Overview
Re-examines the definition of hunter-gatherers based on numerous case studies
Analyzes multiple drivers of change affecting contemporary hunter-gatherers
Describes contemporary changes in livelihood of groups who lived as foragers until recently
Addresses the interconnectedness of the environmental, economic, social, and political systems in impacting foragers’ livelihoods
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Table of contents (14 chapters)
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The Historical Legacy
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Environmental Change
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Changes in the World Economy
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Globalization and Cultural Change
Keywords
About this book
This book compiles a collection of case studies analysing drivers of and responses to change amongst contemporary hunter-gatherers. Contemporary hunter-gatherers’ livelihoods are examined from perspectives ranging from historical legacy to environmental change, and from changes in national economic, political and legal systems to more broad-scale and universal notions of globalization and acculturation.
Far from the commonly held romantic view that hunter-gatherers continue to exist as isolated populations living a traditional lifestyle in harmony with the environment, contemporary hunter-gatherers – like many rural communities around the world - face a number of relatively new ecological and social challenges to which they are pressed to adapt. Contemporary hunter-gatherer societies are increasingly and rapidly being affected by Global Changes, related both to biophysical Earth systems (i.e., changes in climate, biodiversity and natural resources, and water availability), and to social systems (i.e. demographic transitions, sedentarisation, integration into the market economy, and all the socio-cultural change that these and other factors trigger).
Chapter 10 of this book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.
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Editors and Affiliations
About the editors
Aili Pyhälä (PhD in Development Studies, 2003, University of East Anglia) is a Senior Researcher and Lecturer at the University of Helsinki. After years of working and living with indigenous peoples in Amazonia and Africa and gaining direct experience working with local communities, participatory processes, and social and environmental justice, she now pursues her research interests in indigenous peoples’ knowledge and rights, alternative education, conservation psychology, global responsibility, human-nature relations, and cross-cultural notions of wellbeing. She has researched and worked with a number of sustainability and wellbeing indicators, and has close to 20 years of experience evaluating development cooperation projects worldwide. A trained permaculturist, fluent in 8 languages, and with professional experience in 25 countries, she enjoys teaching, facilitating events, and promoting cross-cultural communication and exchange.
Victoria Reyes-García (PhD in Anthropology, 2001, U. of Florida) is ICREA Research Professor at the Environmental Science and Technology Institute, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Her research addresses the benefits generated by local ecological knowledge and the drivers of change of this type of knowledge. Reyes-García has worked in international research projects since 1996. She lived among the Tsimane', a hunter-gatherer society in the Amazon, from 1999 until 2004. She has experience in multidisciplinary research, working with anthropologists, agronomists, biologists, economists, archaeologists, and computer scientists. Since April 2006 she coordinates the Ethnoecology Laboratory, which catalyses projects studying the dynamic relations among people, biota, and environments. She has more than 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals. In 2010 she received a Starting Grant from the European Research Council to study the adaptive nature of local ecological knowledge using a cross-cultural comparative approach.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Hunter-gatherers in a Changing World
Editors: Victoria Reyes-García, Aili Pyhälä
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42271-8
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-42269-5Published: 25 November 2016
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-82542-7Published: 06 July 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-42271-8Published: 15 November 2016
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXXVIII, 257
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Human Geography, Cultural Heritage