Environmental ethnography
This article discusses the theory and practice of environmental ethnography and how it joins with (and differs from) multispecies ethnography. In the context of geographical research, environmental ethnography attends to the irreducibility of context and the individuality of living and non-living en...
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/27539687231212222 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/27539687231212222 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/27539687231212222 |
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crsagepubl:10.1177/27539687231212222 2024-05-19T07:48:27+00:00 Environmental ethnography Lezak, Stephen Gates Cambridge Trust 2023 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/27539687231212222 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/27539687231212222 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/27539687231212222 en eng SAGE Publications https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Progress in Environmental Geography volume 2, issue 4, page 289-308 ISSN 2753-9687 2753-9687 journal-article 2023 crsagepubl https://doi.org/10.1177/27539687231212222 2024-05-02T09:38:25Z This article discusses the theory and practice of environmental ethnography and how it joins with (and differs from) multispecies ethnography. In the context of geographical research, environmental ethnography attends to the irreducibility of context and the individuality of living and non-living entities. Moving beyond the universalizing ontology of species—which in some instances can be too narrow and in other instances too broad—facilitates a line of posthumanist inquiry that complements multispecies research even as it opens up new frontiers. In doing so, environmental ethnographies overcome the dualisms of “organism-environment” and “life-nonlife” that structure Western ontology and remain stubbornly (if partially) embedded in some academic theory and practice. I begin with a brief history of the decentering of the human in geographical research before mapping the still-in-progress development of environmental ethnography, highlighting examples from other scholars while drawing on my own experiences in remote Iñupiaq and Siberian Yupik communities in Western Alaska. Moving beyond the rigid ontologies of genetics and metabolism reveals the political horizon to be wider than we often imagine. Article in Journal/Newspaper Siberian Yupik Yupik Alaska SAGE Publications Progress in Environmental Geography 2 4 289 308 |
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This article discusses the theory and practice of environmental ethnography and how it joins with (and differs from) multispecies ethnography. In the context of geographical research, environmental ethnography attends to the irreducibility of context and the individuality of living and non-living entities. Moving beyond the universalizing ontology of species—which in some instances can be too narrow and in other instances too broad—facilitates a line of posthumanist inquiry that complements multispecies research even as it opens up new frontiers. In doing so, environmental ethnographies overcome the dualisms of “organism-environment” and “life-nonlife” that structure Western ontology and remain stubbornly (if partially) embedded in some academic theory and practice. I begin with a brief history of the decentering of the human in geographical research before mapping the still-in-progress development of environmental ethnography, highlighting examples from other scholars while drawing on my own experiences in remote Iñupiaq and Siberian Yupik communities in Western Alaska. Moving beyond the rigid ontologies of genetics and metabolism reveals the political horizon to be wider than we often imagine. |
author2 |
Gates Cambridge Trust |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Lezak, Stephen |
spellingShingle |
Lezak, Stephen Environmental ethnography |
author_facet |
Lezak, Stephen |
author_sort |
Lezak, Stephen |
title |
Environmental ethnography |
title_short |
Environmental ethnography |
title_full |
Environmental ethnography |
title_fullStr |
Environmental ethnography |
title_full_unstemmed |
Environmental ethnography |
title_sort |
environmental ethnography |
publisher |
SAGE Publications |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/27539687231212222 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/27539687231212222 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/27539687231212222 |
genre |
Siberian Yupik Yupik Alaska |
genre_facet |
Siberian Yupik Yupik Alaska |
op_source |
Progress in Environmental Geography volume 2, issue 4, page 289-308 ISSN 2753-9687 2753-9687 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1177/27539687231212222 |
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Progress in Environmental Geography |
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2 |
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4 |
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289 |
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308 |
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1799466693110530048 |