarding management of solid waste, environment
sustainability and pollution, crime, health problems and many more factors. Smart
and Smart (2003) while suggesting that cities have long been influenced by global
forces, have conclude that the roles of cities in the global system have changed
considerably as a result of the time-space compression made possible by new
transportation, communication, and organizational technologies.
ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION
Due to massive population size and input of energy, large amount of solid and
other waste productions are generated thus leading to environmental pollution.
Pollution can be defined in various ways. It may be defined as a material or a form
of energy that is unwanted, usually because it is believed to be detrimental to health
and well-being of living organisms. Pollution can be made by human activity
(anthropogenic) and by natural forces as well. Human exposure to pollution is
said to be more intense now than at any other time in human existence. How to
study effects of pollution on human physiology and populations is difficult question
because it is unethical to conduct any experimental studies on humans, animal
models are not exact duplicates of human responses, and the variety of effects that
could be studied is large. The study of human growth and development (see Schell
et al., 2006), physiology and DNA damage provides a good indication of the
harmfulness of pollutants. Due to industrial and indiscriminate use of chemicals in
daily life result in increasing sensitivities of the people to these. Multiple chemical
sensitivity (MCS) results from prolonged exposure of a person to any of a wide
range of chemicals. As a result of exposure, people with MCS develop sensitivity
and have reactions to the chemicals even at levels most people can tolerate. Other
names for this condition are “environmental illness” and “sick building syndrome.”
Air Pollution
Due to rapid urbanization, industrialization and mechanization has led to air
pollution with the byproducts of combustion from industry, power generation,
and transportation, as well as the manufacture and use of chemicals. Air pollutants
are a heterogeneous group of gases and particles that can remain airborne for long
periods of time. Common air pollutants are nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, ozone
(O 3), carbon monoxide (CO), and particulate matter (PM). In sufficient
concentrations, these gases and particles are injurious to human health, for example
these result in burning of eyes and throat, difficulty breathing in a shorter run and
in the longer term these can lead to cancer and long-term damage to the immune,
neurological, reproductive, and respiratory systems (Waldbott, 1978). Air pollution
is especially problematic in urban areas. In 1999, of the six common pollutants
used by the EPA to monitor national air quality, levels of CO, NO2, SO2, and PM10
were higher in urban areas (U.S. Environ. Prot. Agency 2001). Air pollution is a
significant risk factor for all-age, all-cause mortality in urban areas (Brunekreef
and Holgate, 2002) and cardiovascular diseases (Cascio et al. 2010, He et al. 2010).
Specific pollutants such as lead and persistent organic pollutants (POPs) have been
associated with decreases in measures of sperm quality, changes in the character
of menses, increased obesity and diabetes, and altered rates of sexual maturation,
as well as other effects, but the evidence is far from homogeneous (see Schellet al.,
2010).
Land Pollution
The excessive use of agricultural pesticides over the years ever since the Green
Revolution that took off in various countries, in India it took of in the 1960-1970s. It
has been discovered since this period that pesticides have been getting into the
groundwater and that many people have been getting poisoned by their own crops
and have been contracting a variety of diseases. There are many reports linking
various diseases included cancers, allergies and degenerative, the prevalence of
which is increasing in the state of Punjab, known as the food bawl of India. Studies
have been done in the Southern Malwa region of Punjab. Hair samples of the
neurologically disturbed children have been found to have high level of uranium
in 80% cases. There are evidences of presence of high levels of heavy metals in the
water samples and this is attributed to high use of chemicals to support State’s
green revolution.
Energy Related Pollutants
Energy such as light, radiation, and noise can be pollutants if they occur at unwanted
times, places, or levels. Noise is defined as unwanted sound and is a physiological
stressor, as seen by classical laboratory experiments on stress (Kryter, 1985). Gadgets
emitting electromagnetic radiation are increasing at a tremendous speed and
likewise there are many reports studying their effects on human biology. Though
there are a large number of contradictory reports which confuse the common man,
but there are certain facts which cannot be argued with. Abdel-Rassoul et al., (2006)
have found that inhabitants living near mobile phone base stations are at risk for
developing neuropsychiatric problems and some changes in the performance of
neurobehavioral functions either by facilitation or inhibition. Despite variations in
the design, size and quality of the various studies done on the effects of mobile
base-stations on health of the people, Khurana et al. (2010) have found consistency
in reporting increased prevalence of adverse neurobehavioral symptoms or cancer
in populations living at distances < 500 meters from base stations in 80% of the
available studies. Besides thermal effects on the human body, non-thermal effects
of electromagnetic radiation have been observed and are associated with brain
tumors, acoustic neuroma, lymphomas, decrease in immune function, sleep
disorders, anxiety disorders, autism, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease,
cataracts, hypothyroidism, diabetes, malignant melanoma , testicular cancer,
heart attacks and strokes in young people. Children are reported to be more
vulnerable to radio frequency radiation emissions as their skulls are thinner, their
nervous system still developing and myelin sheath is yet not developed, and tests
have shown that they absorb more radiation than adults (see Sages and Carpenter,
2009).
Environment Health Promotion

Due to alarming situation created by various pollutants affecting the health of
communities, an independent area of specialization environmental health
promotion has been promoted. This has been defined as “any planned process
employing comprehensive health promotion approaches to assess, correct, control,
and prevent those factors in the environment that can potentially harm the health
and quality of life of present and future generations” (Howze et al., 2004). This
field has gained new prominence as awareness of environmental stressors
and exposures increased in communities across the country and the world
(Pew Environmental Health Commission, 2001; National Center for
Environmental Health Report, 2003). Due to increased concerns and awareness
among communities about their exposure to environmental hazards calls for
action to diminish these exposures have increased. Health promotion and health
education theories and conceptual models can be extremely useful in guiding
interventions that require behavior changes to reduce exposure to environmental
hazards.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
The explosion of interest in environmental issues particularly during the last three
decades has resulted in the formation of greater bonding between natural and social
sciences on this domain of environmental anthropology; though anthropology has
always been an environmental science from the very beginning since it has
integrating biology and cultural studies. Environmental anthropology focuses in
particular on anthropology of environmentalism. The difference is on the focus as
that of the new human ecology where a diverse range of perspectives have
contributed beyond the limiting balance of nature-man interactions into a more
pluralist stance on environmental issues. In usual man-nature interaction studies
under human ecology, the focus was on biological and cultural adaptations. These
studies explored environmental changes across space and time and their effects on
human populations. Environment is both product and setting for human
interactions. The critics make use of metaphors of balance, regulation and harmony
in framing and discussing the concerns of environmental protection and basic
human needs. This change has been accompanied by activism and the use of new
communication and biological technologies. Anthropology as a discipline has
specific contributions to make to the wider environmental research theme. The
scope of the environmental anthropology should not be restricted to environmental
activism only, but should inter alia include the relationship between human groups
and their respective environments as already described in the above text.
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ENVIRONMENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY DOMAIN IS

Krishan Sharma, Department of Anthropology, Panjab University, Chandigarh-160014

New Ecosystem Ecology

The Geographic Mosaic Theory

Anthropological Evolutionary Ecology

Forest Conservation and Development

Culture and Biodiversity Conservation: Forests as Sacred Groves

Ethnic Variation in Environmental Belief

Medical-Ecological Approach: Anthropology in Public Health

Parasitic Prevalence and Cognitive Ability

Overpopulation and Ethical Issues

CLIMATE CHANGE AND ANTHROPOLOGY

Adaptation and Human Cultures: Issues and Concerns

ECOLOGY AND BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Environment Change and Human Evolution

Food and Nutritional Anthropology

Energetics and Human Evolution

Womb Ecology and its Effects on Child

Environment Health Promotion

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