ABSTRACT
However it may be used, the term ‘environment’ refers both to things and to relations (between humans and biophysical factors). Everything which merits the term ‘anthropology’ must in some sense also be environmental anthropology and avoid the dangers of socio-centrism or the circularity of †cultural determinism. Attempts to interpret culture in purely cultural terms are like attempts to interpret *religion in purely theological terms: they are circular and noncontextual, and therefore don’t constitute interpretations at all.
