This session focuses on the dynamic reflexivity between nature and society. Discussions are based on field research conducted in Asian and African societies, with special reference to perception and use of the environment.
Humans act in a specific environment using cultural references deployed through mundane activities. The resulting landscape reflects the history of human activity; it also represents peoples’ views of the environment. In modern society, characterized by increasing levels of globalization and reflexivity based on scientific advances, it is necessary that we transcend the dichotomy between naturalism and social constructionism, as well as that between pragmatism and intellectualism.
Increasing numbers of international organizations, governments, NGOs, mass media organizations, and educational groups have focused their environmental work on the acquisition and dissemination of “scientific” knowledge. In remote environments, such as rainforests and deserts, “indigenous” people, with their “traditional” ecological knowledge, often participate in the formation of scientific knowledge, a process that can ultimately bring about social change. Analyzing actions in the context of such environments offers an effective means of examining the power relationships among associated peoples and organizations. Moreover, such processes and interactions exemplify modern society, in which globalization and locality are inseparably interwoven.
Modern society requires the formulation of explicit “traditional ecological knowledge” so that “indigenous people” may claim their right to the environment. This leads us to reconsider our view of traditional ecological knowledge as follows: Knowledge is generated and regenerated by practical involvement with the environment. From this viewpoint, tradition is the accumulation of continuous events, without taking any fixed form. Therefore, formulating “traditional ecological knowledge” means parenthesizing the continuity, and thereby intervening in the system that generates and regenerates the knowledge itself. Paradoxically, such actions may demolish the very “tradition” they aim to protect or sustain. Accordingly, inquiry into ecological knowledge rejects the view that individuals can acquire, own, and manage this knowledge, and focuses attention on the practices by which we activate knowledge in dynamic systems of human-environment interactions.
The presenters of this session have all examined relationships between nature and society as cultural processes, although their stances on the involvement of actions in relation to the environment differ considerably (e.g., clarifying the distinctiveness of “traditional ecological knowledge”, developing policy using the analysis of such knowledge, or analyzing how the environmental sciences expose people’s political and economic commitments to society). This diversity of approaches promotes dialogue on (1) the study of relationships between scientific knowledge, society, and power over the environment, and (2) the analysis of practices that activate ecological knowledge. This session aims, thereby, to clarify the dynamic reflexivity between nature and society, and to examine social realities at specific field sites by considering their distinct environmental and historical conditions.
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