Download or read book Rights Resources Culture and Conservation in the Land of the Maya written by Betty Bernice Faust and published by Praeger. This book was released on 2004-04-30 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays alerting readers to issues of human rights and political ecology vital for understanding culture and conservation in Maya communities.
Download or read book Moral Ecology of a Forest written by José E. Martínez-Reyes and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2016-11-29 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forests are alive, filled with rich, biologically complex life forms and the interrelationships of multiple species and materials. Vulnerable to a host of changing conditions in this global era, forests are in peril as never before. New markets in carbon and environmental services attract speculators. In the name of conservation, such speculators attempt to undermine local land control in these desirable areas. Moral Ecology of a Forest provides an ethnographic account of conservation politics, particularly the conflict between Western conservation and Mayan ontological ecology. The difficult interactions of the Maya of central Quintana Roo, Mexico, for example, or the Mayan communities of the Sain Ka’an Biosphere, demonstrate the clashing interests with Western biodiversity conservation initiatives. The conflicts within the forest of Quintana Roo represent the outcome of nature in this global era, where the forces of land grabbing, conservation promotion and organizations, and capitalism vie for control of forests and land. Forests pose living questions. In addition to the ever-thrilling biology of interdependent species, forests raise questions in the sphere of political economy, and thus raise cultural and moral questions. The economic aspects focus on the power dynamics and ideological perspectives over who controls, uses, exploits, or preserves those life forms and landscapes. The cultural and moral issues focus on the symbolic meanings, forms of knowledge, and obligations that people of different backgrounds, ethnicities, and classes have constructed in relation to their lands. The Maya Forest of Quintana Roo is a historically disputed place in which these three questions come together.
Download or read book Cities and Nature written by Lisa Benton-Short and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-29 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cities and Nature connects environmental processes with social and political actions. The book reconnects science and social science to demonstrate how the city is part of the environment and how it is subject to environmental constraints and opportunities. This second edition has been extensively revised and updated with in-depth examination of theory and critical themes. Greater discussion is given to urbanization trends and megacities; the post-industrial city and global economic changes; developing cities and slums; urban political ecology; the role of the city in climate change; and sustainability. The book explores the historical relationship between cities and nature, contemporary challenges to this relationship, and attempts taken to create more sustainable cities. The historical context situates urban development and its impact on the environment, and in turn the environmental impact on people in cities. This provides a foundation from which to understand contemporary issues, such as urban political ecology, hazards and disasters, water quality and supply, air pollution and climate change. The book then considers sustainability and how it has been informed by different theoretical approaches. Issues of environmental justice and the role of gender and race are explored. The final chapter examines the ways in which cities are practicing sustainability, from light "greening" efforts such as planting trees, to more comprehensive sustainability plans that integrate the multiple dimensions of sustainability. The text contains case studies from around the globe, with many drawn from cities in the developing world, as well as reviews of recent research, updated and expanded further reading to highlight relevant films, websites and journal articles. This book is an asset to students and researchers in geography, environmental studies, urban studies and planning and sustainability.
Download or read book The Art of Urbanism written by William Leonard Fash and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Art of Urbanism explores how the royal courts of powerful Mesoamerican centers represented their kingdoms in architectural, iconographic, and cosmological terms. Through an investigation of the ecological contexts and environmental opportunities of urban centers, the contributors consider how ancient Mesoamerican cities defined themselves and reflected upon their physicalâe"and metaphysicalâe"place via their built environment. Themes in the volume include the ways in which a kingdomâe(tm)s public monuments were fashioned to reflect geographic space, patron gods, and mythology, and how the Olmec, Maya, Mexica, Zapotecs, and others sought to center their world through architectural monuments and public art. This collection of papers addresses how communities leveraged their environment and built upon their cultural and historical roots as well as the ways that the performance of calendrical rituals and other public events tied individuals and communities to both urban centers and hinterlands. Twenty-three scholars from archaeology, anthropology, art history, and religious studies contribute new data and new perspectives to the understanding of ancient Mesoamericansâe(tm) own view of their spectacular urban and ritual centers.
Download or read book Bridging Cultural Concepts of Nature written by Rani-Henrik Andersson and published by Helsinki University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-16 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National parks and other preserved spaces of nature have become iconic symbols of nature protection around the world. However, the worldviews of Indigenous peoples have been marginalized in discourses of nature preservation and conservation. As a result, for generations of Indigenous peoples, these protected spaces of nature have meant dispossession, treaty violations of hunting and fishing rights, and the loss of sacred places. Bridging Cultural Concepts of Nature brings together anthropologists and archaeologists, historians, linguists, policy experts, and communications scholars to discuss differing views and presents a compelling case for the possibility of more productive discussions on the environment, sustainability, and nature protection. Drawing on case studies from Scandinavia to Latin America and from North America to New Zealand, the volume challenges the old paradigm where Indigenous peoples are not included in the conservation and protection of natural areas and instead calls for the incorporation of Indigenous voices into this debate. This original and timely edited collection offers a global perspective on the social, cultural, economic, and environmental challenges facing Indigenous peoples and their governmental and NGO counterparts in the co-management of the planet’s vital and precious preserved spaces of nature.
Download or read book Landscape Ethnoecology written by Leslie Main Johnson and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although anthropologists and cultural geographers have explored "place" in various senses, little cross-cultural examination of "kinds of place," or ecotopes, has been presented from an ethno-ecological perspective. In this volume, indigenous and local understandings of landscape are investigated in order to better understand how human communities relate to their terrestrial and aquatic resources. The contributors go beyond the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) literature and offer valuable insights on ecology and on land and resources management, emphasizing the perception of landscape above the level of species and their folk classification. Focusing on the ways traditional people perceive and manage land and biotic resources within diverse regional and cultural settings, the contributors address theoretical issues and present case studies from North America, Mexico, Amazonia, tropical Asia, Africa and Europe.
Download or read book Conceptualizing Culture in Social Movement Research written by B. Baumgarten and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-09-23 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume introduces and compares different concepts of culture in social movement research. It assesses their advantages and shortcomings, drawing links to anthropology, discourse analysis, sociology of emotions, narration, spatial theory, and others. Each contribution's approach is illustrated with recent cases of mobilization.
Download or read book On Being Maya and Getting By written by Sarah R. Taylor and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2018-11-19 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On Being Maya and Getting By is an ethnographic study of the two Ek’Balams—a notable archaeological site and adjacent village—of the Yucatán Peninsula. When the archaeological site became a tourist destination, the village became the location of a community-based tourism development project funded by the Mexican government. Overt displays of heritage and a connection to Maya antiquity became important and profitable for the modern Maya villagers. Residents of Ek’Balam are now living in a complex ecosystem of natural and cultural resources where the notion and act of “being Maya” is deeply intertwined with economic development. The book explores how Ek’Balam villagers negotiate and maneuver through a web of social programs, tourists, volunteers, and expectations while living their daily lives. Focusing on the active processes in which residents choose to participate, author Sarah R. Taylor provides insights into how the ideological conflicts surrounding economic development play out in the negotiations between internal community politics and external social actors. The conflicts implicit to conceptions of “community” as a target for development are made explicit through the systematic questioning of what exactly it means to be a member of a local, indigenous, or sustainable community in the process of being developed. On Being Maya and Getting By is a rich description of how one community is actively negotiating with tourism and development and also a call for a more complex analysis of how rural villages are connected to greater urban, national, and global forces.
Download or read book Green Wars written by Megan Ybarra and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Green Wars challenges international conservation efforts, revealing through in-depth case studies how "saving" the Maya Forest facilitates racialized dispossession. Megan Ybarra brings Guatemala's 36-year civil war into the perspective of a longer history of 200 years of settler colonialism to show how conservation works to make Q'eqchi's into immigrants on their own territory. Even as the post-war state calls on them to claim rights as individual citizens, Q'eqchi's seek survival as a people. Her analysis reveals that Q'eqchi's both appeal to the nation-state and engage in relationships of mutual recognition with other Indigenous peoples -- and the land itself -- in their calls for a material decolonization."--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book Caring for Place written by E N Anderson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-01 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can cultural forms motivate people to care about their environment? While important scientific data about ecosystems is mushrooming, E. N. Anderson argues in this powerful new book that putting effective conservation into practice depends primarily on social solidarity and emotional factors. Marshaling decades of research on cultures across several continents, he shows how societies have been more or less successful in sustainably managing their environments based on collective engagements such as religion, art, song, myth, and story. This provocative and deeply felt book by a leading writer and scholar in human ecology and anthropology will be read and debated widely for years to come.
Download or read book The Pursuit of Ecotopia written by E. N. Anderson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-01-22 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world environmental and social justice crises brought on by our high-throughput global economy can be ameliorated only if we adapt the pragmatic ethics of social cohesion in traditional societies to the modern world. Traditional societies have much to teach the modern world about conservation and environmental management. The Pursuit of Ecotopia: Lessons from Indigenous and Traditional Societies for the Human Ecology of Our Modern World argues that the root of our environmental crisis is that we have not devised modern ways to induce people with diverse interests to think and act cooperatively to secure shared interests. We take a short-term, narrow view of resource management and ethical conduct instead of a long-term, global view of "ecotopia"—a conception in which the destructive corollaries of consumerism are curbed by emotionally grounded policies and ethics of sustainability, social justice, and stewardship. In this controversial and brilliantly written book, author E. N. Anderson maintains that the world can escape impending ecological disaster only by embracing a political and ethical transformation that will imbue modern societies with the same shared sense of emotional rationality practiced by traditional cultures. He draws lessons from ecologically successful traditional societies—and also draws cautionary tales from traditional societies that have responded maladaptively to disruption and failed ecologically as a result.
Download or read book The Oxford World History of Empire written by Peter Fibiger Bang and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-07 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first world history of empire, reaching from the third millennium BCE to the present. By combining synthetic surveys, thematic comparative essays, and numerous chapters on specific empires, its two volumes provide unparalleled coverage of imperialism throughout history and across continents, from Asia to Europe and from Africa to the Americas. Only a few decades ago empire was believed to be a thing of the past; now it is clear that it has been and remains one of the most enduring forms of political organization and power. We cannot understand the dynamics and resilience of empire without moving decisively beyond the study of individual cases or particular periods, such as the relatively short age of European colonialism. The history of empire, as these volumes amply demonstrate, needs to be drawn on the much broader canvas of global history. Volume I: The Imperial Experience is dedicated to synthesis and comparison. Following a comprehensive theoretical survey and bold world history synthesis, fifteen chapters analyze and explore the multifaceted experience of empire across cultures and through the ages. The broad range of perspectives includes: scale, world systems and geopolitics, military organization, political economy and elite formation, monumental display, law, mapping and registering, religion, literature, the politics of difference, resistance, energy transfers, ecology, memories, and the decline of empires. This broad set of topics is united by the central theme of power, examined under four headings: systems of power, cultures of power, disparities of power, and memory and decline. Taken together, these chapters offer a comprehensive and unique view of the imperial experience in world history.
Download or read book Maya Atlas written by Toledo Maya Cultural Council and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 1997 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covers human, natural, and cultural resources, history, rainforest management, and current problems in Maya lands.
Download or read book Human Rights in the Maya Region written by Pedro Pitarch and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2008-12-05 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years Latin American indigenous groups have regularly deployed the discourse of human rights to legitimate their positions and pursue their goals. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the Maya region of Chiapas and Guatemala, where in the last two decades indigenous social movements have been engaged in ongoing negotiations with the state, and the presence of multinational actors has brought human rights to increased prominence. In this volume, scholars and activists examine the role of human rights in the ways that states relate to their populations, analyze conceptualizations and appropriations of human rights by Mayans in specific localities, and explore the relationship between the individualist and “universal” tenets of Western-derived concepts of human rights and various Mayan cultural understandings and political subjectivities. The collection includes a reflection on the effects of truth-finding and documenting particular human rights abuses, a look at how Catholic social teaching validates the human rights claims advanced by indigenous members of a diocese in Chiapas, and several analyses of the limitations of human rights frameworks. A Mayan intellectual seeks to bring Mayan culture into dialogue with western feminist notions of women’s rights, while another contributor critiques the translation of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights into Tzeltal, an indigenous language in Chiapas. Taken together, the essays reveal a broad array of rights-related practices and interpretations among the Mayan population, demonstrating that global-local-state interactions are complex and diverse even within a geographically limited area. So too are the goals of indigenous groups, which vary from social reconstruction and healing following years of violence to the creation of an indigenous autonomy that challenges the tenets of neoliberalism. Contributors: Robert M. Carmack, Stener Ekern, Christine Kovic, Xochitl Leyva Solano, Julián López García, Irma Otzoy, Pedro Pitarch, Álvaro Reyes, Victoria Sanford, Rachel Sieder, Shannon Speed, Rodolfo Stavenhagen, David Stoll, Richard Ashby Wilson
Download or read book Forest Recovery and Management Options in the Yucatan Peninsula Mexico written by Martha Bonilla Moheno and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Nature and Culture written by Sarah Pilgrim and published by Earthscan. This book was released on 2010 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a growing recognition that the diversity of life comprises both biological and cultural diversity. But this division is not universal and, in many cases, has been deepened by the common disciplinary divide between the natural and social sciences and our apparent need to manage and control nature. This book goes beyond divisive definitions and investigates the bridges linking biological and cultural diversity. The international team of authors explore the common drivers of loss, and argue that policy responses should target both forms of diversity in a novel integrative approach to conservation, thus reducing the gap between science, policy and practice. While conserving nature alongside human cultures presents unique challenges, this book forcefully shows that any hope for saving biological diversity is predicated on a concomitant effort to appreciate and protect cultural diversity.
Download or read book Enclosed written by Liza Grandia and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This impassioned and rigorous analysis of the territorial plight of the Q'eqchi Maya of Guatemala highlights an urgent problem for indigenous communities around the world - repeated displacement from their lands. Liza Grandia uses the tools of ethnography, history, cartography, and ecology to explore the recurring enclosures of Guatemala's second largest indigenous group, who number a million strong. Having lost most of their highland territory to foreign coffee planters at the end of the 19th century, Q'eqchi' people began migrating into the lowland forests of northern Guatemala and southern Belize. Then, pushed deeper into the frontier by cattle ranchers, lowland Q'eqchi' found themselves in conflict with biodiversity conservationists who established protected areas across this region during the 1990s. The lowland, maize-growing Q'eqchi' of the 21st century face even more problems as they are swept into global markets through the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) and the Puebla to Panama Plan (PPP). The waves of dispossession imposed upon them, driven by encroaching coffee plantations, cattle ranches, and protected areas, have unsettled these agrarian people. Enclosed describes how they have faced and survived their challenges and, in doing so, helps to explain what is happening in other contemporary enclosures of public "common" space. A Capell Family Book Watch the book trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTLvmg3mHE8
