Cultural Ecology

Cultural ecology is a subfield of geography that is shared with anthropology and other allied fields. It positions itself in the center of the humanenvironment or “nature and society” tradition in geography (which itself is considered to be the core and uniqueness of geography) and concerns itself with the way in which humans are integral components of the environment and “ecology” of a particular place. It has long focused on the historical context of human-environmental relations, both the human and the natural history of place and how humans have adapted to nature, as well as how humans have modified nature for their [Page 632]needs. Cultural ecology focuses on process rather than material culture. Key elements of the subfield are a focus on marginalized and/or vulnerable ...