Oral Presentation Session
Reviewed by: Anthropology and Environment Society
Of interest to: Practicing and Applied Anthropologists
Primary Theme: Resilience
Secondary Theme: Anthropocene
The concept of socio-ecological resilience is gaining ground in anthropology, as anthropologists reckon with the realities of the Anthropocene and develop a framework that incorporates and takes seriously multispecies communities and their adaptive capacities over time. Yet resilience as a concept is variable , complex and not easily operationalized, especially when examined alongside the similarly sticky concept of conservation. This panel addresses the complexities of resilience and conservation from ethnobiological perspectives, taking into account the diverse epistemologies and ontologies of human-environment engagements that inform socio-ecological resilience and bio-cultural conservation worldwide. Panelists tackle issues including the connections and disjunctions between resilience and conservation in the Anthropocene; the significance of multispecies communities to resilience and/or conservation; and the ways that ethnobiology offers new ways forward in understanding human and nonhuman adaptation and resilience in the wake of environmental change and destruction. Moreover, the panel explores how ethnobiology – or the multitude of ethnobiologies that are emerging through innovative scholarship globally – is itself a resilient discipline centered on understanding integrated human-environment realities over time even as both humans and the environment continue to change.
Rick Stepp
University of Florida
Rick Stepp
University of Florida
Theresa Miller
Environmental Social Scientist
The Field Museum
Theresa Miller
Environmental Social Scientist
The Field Museum
Theresa Miller
Environmental Social Scientist
The Field Museum
Stanford Zent
Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas
Elizabeth Olson
Assistant Professor
Southern Utah University
Benedict Colombi
University of Arizona