Anthropological Journal of European Cultures

Arguably, anthropologists have studied the relationship of ‘culture’ and ‘nature’ for a long time and from a broad range of perspectives. The close thematic connections between anthropology and ecology reach back well beyond Ernst Haeckel’s postulate of ecology as a distinct science in the 1860s. Social historians (e.g. Brunner 1956) have noted how the ‘old European economy’ of ‘the whole house’, where ‘culture’ and ‘nature’ were regarded as closely intertwined, has been replaced in the course of industrialisation and modernisation by increasing perceptual separation and indeed juxtaposition of the two spheres. In a sense, the culmination of that movement may be seen, for example, in the progressive ousting of an integrative Heimatkunde – the holistic study of localities and regions – from the German school curriculum since the 1960s.

This essay critiques the majoritarian, post-Enlightenment, scientific worldview, the assumptions it makes about human cosmologies and lifestyles and how, in turn, these assumptions influence the nature of education systems. The critique focuses on how the experiences of minority cultures, particularly those cultures that are nomadic or pastoralist, challenge some of the fundamental premises of majoritarian education. There follows a cultural ecological framing which compares the ways in which Western (majoritarian) cultures and minoritarian cultures contextualise education. In Western educational situations, structures, contexts and schemata are substantially pre-defined, and we talk about things as 'context-dependent', since context is something that can be described as the backdrop to behaviour. In minoritarian cultures both meaning and context emerge from people's interactions with their environments and may subsequently be described. These are respectively relational and co-constitutional manifestations of situations. We present a cultural ecological framework in an attempt simultaneously to embrace both interpretations.

This paper will argue that revisiting the ideas and practice of the twentieth-century German artist Joseph Beuys is germane to contemporary discussions of place and human ecology in anthropology. Through an exploration of work undertaken by the artist and a discussion of the influence of Goethe on his practice, it will explore the way in which Beuys' approach to art was informed by a set of methodologies which saw the inner life of the human being and the outer world with which she or he engages as profoundly linked in both physical and psychic terms. Beuys' work points, the author will suggest, to the potential for a myth of fieldwork and a communication of its results that places the anthropologist within a constantly changing world of matter that she or he shapes and transforms and is, in turn, transformed by.

Opposition between evidence-based science and improvable religious belief is assumed in Western intellectual tradition. By contrast, Native American theorists argue that religion constitutes part of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), which this paper argues exists in European contexts. Irish tales of changeling cattle encoded vital data for survival in a specific region; such Local Sanctions describe human difficulties that follow ecologically inappropriate actions. Other narratives are Global Warnings, concerning interconnections whose significance transcends individual health to include threats to the health of the planetary system. This paper urges analysis of European folktales and folk rituals as traditional environmental texts.

Nature and environment are important for the people earning their living from natural sources of livelihood. This article concentrates on the local perspective of the landscape in the Pallastunturi Fells, which are situated in Pallas-Ylläs National Park in Finnish Lapland. The Fells are both important pastures for reindeer and an old tourism area. The Pallastunturi Tourist Hotel is situated inside the national park because the hotel was built before the park was established 1938. Until the 1960s, the relationship between tourism and reindeer herding had been harmonious because the tourism activities did not disturb the reindeer herding, but offered instead ways to earn money by transporting the tourists from the main road to the hotel, which had been previously without any road connections. During recent years, tourism has been developed as the main source of livelihood in Lapland and huge investments have been made in several parts of Lapland. One example of this type of investment is the plan to replace the old Pallas Tourist hotel, which was built in 1948, with a newer and bigger one. It means that the state will allow a private enterprise to build more infrastructures for tourism inside a national park where nature should be protected and this has sparked a heated debate. Those who oppose the project criticise this proposal as the amendment of a law designed to promote the economic interests of one private tourism enterprise. The project's supporters claim that the needs of the tourism industry and nature protection can both be promoted and that it is important to develop a tourist centre which is already situated within the national park. This article is an attempt to try to shed light on why the local people are so loudly resisting the plans by a private tourism enterprise to touch the national park. It is based on my fieldwork among reindeer herding families in the area.

The ideologies, beliefs and practices associated with new cult places in post-Soviet Latvia are discussed. When social movement for the restoration of an independent nation state started at the end of the 1980s, new pantheistic cult sites gained a certain topicality. In relation to such sites esoteric New Age style ideologies and practices were constructed. Pokaiņi forest - a remote place in Latvia, abundant in stone piles and big stones, has been interpreted as an ancient sanctuary of global significance, as a cosmological and healing centre. Latvian scholars - archaeologists, geologists and folklorists - are treating Pokaiņi as a site with traces of ancient agricultural activity, and its popularity is attributed to the 'use of good management'. The historical perspective of the Pokaiņi phenomenon and modern interpretations of its perception are discussed in the context of revitalisation movements. The analysis of the complex socio-cultural situation of Latvia in the turn of the twentieth and the twenty- first century reveals the reasons, facilitating the emergence and significance of Pokaiņi and similar phenomena in post-Soviet Latvia.

The history of Lypyrtti, an old pilot village in the southwestern coast of Finland, is for many villagers a story of depopulation of a vital community during the last fifty years. In 2005 the villagers of Lypyrtti expressed their interest in collecting the oral history of their village. This material is gathered, edited and released in the context of research on the topic of 'narrated environment', which draws attention to the interdisciplinary methods and theories of the practices of place making

Since 2007 the Irish government have prevented the fisher-men of the Donegal islands of Arranmore, Tory and Inishbofin from engaging in their generations-old drift-net salmon fishery. We have been involved in supporting the islanders as they organise themselves to find ways to oppose the ban. In this dialogue we reflect on some aspects of our involvement.

The renewed relevance of religion in post-Soviet public spheres has been accompanied by conspicuous and controversial conversion processes. This article compares cases of conversion on the Muslim-Christian frontier in Kyrgyzstan and in Georgia. It argues that the notions of boundary and frontier are essential to construct a more dynamic model for understanding 'spiritual' movement in social contexts that are rapidly changing. This approach in turn sheds light on the roles and the nature of social and cultural boundaries in the contemporary world.

This article addresses hairdressing as a forum in which African women running small salons in Athens negotiate identity and raise claims to modernity. The specificity of their entrepreneurial activities lies in that they occur at a time when the incorporation of ethnic modes of adornment in Western fashion captures Greeks' interest, but prevailing policies curtail the rights of displaced populations and look down upon their traditional performances. In this sense, my analysis touches upon issues of analytical importance to the ethnography on immigration in Greece. It exemplifies how African entrepreneurs diffuse seeds of their cultural legacy in the lifestyle of otherwise dismissive hosts as well as the multiple repercussions that their involvement in a major domain of consumption have on stereotypical imageries of and attitudes towards the Other.

Peter Worsley (2008), An Academic Skating on Thin Ice (Oxford & New York: Berghahn), 296 pp., Hb: $39.95/£22.00, ISBN-13: 978-1-8454-5370-1.