Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Cultural Ecology: Paradigm for a Sustainable Man-Nature Relationship

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Partnerships for the Goals

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals ((ENUNSDG))

  • 219 Accesses

Definition

Cultural ecology is a methodological approach to investigate the relationship between humans and environments, considering culture as a key to understanding the evolutionary process, differently from other living beings. In the last decades, the change of paradigm in man-nature relationship and the broader meaning of ecology have influenced the cultural ecology approach.

This concept plays a leading role in different knowledge fields, such as anthropology, archaeology, ecology, geography, and landscape urbanism, to face and manage complex systems and stimulate further reflections on the social, economic, and environmental issues for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Background

Key Issues

From its very beginning, the aim of cultural ecology was to provide a key to understanding the relationship between environment and society. As stated by Steward (1955), who coined the term in his Theory of Cultural Change, cultural ecology is a methodological tool to...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Adger WN (2000) Social and ecological resilience: are they related? Prog Hum Geogr 24(3):347–364

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Augé M (2008) Non-places: An introduction to anthropology of supermodernity. Verso Books, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Bateson G (1972) Steps to an ecology of mind: Collected essays in anthropology, psychiatry, evolution, and epistemology. Chandler Publishing Company, San Francisco

    Google Scholar 

  • Bateson G (1979) Mind and nature: A necessary unit. E. P. Dutton, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauman Z (2007) Liquid times: Living in an age of uncertainty. Polity Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Behringer W (2010) A cultural history of climate. Polity Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Bookchin M (1982) The ecology of freedom. The emergence and dissolution of hierarchy. Chesire Books, Palo Alto

    Google Scholar 

  • Capra F (1975) The Tao of physics. Shambhala Publications, Boulder

    Google Scholar 

  • Carpenter S, Walker B, Anderies JM, Abel N (2001) From metaphor to measurement: Resilience of what to what? Ecosystems 4:765–781

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carson R (1987) Silent spring. Houghton Mifflin, Boston

    Google Scholar 

  • Corbett J (2006) Communicating nature: How we create and understand environmental message. Island Press, Washington

    Google Scholar 

  • Daly H (1996) Beyond growth: The economics of sustainable development. Beacon Press, Boston

    Google Scholar 

  • Doherty M, Klima K, Hellmann JJ (2016) Climate change in the urban environment: Advancing, measuring and achieving resiliency. Environ Sci Pol 66:310–313

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gillés C (2015) The planetary garden and other writings. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia

    Google Scholar 

  • Guattari F (1995) Chaosmosis: An ethico-aesthetic paradigm. Indiana University Press, Bloomington

    Google Scholar 

  • Guattari F (2000) The three ecologies. The Athlone Press, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Gunderson L, Holling CS (eds) (2002) Panarchy: Understanding transformations in human and natural systems. Island Press, Washington

    Google Scholar 

  • Haeckel E (1910) Last words on evolution. Watts, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Haila Y (2000) Beyond the nature-culture dualism. Biol Philos 15:155–175

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holling CS (1973) Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 4:1–23

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hubbell JA (2018) Byron’s nature: A romantic vision of cultural ecology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

    Google Scholar 

  • IPCC (2012) Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation: A special report of working groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Jonas H (1984) The imperative of responsibility: In search of an ethics for the technological age. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • La Cecla F (2011) Mente locale: Per un’antropologia dell’abitare (Local mind: For an anthropology of dwelling). Elèuthera, Milan

    Google Scholar 

  • Lovelock J (2000) Gaia: A new look at life on earth. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • McHarg I (1971) Design with nature. Natural History Press, Garden City

    Google Scholar 

  • Meadows D (1972) The limits to growth: A report for the Club of Rome’s project on the predicament of mankind. Universe Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Merleau-Ponty M (2012) Phenomenology of perception. Routledge, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Mora S (2014) Cultural ecology in archaeology. In: Smith C (ed) Encyclopedia of global archaeology. Springer Science+Business Media, New York, pp 1848–1855

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Morin E (2007) L’an I de l’ère écologique: La Terre dépend de l’homme qui dépend de la Terre. Editions Tallandier, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Naess A (1989) Ecology, community, lifestyle. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Patterson TC (1987) Development, ecology, and marginal utility in anthropology. Dialect Anthropol 12:15–31

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pickett STA, Cadenasso ML, McGrath B (2013) Ecology of the city as a bridge to urban design. In: Pickett STA, Cadenasso ML, McGrath B (eds) Resilience in ecology and urban design: Linking theory and practice for sustainable cities. Springer Science+Business Media, Dordrecht, pp 7–28

    Google Scholar 

  • Pimm SL (1984) The complexity and stability of ecosystems. Nature 307:321–326

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rifkin J (2014) The zero marginal cost society: The internet of things, the collaborative commons, and the eclipse of capitalism. Palgrave Macmillan, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Searle J (1995) The construction of social reality. The Free Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Steward J (1955) Theory of culture change: The methodology of multilinear evolution. University of Illinois Press, Urbana

    Google Scholar 

  • Sutton MQ, Anderson EN (2010) Introduction to cultural ecology. AltaMira Press, Lanham

    Google Scholar 

  • Thoreau HD (1854) Walden or life in the woods. Ticknor and Fileds, Boston

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tiezzi E (2003) The end of time. WIT Press, Southampton

    Google Scholar 

  • UNISDR (2007) Resilience. In: Terminology on disaster risk reduction. United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. https://www.undrr.org/terminology. Accessed 14 February 2020

  • White LA (1949) The science of culture: A study of man and civilization. Grove Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson E (1984) Biophilia. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Worster D (1977) Nature’s economy. The Roots of Ecology. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco

    Google Scholar 

  • Yan W, Galloway W (2017) Rethinking resilience, adaptation and transformation in a time of change. Springer International Publishing, Cham

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Zapf H (2012) Ecocriticism and cultural ecology. In: Middeke M, Müller T, Wald C, Zapf H (eds) English and American Studies. J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart, pp 253–258

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Architecture and Design, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy

    Chiara Piccardo & Maria Canepa

Authors
  1. Chiara Piccardo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Maria Canepa
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chiara Piccardo .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. European School of Sustainability, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Walter Leal Filho

  2. Center for Neuroscience & Cell Biology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Anabela Marisa Azul

  3. Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Passo Fundo University Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Passo Fundo, Brazil

    Luciana Brandli

  4. Istinye University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Pinar Gökcin Özuyar

  5. International Centre for Thriving, University of Chester, Chester, UK

    Tony Wall

Section Editor information

  1. No affiliation provided

    Carolina Collaro

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Piccardo, C., Canepa, M. (2020). Cultural Ecology: Paradigm for a Sustainable Man-Nature Relationship. In: Leal Filho, W., Azul, A., Brandli, L., Özuyar, P., Wall, T. (eds) Partnerships for the Goals. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71067-9_26-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71067-9_26-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-71067-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-71067-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Earth and Environm. ScienceReference Module Physical and Materials ScienceReference Module Earth and Environmental Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation