Guneratne Arjun - Culture and the Environment in the Himalaya

This book is concerned with human-environment relations in the Himalaya. It explores how different populations and communities in the region understand or conceive of the concept of environment, how their concepts vary across lines of gender, class, age, and status, and what this implies for policymakers in the fields of environmental conservation and development. The chapters in this book analyze the symbolic schema that shape human-environment relations, whether that of scientists studying the Himalayan environment, public officials crafting policy about it, or people making a living from their engagement with it, and the way that natural phenomena themselves shape the human perception of the world. A trans-global environmentalism that sees human actions as reshaping the world in negative ways must come to terms with other cultural perspectives that do not share that view. As a new approach to the study on the environment in South Asia, Culture and Environment in the Himalaya introduces the new thinking in environmental anthropology and geography into the study of the Himalaya and uses Himalayan ethnography to interrogate and critique contemporary theorizing about the environment.

Arjun Guneratne is Professor of Anthropology at Macalester College, USA, and author of Many Tongues, One People: The Making of Tharu Identity in Nepal. He is the editor of Himalaya, the journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies.

Culture and the Environment in the Himalaya

Edited by

Arjun Guneratne

First published 2010
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010.

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2010 Arjun Guneratne for selection and editorial matter; individual contributors their contribution

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Guneratne, Arjun, 1961
Culture and the environment in the Himalaya/Arjun Guneratne.
p. cm.(Routledge contemporary South Asia series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Human ecologyHimalaya Mountains. 2. Forest ecology
Himalaya Mountains. 3. Forest conservationHimalaya
Mountains. 4. Environmental changeHimalaya Mountains.
5. Himalaya MountainsEnvironmental conditions. I. Title.
GF696.H55G86 2010
304.2095496dc22
2009022559

ISBN 0-203-86436-0 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0-415-77883-2 (hbk)

ISBN10: 0-203-86436-0 (ebk)

ISBN13: 978-0-415-77883-1 (hbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-203-86436-4 (ebk)