ABSTRACT
Environmental Anthropology is the general designation for the anthropological investigation of human–environment relationships. This chapter begins with a brief discussion about the evolution of terminology as applied to Environmental Anthropology and fields of specialization within it. It then highlights how different specialties developed – one dominated by an ecosystem-oriented approach, one by a political-economy-oriented approach, one by a historical landscape approach, and another by a symbolic-oriented approach. The chapter discusses how these approaches developed with different degrees of overlap into the various specialties that comprise contemporary Environmental Anthropology. It presents an overview of the history of Cultural Ecology, Ecological Anthropology, Political Ecology, Symbolic Ecology, Historical Ecology, and Ethnobiology. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the continuous challenge to overcome intellectual differences among these specialties, moving the discipline towards a new synthesis commensurable with the complexity of human–environment interactions in a world of accelerated and interconnected changes.
