Cultures of Habitat

Cultures of Habitat PDF Author: Gary Paul Nabhan
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1887178961
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A collection of essays explores the impact of indigenous cultures with stable communities on the conservation of biological diversity in natural habitats. Ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan provides 26 essays that go beyond mere observations of wildlife but offer theories of links between cultural and biological diversity. He champions a shift away from the preservation efforts of the mainstream environmental movement, rejecting the separateness of ecological preserves that exclude humans. Nabhan argues that biodviersity thrives best in the presence of an involved, participatory culture, and his argument is bolstered by research and years of field experiecne.

Cultures of Habitat

Cultures of Habitat PDF Author: Gary Paul Nabhan
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1887178961
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
A collection of essays explores the impact of indigenous cultures with stable communities on the conservation of biological diversity in natural habitats. Ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan provides 26 essays that go beyond mere observations of wildlife but offer theories of links between cultural and biological diversity. He champions a shift away from the preservation efforts of the mainstream environmental movement, rejecting the separateness of ecological preserves that exclude humans. Nabhan argues that biodviersity thrives best in the presence of an involved, participatory culture, and his argument is bolstered by research and years of field experiecne.

Cultures of Habitat

Cultures of Habitat PDF Author: Gary Paul Nabhan
Publisher: Counterpoint LLC
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Twenty-four essays explore the deep and complex connections between nature and people. Concentrating on cultures of habitat--human communities with long histories of interacting with one particular kind of terrain and its wildlife--the author considers such topics as the correlation between upheavals in human communities and the incidence of endangered species, the perils of monoculture in the Tequila fields of Mexico, and the nature of aggression and the struggle for limited resources. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Nature by Design

Nature by Design PDF Author: Eric Higgs
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262582261
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Ecological restoration is the process of repairing human damage to ecosystems. It involves reintroducing missing plants and animals, rebuilding soils, eliminating hazardous substances, ripping up roads, and returning natural processes such as fire and flooding to places that thrive on their regular occurrence. Thousands of restoration projects take place in North America every year. In Nature by Design, Eric Higgs argues that profound philosophical and cultural shifts accompany these projects. He explores the ethical and philosophical bases of restoration and the question of what constitutes good ecological restoration. Higgs explains how and why the restoration movement came about, where it fits into the array of approaches to human relationships with the land, and how it might be used to secure a sustainable future. Some environmental philosophers and activists worry that restoration will dilute preservation and conservation efforts and lead to an even deeper technological attitude toward nature. They ask whether even well-conceived restoration projects are in fact just expressions of human will. Higgs prefaces his responses to such concerns by distinguishing among several types of ecological restoration. He also describes a growing gulf between professionals and amateurs. Higgs finds much merit in criticism about technological restoration projects, which can cause more damage than they undo. These projects often ignore the fact that changing one thing in a complex system can change the whole system. For restoration projects to be successful, Higgs argues, people at the community level must be engaged. These focal restorations bring communities together, helping volunteers develop a dedication to place and encouraging democracy.

The Paradise of God

The Paradise of God PDF Author: Norman Wirzba
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198035721
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." (Gen. 1:26) It has become a commonplace that Biblical religion bears a heavy share of responsibility for our destruction of the environment, and this passage from the King James version of the Bible exemplifies what is generally believed to be the Biblical attitude toward the earth. In this provocative book, however, Norman Wirzba argues that the doctrine of creation, when understood as a statement about the moral and spiritual meaning of the world, actually holds the key to a true understanding of our place in the environment and our responsibility toward it. Wirzba contends that an adequate response to environmental destruction depends on a new formulation of ourselves as part of a created whole, rather than as autonomous, unencumbered individuals. Drawing on the work of biblical scholars, ecologists, agrarians, philosophers, theologians, and cultural critics, Wirzba develops a comprehensive worldview that grows out of the idea that the world is God's creation. While the text of Genesis has historically encouraged a vision of persons as masters of creation, a more theologically and ecologically sensitive rendering, he says, would be to say that we are servants of creation. Our present culture, Wirzba believes, results from a denial of creation that has caused modern problems as diverse as rootlessness, individualism, careerism, boredom, and consumerism. The recovery of the meaning of creation can lead to a renewed sense of human identity and vocation, and happier, more peaceful lives. He concludes by offering practical advice for individuals who wish to begin the work of transformation and renewal. Moving beyond the usual political debates, The Paradise of God presents a compelling vision of a new religious environmentalism.

Food in the USA

Food in the USA PDF Author: Carole Counihan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135323593
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description
From Thanksgiving to fast food to the Passover seder, Food in the USA brings together the essential readings on these topics and is the only substantial collection of essays on food and culture in the United States. Essay topics include the globalization of U.S. food; the dangers of the meatpacking industry; the rise of Italian-American food; the meaning of Soul food; the anorexia epidemic; the omnipotence of Coca-Cola; and the invention of Thanksgiving. Together, the collection provides a fascinating look at how and why we Americans are what we eat.

Food Between the Country and the City

Food Between the Country and the City PDF Author: Nuno Domingos
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 0857857045
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
At a time when the relationship between 'the country' and 'the city' is in flux worldwide, the value and meanings of food associated with both places continue to be debated. Building upon the foundation of Raymond Williams' classic work, The Country and the City, this volume examines how conceptions of the country and the city invoked in relation to food not only reflect their changing relationship but have also been used to alter the very dynamics through which countryside and cities, and the food grown and eaten within them, are produced and sustained. Leading scholars in the study of food offer ethnographic studies of peasant homesteads, family farms, community gardens, state food industries, transnational supermarkets, planning offices, tourist boards, and government ministries in locales across the globe. This fascinating collection provides vital new insight into the contested dynamics of food and will be key reading for upper-level students and scholars of food studies, anthropology, history and geography.

Ecology and the Architectural Imagination

Ecology and the Architectural Imagination PDF Author: Brook Muller
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317812085
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
By including ecological concerns in the design process from the outset, architecture can enhance life. Author Brook Muller understands how a designer’s predispositions and poetic judgement in dealing with complex and dynamic ecological systems impact the "greenness" of built outcomes. Ecology and the Architectural Imagination offers a series of speculations on architectural possibility when ecology is embedded from conceptual phases onward, how notions of function and structure of ecosystems can inspire ideas of architectural space making and order, and how the architect’s role and contribution can shift through this engagement. As an ecological architect working in increasingly dense urban environments, you can create diverse spaces of inhabitation and connect project scale living systems with those at the neighborhood and region scales. Equipped with ecological literacy, critical thinking and collaboration skills, you are empowered to play important roles in the remaking of our cities.

The Poetics of Fire

The Poetics of Fire PDF Author: Victor M. Valle
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 082636554X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
In The Poetics of Fire, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and Chicano author Victor M. Valle posits the chile as a metaphor for understanding the shared cultural histories of ChicanX and LatinX peoples from preconquest Mesoamerica to twentieth-century New Mexico. Valle uses the chile as a decolonizing lens through which to analyze preconquest Mesoamerican cosmology, early European exploration, and the forced conversion of Native peoples to Catholicism as well as European and Mesoamerican perspectives on food and place. Assembling a rich collection of source material, Valle highlights the fiery fruit's overarching importance as evidenced by the ubiquity of references to the plant over several centuries in literature, art, official documents, and more to offer a new eco-aesthetic reading--a reframing of culinary history from a pluralistic, non-Western perspective.

Wings in the Desert

Wings in the Desert PDF Author: Amadeo M. Rea
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816548455
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
There is a common but often unspoken arrogance on the part of outside observers that folk science and traditional knowledge—the type developed by Native communities and tribal groups—is inferior to the “formal science” practiced by Westerners. In this lucidly written and humanistic account of the O’odham tribes of Arizona and Northwest Mexico, ethnobiologist Amadeo M. Rea exposes the limitations of this assumption by exploring the rich ornithology that these tribes have generated about the birds that are native to their region. He shows how these peoples’ observational knowledge provides insights into the behaviors, mating habits, migratory patterns, and distribution of local bird species, and he uncovers the various ways that this knowledge is incorporated into the communities’ traditions and esoteric belief systems. Drawing on more than four decades of field and textual research along with hundreds of interviews with tribe members, Rea identifies how birds are incorporated, both symbolically and practically, into Piman legends, songs, art, religion, and ceremonies. Through highly detailed descriptions and accounts loaded with Native voice, this book is the definitive study of folk ornithology. It also provides valuable data for scholars of linguistics and North American Native studies, and it makes a significant contribution to our understanding of how humans make sense of their world. It will be of interest to historians of science, anthropologists, and scholars of indigenous cultures and folk taxonomy.

Cross-pollinations

Cross-pollinations PDF Author: Gary Paul Nabhan
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
ISBN: 9781571312709
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 130

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Book Description
A pioneering ethnobotanist, Gary Paul Nabhan credits the arts with sparking unlikely scientific breakthroughs and believes that such "cross-pollination" engenders new forms of expression that are essential to discovery. In this highly readable book, he tells four stories to illustrate this idea. In the first, coping with color blindness in art class leads to his career as a scientist; in the second, ancient American Indian songs, when translated, reveal an understanding of plants and animals that rivals modern research; in the third, a poem inspires an approach to diabetes using desert plants; and in the fourth, a coalition of scientists and artists creates the Ironwood Forest National Monument in the Sonoran Desert.