Environmental Social Sciences: Methods and Research Design

Cambridge University Press, 11/11/2010
EAN 9780521110846, ISBN10: 052111084X

Hardcover, 398 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm
Language: English

The relationship between human communities and the environment is extremely complex. In order to resolve the issues involved with this relationship, interdisciplinary research combining natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities is necessary. In this 2010 book, specialists summarise methods and research strategies for various aspects of social research devoted to environmental issues. Each chapter is illustrated with ethnographic and environmental examples, ranging from Australia to Amazonia, from Madagascar to the United States, and from prehistoric and historic cases to contemporary rural and urban ones. It deals with climate change, deforestation, environmental knowledge, natural reserves, politics and ownership of natural resources, and the effect of differing spatial and temporal scales. Contributing to the intellectual project of interdisciplinary environmental social science, this book shows the possibilities social science can provide to environmental studies and to larger global problems and thus will be of equal interest to social and natural scientists and policy makers.

1. Introduction E. A. Smith and I. Vaccaro
2. People, numbers, and natural resources
demography in environmental research O. Beltran
3. Production decisions and time allocation
a guide to data collection R. Hames
4. Analyzing the politics of natural resources
from theories of property rights to institutional analysis and beyond A. Poteete
5. Extreme events, tipping points and vulnerability
methods in political economy of environment E. C. Jones
6. Local communities and natural resources
ethnobiology in practice L. Zanotti, D. Glover and J. Sepez
7. Mapping histories
cultural landscapes and walkabout methods V. Strang
8. Metaphors and myths in news reports of an Amazonian lost tribe
society, environment and literary analysis C. Slater
9. Water decision-makers in a desert city
text analysis and environmental social science Amber Wutich and C. Gravlee
10. Linking human and natural systems
social networks, environment and ecology J. Johnson and D. Griffith
11. Khat commodity chains in Madagascar
multi-sited ethnography at multiple scales L. Gezon
12. Spatio-temporal methodologies in environmental anthropology
geographic information systems, remote sensing, landscape changes and local knowledge E. Brondizio and R. R. Chowdhury
13. Deep time, diachronic change, and the integration of multi-scalar data
archaeological methods for exploring human-environment dynamics E. Jones
14. Comparing trajectories of climate, class and production
an historical ecology of American yeomen M. Scholl, D. N. Murray and C. L. Crumley
15. Anthropology and natural resource management
methodological integrations S. Aswani.