Bøger af Veronica Strang

Looking to the vast human history of water worship, a crucial study of our broken relationship with all things aquatic--and how we might mend it. Early human relationships with water were expressed through beliefs in serpentine aquatic deities: rainbow-colored, feathered or horned serpents, giant anacondas, and dragons. Representing the powers of water, these beings were bringers of life and sustenance, world creators, ancestors, guardian spirits, and lawmakers. Worshipped and appeased, they embodied people's respect for water and its vital role in sustaining all living things. Yet today, though we still recognize that "water is life," fresh- and saltwater ecosystems have been critically compromised by human activities. This major study of water beings and what has happened to them in different cultural and historical contexts demonstrates how and why some--but not all--societies have moved from worshipping water to wreaking havoc upon it and asks what we can do to turn the tide.

Presents an introduction to the ways in which anthropology's research methods and thinking contribute to a wide range of fields: environmental issues, aid and development, advocacy, human rights, social policy, the creative arts, museums, health, education, crime, communications technology, design, marketing, and business.

Through a comparison of two very different groups, the Aboriginal people and the white cattle farmers in Far North Queensland, this text explores how the human-environmental relationship is culturally constructed.

Focusing on the River Stour in Dorset, this book draws upon a range of data: ethnographic research, cultural mapping, local archives and folklore. It explores the controversies surrounding water ownership and management, and the social and political questions raised by water privatization in the UK.

Around the world, intensifying development and human demands for fresh water are placing unsustainable pressures on finite resources. Countries are waging war over transboundary rivers, and rural and urban communities are increasingly divided as irrigation demands compete with domestic desires. Marginal groups are losing access to water as powerful elites protect their own interests, and entire ecosystems are being severely degraded. These problems are particularly evident in Australia, with its industrialised economy and arid climate. Yet there have been relatively few attempts to examine the social and cultural complexities that underlie people's engagements with water. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in two major Australian river catchments (the Mitchell River in Cape York, and the Brisbane River in southeast Queensland), this book examines their major water using and managing groups: indigenous communities, farmers, industries, recreational and domestic water users, and environmental organisations. It explores the issues that shape their different beliefs, values and practices in relation to water, and considers the specifically cultural or sub-cultural meanings that they encode in their material surroundings. Through an analysis of each group's diverse efforts to 'garden the world', it provides insights into the complexities of human-environmental relationships.