Nature Across Cultures: Views of Nature and the Environment in Non-Western Cultures

492 Pages·2003·3.995 MB·English

by  Arne Kalland (auth.), Helaine Selin (eds.)

NATURE ACROSS CULTURES
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SCIENCE ACROSS CULTURES:
THE HISTORY OF NON-WESTERN SCIENCE
VOLUME 4
NATURE ACROSS CULTURES
Editor:
HELAINESELIN,HampshireCollege,Amherst,MassachusettsUSA
A list of titles in this series may be found at the end of this volume
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NATURE ACROSS
CULTURES
Views of Nature and the Environment
in Non-Western Cultures
Editor
HELAINE SELIN
Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA
Advisory Editor
ARNE KALLAND
University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Natureacrosscultures:viewsofnatureandtheenvironmentinnon-westerncultures/
HelaineSelin,editor;ArneKalland,advisoryeditor.
p.cm.–(Scienceacrosscultures;v.4)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN 978-90-481-6271-0 ISBN 978-94-017-0149-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-0149-5
1. Human ecology–Cross cultural studies. 2. Philosophy of nature–Cross-cultural studies.
3. Indigenous peoples. 4. Nature–Effect of human beings on. 5. Environmental protection.
I.Selin,Helaine,1946-II.Kalland,Arne.III.Series.
ISBN 978-90-481-6271-0

Printedonacid-freepaper
Allrightsreserved
©2003Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2003
Nopartofthematerialprotectedbythiscopyrightmaybereproduced
orutilizedinanyformorbyanymeans,electronic,mechanical,
includingphotocopying,recordingorbyanyinformationstorageand
retrievalsystem,withoutwrittenpermissionfromthecopyrightowners.
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INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES
SCIENCE ACROSS CULTURES:
THE HISTORY OF NON-WESTERN SCIENCE
In 1997, Kluwer Academic Publishers published the Encyclopaedia of the
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. The
encyclopedia, a collection of almost 600 articles by almost 300 contributors,
covered a range of topics from Aztec science and Chinese medicine to Tibetan
astronomy and Indian ethnobotany. For some cultures, specific individuals
could be identified, and their biographies were included. Since the study of
non-Western science is not just a study of facts, but a study of culture and
philosophy, we included essays on subjects such as Colonialism and Science,
Magic and Science, The Transmission of Knowledge from East to West,
Technology and Culture, Science as a Western Phenomenon, Values and
Science, and Rationality, Objectivity, and Method.
Becausetheencyclopediawasreceivedwithcriticalacclaim,andbecausethe
nature of an encyclopedia is such that articles must be concise and compact,
theeditorsatKluwerandIfeltthattherewasaneedtoexpandonitssuccess.
We thought that the breadth of the encyclopedia could be complemented by a
seriesofbooksthatexploredthetopicsingreaterdepth.Wehadanopportunity,
without such space limitations, to include more illustrations and much longer
bibliographies. We shifted the focus from the general educated audience that
the encyclopedia targeted to a more scholarly one, although we have been
careful to keep the articles readable and keep jargon to a minimum.
Beforewecantalkaboutthefieldofnon-Westernscience,wehavetodefine
both non-Western and science. The term non-Western is not a geographical
designation; it is a cultural one. We use it to describe people outside of the
Euro-American sphere, including the native cultures of the Americas. The
power of European and American colonialism is evident in the fact that the
majorityoftheworld’spopulationisdefinedbywhattheyarenot.Andinfact,
for most of our recorded history the flow of knowledge, art, and power went
the other way. In this series, we hope to rectify the lack of scholarly attention
paid to most of the world’s science.
As for defining science, if we wish to study science in non-Western cultures,
we need to take several intellectual steps. First, we must accept that every
culture has a science, that is, a way of defining, controlling, and predicting
eventsinthenaturalworld.Thenwemustacceptthateveryscienceislegitimate
in terms of the culture from which it grew. The transformation of the word
science as a distinct rationality valued above magic is uniquely European. It
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vi INTRODUCTIONTOTHESERIES
is not common to most non-Western societies, where magic and science and
religion can easily co-exist. The empirical, scientific realm of understanding
and inquiry is not readily separable from a more abstract, religious realm.
NatureAcrossCulturesisthefourthbookintheseries.Itincludes23chapters.
Most deal with views of the environment as they are perceived by different
cultures:AustralianAboriginalpeople,NativeAmericans,Polynesians,Indians,
etc. The book also contains a variety of essays on broader issues, such as
Images of the Other, Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Indigenous
Knowledge, and The Global Mobilization of Environmental Concepts:
Re-ThinkingtheWestern/Non-WesternDivide.Thefinalsectioncontainsarti-
cles on views of nature and the environment from the points of view of
Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism.
We hope the series will be used to provide both factual information about
the practices and practitioners of the sciences as well as insights into the
worldviewsandphilosophiesoftheculturesthatproducedthem.Wehopethat
readers will achieve a new respect for the accomplishments of ancient civiliza-
tions and a deeper understanding of the relationship between science and
culture.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
About the Authors xi
Introduction
Helaine Selin xix
1. Environmentalism and Images of the Other
Arne Kalland 1
2. The Global Mobilization of Environmental Concepts: Re-Thinking
the Western/Non-Western Divide
Michael Dove, Marina T. Campos, Andrew Salvador Mathews,
Laura J. Meitzner Yoder, Anne Rademacher, Suk Bae Rhee, and
Daniel Somers Smith 19
3. Variation and Uniformity in the Construction of Biological
Knowledge Across Cultures
Roy Ellen 47
4. Local Understandings of the Land: Traditional Ecological
Knowledge and Indigenous Knowledge
Roy C. Dudgeon and Fikret Berkes 75
5. Landscape, Nature, and Culture: A Diachronic Model of Human-
Nature Adaptations
Richard StoZe, Rebecca Toupal, and Nieves Zeden˜o 97
6. Worldviews and Ecology
Mary Evelyn Tucker 115
7. The Spirit(s) of Conservation in Buddhist Thailand
Susan M. Darlington 129
8. Indian Perspectives on Naturalism
D.P. Chattopadhyaya 147
9. Japanese Views of Nature and the Environment
John A. Tucker 161
10. Winds, Waters, and Earth Energies: Fengshui and Awareness of
Place
Graham Parkes 185
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viii TABLEOFCONTENTS
11. The Perception of Nature and the Environment in Sub-Saharan
Africa
John Kesby 211
12. Knowing Country: Indigenous Australians and the Land
J.L. Kohen 229
13. Both Sides of the Beach: Knowledges of Nature in Oceania
Edvard Hviding 245
14. Native Views of the Environment in Amazonia
William Bale´e 277
15. Central Andean Views of Nature and the Environment
David L. Browman 289
16. ‘‘Nature Doesn’t Come as Clean as We Can Think It’’:
Dene, Inuit, Scientists, Nature and Environment in the Canadian
North
Ellen Bielawski 311
17. We Are the Land: Native American Views of Nature
Annie L. Booth 329
18. Buddhist Views of Nature and the Environment
Leslie Sponsel and Poranee Natadecha-Sponsel 351
19. Confucian Views of Nature
John Berthrong 373
20. Daoism and Nature
James Miller 393
21. Hindu Views of Nature and the Environment
Harold Coward 411
22. Nature and Culture: An Islamic Perspective
S. Parvez Manzoor 421
23. Judaism, Israel, and Natural Resources: Models and Practices
Jeanne Kay Guelke 433
Index 457
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the contributors to this volume; I am so impressed with
how committed they are to their subjects while at the same time keeping their
academic distance. It was a pleasure to read and work with their writing.
Thanks especially to Arne Kalland, the Advisory Editor, who read and com-
mented on all the articles in addition to writing his own piece. He is the best
editor I have worked with; you can send him an article on Monday and have
itbackbyWednesdaywithtenpagesofcommentsandabibliography.Thanks
to my Kluwer family: Maja de Keijzer and Andrea Janga in Dordrecht, and
Phil Johnstone in England, who does such a lovely job of making the books
beautiful. And thanks, always and again, to my loving family, Bob and Lisa
and Lisa and Tim.
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