ANSO 271 Ecological Anthropology

This course emphasizes the interconnectedness between people and nature. We will be concerned with people’s perceptions of and interactions with their physical and biological surroundings, and the various linkages between biological and cultural worlds. The goals of the class are to expose you to a broader understanding of the role of culture in sustaining the diversity of plant and animal life and also reveal the variety of choices involved in our human-environmental interactions. Topics to be explored include human alteration of the environment, the processes of domestication, the ecology of indigenous and Western foodways, traditional ecological knowledge of plants, natural resource sustainability, and conservation policies and politics through time and space.