Nature and the Orient: The Environmental History of South and Southeast Asia
Experts in history, history of science, archaeology, geography, and environmental studies examine the history of the region.
Experts in history, history of science, archaeology, geography, and environmental studies examine the history of the region.
The modernization, the declinist, and the inclinist paradigms of the late twentieth century, despite their differences, all tended to frame environmental change in a unilinear Nature-to-Culture fashion, which in turn entailed homogenizing the agency, process, and outcome of environmental change. This article examines the characteristics of each paradigm, as well as some of the paradoxes that have arisen in their wake. Finally, it looks to alternative approaches.
This study examines the role of colonial foresters in introducing new socioeconomic arrangements that resulted in increased poverty among the Tonga, Shona, and Ndebele communities in the Gwai Forest Reserve of North-Western Matabeleland, Zimbabwe.
For one month, we are able to follow an assistant forester on his daily rounds about the province of Capiz on Panay Island, as the forest was transformed from a resource and a refuge into an arena where state management practices and indigenous customary rights competed alongside those who saw trees as nothing more than a commercial enterprise.
Do we owe the world-famous Kruger National Park to the triumph of “good” conservationists over the forces of “evil” commercial exploitation? Environmental historian Jane Carruthers investigates.
The article explores the opposing practices and philosophies between the Sámi people and state policymakers in northern Norway in terms of the human-environment relationship with a particular focus on language translation issues.