Nature and Culture

Although the traditional approach in water resources management is to address water-related scarcity problems at the local or regional scale, some see water as a global resource with global drivers and impacts, supporting the argument for a global governance of water. If water is not appropriately priced, or if “poor water governance“ creates adverse incentives for resource use in countries that export “virtual water,“ then increased demand from the world market may lead to the overexploitation of water or increasing pollution. Is this reason enough for a global governance of regional water-scarcity problems? On which scale should water-management problems actually be addressed, and can global action compensate for local and regional governance failure? The paper argues that compensating globally for regional governance failure could cause “problems of fit“ and present severe downside risks.

Recent ecological studies have identified human activity as a relevant dimension of current evolutionary processes. However, most of these studies rely on socioeconomic indicators that consider the impact of activities on ecosystems but have only limited informative value on the effects of concrete patterns of action. This paper focuses on the concept of style as a tool for the study of the interface between society and nature. We exemplify our thesis with reference to changes in plant biodiversity in settlements, and start by summing up the methods and findings of our interdisciplinary research project that aimed to explain the distribution of native and alien plants. Since the findings indicate that styles of living and acting influence plant species composition, we apply the findings of our research strategy beyond the narrow focus of our study. Finally, we comment on methodological implications for the study of the societal aspects of social-ecological systems.

The present work documents the core diet of a population in a Mediterranean island that has been minimally eroded by industrialization and tourism, and links present food-consumption patterns to the foods' historical roots and to the exploitation of natural resources available to the community. Demographic, behavioral, cultivation, and food-intake information were collected among inhabitants of the isolated northern villages of Karpathos. The core diet of the elderly village inhabitants was found to be based on wheat, barley, legumes, and olive oil. Inhabitants in the northern villages of Karpathos rely on local resources for most of their food. Absence of mechanized farming, the social role of women, and customs of inheritance are factors that have contributed to the preservation of traditional food-related practices.

Among the many contributions of Roderick D. McKenzie to sociology are two ideas which continue to be useful in understanding modern society. First, as the main proponent and theorist of the human ecology of the Chicago School, McKenzie offers suggestions for an alternative conception of society, one that emphasizes among other things the physical basis of social relations. Secondly, McKenzie's works suggest in various ways that modern society is characterized by a growth in physical integration. The first aspect of this argument is found in his discussion of the centrality of institutions in the analysis of social relations. The second aspect is his detailed description and analysis of the “great integrated unity“ that he called the Great Society or World Society. Many decades before sociologists began to write of “globalization,“ McKenzie provides detailed description and extensive analysis of global society and many of the issues in the current globalization debate.

Numerous critics have studied Jonathan Swift's use of animals as satirical tools in Gulliver's Travels. However, none has devoted sufficient attention to Swift's forerunning “ecocritical“ concern with animal issues in relation to humans. Although the animal theme in Gulliver's Travels does involve satirical intentions, this paper aims at showing that it has more profound implications that manifest Swift's forward-looking ideas regarding the relation between humans and their natural environment, as represented in the human-animal relationship. The ethical stand and moral commitment to the natural world represented by animals, and the care for making the themes of a literary work a means to create connections between man and the natural environment around him, are basic ecocritical values that Swift stresses both explicitly and implicitly throughout the novel.

Copeland, Daryl. 2009. Guerrilla Diplomacy: Rethinking International Relations. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Mittelman, James. 2010. Hyperconflict: Globalization and Insecurity. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Thompson, William R., ed. 2009. Systemic Transitions: Past, Present, and Future. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.