Understanding Human Ecology

This book examines the domain of human agency–environment interaction from a multidimensional point of view. It explores the human–environment interface by analysing its ethical, political and epistemic aspects – the value aspects that humans attribute to their environment, the relations of power in which the actions and their consequences are implicated and the meaning of human actions in relation to the environment. The volume delineates the character of this domain and works out a theoretical framework for the field of human ecology. This book will be a must-read for students, scholars and researchers of environmental studies, human ecology, development studies, environmental history, literature, politics and sociology. It will also be useful to practitioners, government bodies, environmentalists, policy makers and NGOs.

From climate change to world poverty, we are currently facing a vast array of complex challenges which are part of an inter-related web of social and natural systems. Human ecology provides an approach to these problems, a way to understand them holistically and to manage them more effectively. This book offers a coherent conceptual framewo