Original paper
Bericht [Report]
Herrmann, Bernd
Anthropologischer Anzeiger Volume 60 No. 1 (2002), p. 95 - 95
1 references
published: Apr 12, 2002
DOI: 10.1127/anthranz/60/2002/95
Open Access (paper may be downloaded free of charge)
Abstract
"Exploitation and Overexploitation in Societies Past and Present" was the theme of the 2001 Inter-Congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, held from July 18th to 21st in Göttingen. The Intercongress was hosted by Bernd Herrmann (Anthropology, Göttingen) and Brigitta Benzing (Ethnology, Göttingen). The subject of the conference was chosen as it covers a problem intensely discussed in the scientific communities of anthropology, ethnology, environmental history and related fields such as archaeology or historical geography. Questions of resource economics and the evaluation of human impact on natural systems gain more and more importance in the scientific discourse. The Congress aimed to bring together reseachers of relevant, but often too distant fields, thus promoting also attempts of modernisation especially into the anthropological community. More than 130 participants from 23 countries discussed the topics in plenary sessions on Environmental History, Sustainability and Environmental History, Sustainability and Environmental Sociology as well as in parallel symposia (with more than 70 contributions). The conference provided important and interesting contributions as well as to historical human ecology as to social-metabolic analyses of land use and governance in modern societies. The interdependencies between societal concepts of nature and natural commons including human populations and their indigenous knowledge were widely discussed. Research areas pointed at the conference will be subject of further discussions at the next IUAES world congress in Florence in 2003. Sad to state that most of German anthropologists did not take the opportunity to meet quite a few of renowned researchers in modern anthropology and to join in discussing one of the most urgent topics in human ecology.
Keywords
Report