The Perception of the Environment

The Perception of the Environment
Author: Tim Ingold
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 644
Release: 2021-11-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000504662

In this work Tim Ingold offers a persuasive new approach to understanding how human beings perceive their surroundings. He argues that what we are used to calling cultural variation consists, in the first place, of variations in skill. Neither innate nor acquired, skills are grown, incorporated into the human organism through practice and training in an environment. They are thus as much biological as cultural. To account for the generation of skills we have therefore to understand the dynamics of development. And this in turn calls for an ecological approach that situates practitioners in the context of an active engagement with the constituents of their surroundings. The twenty-three essays comprising this book focus in turn on the procurement of livelihood, on what it means to ‘dwell’, and on the nature of skill, weaving together approaches from social anthropology, ecological psychology, developmental biology and phenomenology in a way that has never been attempted before. The book is set to revolutionise the way we think about what is ‘biological’ and ‘cultural’ in humans, about evolution and history, and indeed about what it means for human beings – at once organisms and persons – to inhabit an environment. The Perception of the Environment will be essential reading not only for anthropologists but also for biologists, psychologists, archaeologists, geographers and philosophers. This edition includes a new Preface by the author.

The Routledge Handbook on Livelihoods in the Global South

The Routledge Handbook on Livelihoods in the Global South
Author: Fiona Nunan
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 713
Release: 2022-05-05
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1000581543

The Routledge Handbook on Livelihoods in the Global South presents a unique, timely, comprehensive overview of livelihoods in low- and middle-income countries. Since their widespread adoption in the 1990s, livelihoods perspectives, frameworks and methods have influenced diverse areas of research, policy and practice. The concept of livelihoods reflects the complexity of strategies and practices used by individuals, households and communities to meet their needs and live their lives. The Handbook brings together insights and critical analysis from diverse approaches and experiences, learning from research and practice over the last 30 years. The Handbook comprises an introductory section on key concepts and frameworks, followed by five parts, on researching livelihoods, negotiating livelihoods, generating livelihoods, enabling livelihoods and contextualising livelihoods. The introduction provides readers with an appreciation of concepts researched and applied in the five parts, including chapters on vulnerability and resilience, social capital and networks, and institutions. Each part reflects the diversity of approaches taken to understanding livelihoods, whilst recognising commonalities, including the centrality of power in shaping, enabling and constraining livelihoods. The book also reflects diversity of context, including conflict, climate change and religion, as well as in generating livelihoods, through agriculture, small-scale mining and pastoralism. The aim of each chapter is to provide a critically informed introduction and overview of key concepts, issues and debates of relevance to the topic, with each chapter concluding with suggestions for further reading. It will be an essential resource to students, researchers and practitioners of international development and related fields. Researchers and practitioners will also benefit from the book's diverse disciplinary contributions and by the wide and contemporary coverage.

The Livelihood of Kin

The Livelihood of Kin
Author: Rhoda H. Halperin
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2013-08-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0292758014

Rural Appalachians in Kentucky call it "The Kentucky Way"—making a living by doing many kinds of paid and unpaid work and sharing their resources within extended family networks. In fact, these strategies are practiced by rural people in many parts of the world, but they have not been studied extensively in the United States. In The Livelihood of Kin, Rhoda Halperin undertakes a detailed exploration of this complex, family-oriented economy, showing how it promotes economic well-being and a sense of identity for the people who follow it. Using actual life and work histories, Halperin shows how people make a living "in between" the cash economy of the city and the agricultural subsistence economy of the country. In regionally based, three-generation kin networks, family members work individually and jointly at many tasks: small-scale agricultural production, food processing and storage, odd jobs, selling used and new goods in marketplaces, and wage labor, much of which is temporary. People can make ends meet even in the face of job layoffs and declining crop subsidies. With these strategies people win a considerable degree of autonomy and control over their lives. Halperin also examines how such multiple livelihood strategies define individual identity by emphasizing a person’s role in the family network over an occupation. She reveals, through psychiatric case histories, what damage can result when individuals leave the family network for wage employment in the cities, as increasing urbanization has forced many people to do. While certainly of interest to scholars of Appalachian studies, this lively and readable study will also be important for economic anthropologists and urban and rural sociologists.

Livelihood and Resistance

Livelihood and Resistance
Author: Gavin Smith
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 295
Release: 1991-10-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520076621

Livelihood and Resistance examines a Peruvian highland community where rural resistance has been endemic for over a century. Gavin Smith explores the way in which the villagers' daily economic interests and their political struggles contribute to their social and political identity.

Livelihood - Hope and Conditions of a New Paradigm for Development Studies

Livelihood - Hope and Conditions of a New Paradigm for Development Studies
Author: Miroslawa Czerny
Publisher: Nova Science Publishers
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: Andes Region
ISBN: 9781633217690

This book is a bird's eye view of the livelihood and geographical conditions of backward rural areas in the central and northern Andes in Perú and in Argentina. There, people live in scattered settlements dedicated to subsistence agriculture and are also marginal to markets. NGOs are playing increasing roles in the development of peripheral rural regions, such as in Perú; while the State addresses the production at the commercial agricultural levels, the subsistence dwellers speak of the difficulties they continue to encounter to manage the marketing of their crops. In rural development, we found the need for interdisciplinary approaches to tackle the poor conditions of education, health protection, increased agricultural output, infrastructure, improved living (including sanitary) conditions and social development. In conclusion, we argue that rural development should be confronted within a systems approach that relies heavily on education. In fact the poor education of the peasantry is a hindrance to a better livelihood. All these thoughts are applied to Frias, Perú and Quebrada Lules in Argentina. The book is arranged in 15 chapters that discuss conceptual terms such as "livelihood "and continues to present the study area and its possibilities to development. This gives way to expand on a discussion on participatory research, programmes supporting livelihoods in developing countries, natural resources, and productive activity. The environmental characteristics of the district of Frias and its agriculture are examined, as well as the factors limiting the development of Frias, its threats, social vulnerability and dwellers' ways of life. The authors of this book also discuss the social ties and the role of local authorities in development taking, for example, the Quebrada de Lules in Argentina.

In Search of Sustainable Livelihood Systems

In Search of Sustainable Livelihood Systems
Author: Ruedi Baumgartner
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 604
Release: 2004-08-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780761998082

Livelihood systems are more than sets of material and economic conditions. They cater to a number of human needs. The contributors to this volume maintain that a livelihood system embraces not just economic conditions for physical subsistence but provides material continuity and cultural meaning to the life of a family.