Fire Otherwise: Ethnobiology of Burning for a Changing World
by Cynthia T Fowler and James R Welch
University of Utah Press, 2018 Paper: 978-1-60781-614-0 | eISBN: 978-1-60781-615-7 Library of Congress Classification QH545.F5 Dewey Decimal Classification 577.24
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Fire is a daunting human ecological challenge and a major subject in science and policy debates about global trends in land conversion, climate change, and human health. Persistent environmental orthodoxies reduce complex burning traditions to overly simplistic representations of environmental destruction, degradation, and loss while reinforcing existing social inequities involving smallholders. Fire Otherwise: Ethnobiology of Burning for a Changing World advocates for a more inclusive and pluralistic fire ecology, a shift from the paradigmatic globalized version of fire science and management towards research and management that embraces anthropogenic fire regimes and broader understandings of the ways humans interact with fire. The authors present new evaluations of human interactions with fires in contexts of changing environmental conditions. Through deep description and analysis of knowledge and practices enacted by local communities who ignite, manage, and extinguish fires, this collection of case studies supports proactive local and regional efforts to adapt amidst continually changing social and ecological circumstances.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Cynthia T. Fowler is an anthropologist, ethnobiologist, and fire ecologist who teaches at Wofford College in South Carolina. She currently serves as president of the Society of Ethnobiology.
James R. Welch is an anthropologist and researcher at the National School of Public Health in Rio de Janeiro and a research fellow with the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development in Brazil.
REVIEWS
“This book is very important. It’s the first edited volume on fire ethnography and it is a good balance of thorough overview and specific in-depth studies. There is very little out there that is comparable.”
—Eugene N. Anderson, professor emeritus, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside
“Provides work previously unavailable on a timely subject in an interesting manner. The book will be of interest to those specializing in fire management, people interested in how various groups manage fire, climate-change specialists, and readers with geographical/enthnographical interests.”
—Carol J. Pierce Colfer, senior associate at the Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia, and visiting scholar with Cornell University’s Southeast Asia Program
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
1. Lifeways Enhancing Fire Ecology: An Introduction Cynthia T. Fowler and James R. Welch
2. Anthropogenic Fire History, Ecology, and Management in Fire-Prone Landscapes: An Intercontinental Review James R. Welch, Joyce K. LeCompte, Ramona J. Butz, Angela May Steward, and Jeremy Russell-Smith
3. Fire in the African Savanna: Identifying Challenges to Traditional Burning Practices in Tanzania and Malawi Ramona J. Butz
4. Fire Management in Brazilian Savanna Wetlands: New Insights from Traditional Swidden Cultivation Systems in the Jalapão Region (Tocantins) Ludivine Eloy, Silvia Laine Borges, Isabel B. Schmidt, and Ana Carolina Sena Barradas
5. Fire Use among Swidden Farmers in Central Amazonia: Reflections on Practice and Conservation Policies Angela May Steward
6. Restoration, Risk, and the (Non)Reintroduction of Coast Salish Fire Ecologies in Washington State Joyce K. LeCompte
7. The Critical Role of Firefighters’ Place-Based Environmental Knowledge in Responding to Novel Fire Regimes in Hawai‘i Lisa Gollin and Clay Trauernicht
8. Burning Lands: Fire and Livelihoods in the Navosa Hill Region, Fiji Islands Trevor King
9. Assessing Causes and Effects of Survival Emissions from Global to Local Scales: Agropastoral Communities in the North Kodi Subdistrict of Sumba Island, Indonesia Cynthia T. Fowler
Contributors
Index
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Fire Otherwise: Ethnobiology of Burning for a Changing World
by Cynthia T Fowler and James R Welch
University of Utah Press, 2018 Paper: 978-1-60781-614-0 eISBN: 978-1-60781-615-7
Fire is a daunting human ecological challenge and a major subject in science and policy debates about global trends in land conversion, climate change, and human health. Persistent environmental orthodoxies reduce complex burning traditions to overly simplistic representations of environmental destruction, degradation, and loss while reinforcing existing social inequities involving smallholders. Fire Otherwise: Ethnobiology of Burning for a Changing World advocates for a more inclusive and pluralistic fire ecology, a shift from the paradigmatic globalized version of fire science and management towards research and management that embraces anthropogenic fire regimes and broader understandings of the ways humans interact with fire. The authors present new evaluations of human interactions with fires in contexts of changing environmental conditions. Through deep description and analysis of knowledge and practices enacted by local communities who ignite, manage, and extinguish fires, this collection of case studies supports proactive local and regional efforts to adapt amidst continually changing social and ecological circumstances.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Cynthia T. Fowler is an anthropologist, ethnobiologist, and fire ecologist who teaches at Wofford College in South Carolina. She currently serves as president of the Society of Ethnobiology.
James R. Welch is an anthropologist and researcher at the National School of Public Health in Rio de Janeiro and a research fellow with the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development in Brazil.
REVIEWS
“This book is very important. It’s the first edited volume on fire ethnography and it is a good balance of thorough overview and specific in-depth studies. There is very little out there that is comparable.”
—Eugene N. Anderson, professor emeritus, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside
“Provides work previously unavailable on a timely subject in an interesting manner. The book will be of interest to those specializing in fire management, people interested in how various groups manage fire, climate-change specialists, and readers with geographical/enthnographical interests.”
—Carol J. Pierce Colfer, senior associate at the Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia, and visiting scholar with Cornell University’s Southeast Asia Program
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
1. Lifeways Enhancing Fire Ecology: An Introduction Cynthia T. Fowler and James R. Welch
2. Anthropogenic Fire History, Ecology, and Management in Fire-Prone Landscapes: An Intercontinental Review James R. Welch, Joyce K. LeCompte, Ramona J. Butz, Angela May Steward, and Jeremy Russell-Smith
3. Fire in the African Savanna: Identifying Challenges to Traditional Burning Practices in Tanzania and Malawi Ramona J. Butz
4. Fire Management in Brazilian Savanna Wetlands: New Insights from Traditional Swidden Cultivation Systems in the Jalapão Region (Tocantins) Ludivine Eloy, Silvia Laine Borges, Isabel B. Schmidt, and Ana Carolina Sena Barradas
5. Fire Use among Swidden Farmers in Central Amazonia: Reflections on Practice and Conservation Policies Angela May Steward
6. Restoration, Risk, and the (Non)Reintroduction of Coast Salish Fire Ecologies in Washington State Joyce K. LeCompte
7. The Critical Role of Firefighters’ Place-Based Environmental Knowledge in Responding to Novel Fire Regimes in Hawai‘i Lisa Gollin and Clay Trauernicht
8. Burning Lands: Fire and Livelihoods in the Navosa Hill Region, Fiji Islands Trevor King
9. Assessing Causes and Effects of Survival Emissions from Global to Local Scales: Agropastoral Communities in the North Kodi Subdistrict of Sumba Island, Indonesia Cynthia T. Fowler
Contributors
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE