Environmental Anthropology Glossary

The process by which human communities adjust their practices, institutions, and technologies in response to environmental conditions and changes.

An ecological approach to agriculture that integrates traditional knowledge and biodiversity to create sustainable food production systems.

A proposed geological epoch defined by the dominant influence of human activities on Earth's climate and ecosystems.

The interrelationship between biological diversity and cultural and linguistic diversity in a given region.

A framework addressing the disproportionate impacts of climate change on communities least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions.

Natural resources shared by a group that are rivalrous and difficult to exclude others from using, such as fisheries and forests.

An approach examining how environmental factors influence cultural adaptations and social organization.

Marvin Harris's theoretical framework arguing that material conditions are the primary drivers of cultural systems.

A precursor to environmental anthropology focused on how human populations function within ecosystems as biological organisms.

The environmental transformation of colonized regions through the introduction of Old World species by European colonizers.

The benefits humans derive from ecosystems, including provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services.

The discredited theory that the physical environment directly determines cultural traits and social development.

A movement and framework addressing the disproportionate environmental burdens borne by marginalized communities.

The study of the relationships between peoples and plants, including how cultures use, manage, and classify plant species.

The cross-cultural study of how different peoples perceive, classify, and interact with their natural environments.

The right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture systems using ecologically sustainable methods.

A top-down conservation model that creates protected areas by excluding local and Indigenous communities.

An ethnographic approach examining the entangled lives and relationships of humans and nonhuman organisms.

The Western conceptual separation of nature and culture into distinct domains, critiqued by environmental anthropologists.

An ethnographic method involving long-term immersion in a community while systematically observing social and environmental practices.

A framework analyzing how political and economic power structures shape environmental change and resource access.

The capacity of a social-ecological system to absorb disturbance, reorganize, and maintain its essential functions.

A farming system involving forest clearing, burning, short-term cultivation, and long-term fallow, practiced by many Indigenous groups.

Intergenerational knowledge about human-environment relationships held by Indigenous and local communities.

Garrett Hardin's argument that shared resources are inevitably overexploited without private ownership or state regulation.