Ecology & Anthropology: A Field Without Future?

Many disciplines take part in the discourse on sustainability. Sustainability science tends to focus on the side of nature and to misunderstand the human condition; social sciences tend to focus on their respective specialties and on “nature” as concept, but rarely take ecological reality into account. Environmental and ecological anthropology as disciplines that address both sides are in a peculiar position. They move beyond the dualism of nature-culture to a holistic view on ecological and cultural realities in their intrinsic connectedness. Their input will become more important as sustainability is considered in abstracted discussion (e.g. academic and activist discourse), but not in individually and (inter-) culturally relevant terms, as sustainability discourse looks towards practice as an issue of “the economy” and technology, but not as an aspect of culture (as world view and as normal way of life, of which the economy is only a subset)