Abstract

DURAND, Leticia. From Environmental Perceptions to Environmental Perspectives: A Reflection on the Role Anthropology in Environmental Issues. Nueva antropol [online]. 2008, vol.21, n.68, pp.75-87. ISSN 0185-0636.

Mexican studies on environmental perception are usually undertaken from a constructivist approach, which separates the natural from the human, considering the natural as a social construct. This point of view has its shortcomings. When we see the natural as a cultural product, culture looses the foundation on which meanings can be developed. On the other hand, a purely anti-essentialist approach overestimates human power to influence nature, and weakens at the same time nature's capacity for sociocultural transformation. To overcome these difficulties we need to consider that humans do not inhabit a world that is culturally constructed in its entirety, and that nature has the means to influence them directly, beyond their social experience. The purpose of this essay is to incorporate these ideas to the study of environmental perceptions, introducing the concept of environmental perspective as a useful element for considering nature in itself as a source of meanings and to overcome the dichotomy between nature and society. The concept of environmental perspective allows us to understand that environmental anthropology does not deal with different constructions of the natural, but with different environments.

Keywords : constructivism; environmental perceptions; environmental perspectives; conservation.

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