Copyright (c) 2010 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne Recent documents in Arjun Guneratne en-us Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:17:34 PDT 3600 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/48 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/48 Wed, 11 Aug 2010 07:29:16 PDT Arjun Guneratne http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/47 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/47 Wed, 11 Aug 2010 07:27:37 PDT Arjun Guneratne http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/46 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/46 Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:12:47 PST Arjun Guneratne Sri Lanka http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/45 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/45 Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:24:38 PDT Arjun Guneratne http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/42 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/42 Mon, 16 Feb 2009 08:19:21 PST Arjun Guneratne http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/41 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/41 Thu, 29 Jan 2009 08:33:31 PST For the last half-century, scholarship on human-environment relations in the Himalaya has focused on two broad areas. The first is the “Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation” (THED) which holds that the pressure of a growing population on mountain resources has generated an environmental crisis of deforestation, soil degradation etc. This thesis has been challenged during the last two decades by scholars who argue that it was greatly oversimplified, ahistorical and based on inadequate research. The second is the study by anthropologists and cultural geographers of the ways in which human populations in the Himalaya utilize the environment; these are in the main studies of ethno-ecological knowledge. The goal of the present volume is to shift the focus of research into human environment relations in the Himalaya to a different set of questions: those concerning how different populations in the region understand or conceive of the concept of environment, how their concepts vary across lines of gender, class, age, status, etc, how these concepts impact on actual biophysical processes and the implications for policy makers in the fields of environmental conservation and development. These are questions that have been insufficiently addressed not only in the literature on the Himalaya, but more generally in writings on the environment in South Asia. Nevertheless such questions mark a shift in anthropological thinking (exemplified by the developing field of environmental anthropology as opposed to cultural ecology) and in geography. This book seeks to introduce the new thinking in these disciplines into the study of the Himalaya and to use Himalayan ethnography to interrogate and critique contemporary theorizing about the environment. Arjun Guneratne Environment http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/40 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/40 Thu, 29 Jan 2009 08:28:51 PST Arjun Guneratne Ethnicity and Caste Ethnography of the Tharu http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/39 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/39 Wed, 17 Dec 2008 11:07:09 PST This paper examines the emergence in Sri Lanka of transcultural thinking about environmental issues as well as the activism it engenders by examining the role of the Anglophone Sri Lankan elite as the chief protagonists historically of environmentalism in the country. It also examines the history and development of one of Sri Lanka’s leading NGOs, Environmental Foundation Ltd. (EFL) as an example of the activism of this class. EFL’s perspective on environmental issues has its origins in the transformations wrought by colonialism in the country’s class structure and in the introduction of European ideas of nature to the country’s newly emergent middle-class. Modelled on the Natural Resources Defense Council of the United States, EFL was a new kind of environmental organization in Sri Lanka and a response to globalization and Sri Lanka’s increasing integration into the global economy. Unlike the handful of environmental NGOS that existed in the late seventies, which were essentially pressure groups, EFL was conceived, on the model of NRDC, as a public interest law firm, and drew on international models to frame its arguments about the application of the law in the cause of environmental protection. It quickly developed close links to international agencies of various kinds, which provided it with both funds and intellectual stimulation, as well as a network of like minded organizations, such as the email network e-law. This paper examines how these various factors – social class of the activists and the processes of institution building – shaped a cosmopolitan environmental discourse in Sri Lanka whose roots lie in urban Sri Lankan middle class culture as it emerged and was transformed during colonial rule and in the various discourses of globalization that have been drawn on by Sri Lankan activists to craft their own arguments. Arjun Guneratne Environment Sri Lanka http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/38 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/38 Fri, 14 Mar 2008 10:00:34 PDT Arjun Guneratne Area Studies http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/37 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/37 Fri, 14 Mar 2008 09:37:57 PDT Arjun Guneratne Ethnography of the Tharu http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/36 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/36 Fri, 14 Mar 2008 09:36:32 PDT Arjun Guneratne Ethnicity and Caste http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/35 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/35 Fri, 14 Mar 2008 09:35:32 PDT Arjun Guneratne Ethnicity and Caste http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/33 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/33 Fri, 14 Mar 2008 09:30:11 PDT Arjun, Guest editor Guneratne Politics http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/32 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/32 Wed, 09 Jan 2008 13:28:02 PST Arjun Guneratne Politics Sri Lanka http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/31 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/31 Wed, 09 Jan 2008 13:27:19 PST Arjun Guneratne Politics Sri Lanka http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/30 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/30 Wed, 09 Jan 2008 13:26:14 PST Arjun Guneratne Ethnicity and Caste http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/29 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/29 Wed, 09 Jan 2008 13:25:08 PST Arjun Guneratne Ethnography of the Tharu http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/28 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/28 Wed, 09 Jan 2008 13:21:45 PST Arjun Guneratne Ethnography of the Tharu http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/27 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/27 Wed, 09 Jan 2008 13:16:35 PST Arjun Guneratne Politics http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/26 http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/26 Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:15:20 PST Arjun Guneratne Ethnography of the Tharu