Routledge Understanding Human Ecology: Knowledge, Ethics and Politics

This book examines the domain of human agency–environment interaction from a multidimensional point of view. It explores the human–environment interface by analysing its ethical, political and epistemic aspects – the value aspects that humans attribute to their environment, the relations of power in which the actions and their consequences are implicated and the meaning of human actions in relation to the environment. The volume delineates the character of this domain and works out a theoretical framework for the field of human ecology. This book will be a must-read for students, scholars and researchers of environmental studies, human ecology, development studies, environmental history, literature, politics and sociology. It will also be useful to practitioners, government bodies, environmentalists, policy makers and NGOs. Review ‘This is an epistemologically sound and methodologically unassailable study of the domain and dimensions of Human Ecology, a fast-growing interdisciplinary field of convergence research with thermodynamic depth and truth of entropy. Delving deep into the meaning of “value” as raised and deliberated upon across the existing thought systems like reform environmentalism, deep ecology, ecofeminism, and social ecology, the study underscores the homologous processes of techno-economic development and the inevitable consequence of ecological degradation. Unlike eco-philosophical literature bound by questions of human–nature dualism or scientific works confined to causal explanations, the present study focuses on the human agency–environment interface. It entrenches the irreducibility of value, politics and knowledge as three fundamental dimensions of human ecology. Quite convincingly the present study informs that human ecology is best understood by recognising the ontological inseparability of these dimensions, generally treated as independent facets in the extant literature. A brilliant combination of analysis and description, this work is eminently readable and educative.’ Rajan Gurukkal, former Professor and Vice Chairman, Kerala State Higher Education Council, Thiruvananthapuram, India ‘Bringing together the ethical, political and epistemic dimensions of human ecology that define a knowledge area, this book challenges the conventional wisdom on environmental challenges that we face today. Suggesting a critical new orientation towards environmental policies in a democratic framework, the author suggests new ways of understanding development that will be ethically justified. This justification finally comes out of a new politics that does not make a binary choice between ecology and development.’ P. Sanal Mohan, Director, School of Social Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, India ‘The book presents the complex interconnections between human agency and the environment. It is clearly written and well-argued. The critique at the beginning and the new proposals and claims that come at the end of the book are both firm and well-grounded. The interesting aspect of this book lies in its interdisciplinary approach; integrating both theory and case studies and closely analysing both failures and successes in environmental movement.’ A. Raghuramaraju, Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati, India ‘A concise but critical effort to explicate human ecology as a disciplinary practice at the intersection of the natural and social sciences. A careful and sustained attention to the field is the primary approach used ― one that the author characterises partly as a “textual analytic method” ― and the effort is to develop the domain of human ecology along the constitutive dimensions of “value, politics and knowledge”. It is not only a successful academic effort to transpose the terms of the author’s own disciplinary location in natural science; it also creatively inserts itself into a pedagogic situation where enviro