Dr. Giovanni Bennardo (Northern Illinois University) will organize a 3-day workshop entitled "Cultural Models of Nature and the Environment: Self, Space, and Causality" to be held on the campus of Northern Illinois University. The goals of the workshop are to (1) examine the existing literature about the conceptualization of nature and the environment in primary food producers in 15 cultural areas; (2) obtain from these data a number of cultural models about nature and the environment in each of these cultures; and (3) synthesize the results for a new research project whereby the results of the workshop are used as the building foundation.
The populations keenly aware of and most at risk to the effects of climate change are obviously those whose livelihood depends on daily contact with the changing physical environment, that is, primary food producers. The workshop pursues a deeper understanding of their cultural models of nature and the environment as well as the distribution of such models within the targeted communities. Thus, the workshop will make a contribution to the expanding literature on cultural models and impacts of climate change. The intent of the organizer and of the participants is to investigate further the cultural models developed during the workshop by the acquisition of cross-cultural comparative ethnographic and experimental data. An important goal is to comprehend the manner in which the interaction between space and self contributes to the generation of cultural models.
On September 1-4, at the University Suites, Holmes Student Center, Northern Illinois University, a workshop was held entitled "Cultural Models of Nature and the Environment: Self, Space, and Causality." The first goal of the workshop was to examine the existing literature about the conceptualization of nature and the environment in primary food producers in a number of cultural areas. The second goal was to obtain from these extensive data a number of cultural models about nature and the environment in each of these cultures. The third and final goal was to generate the ground for a new research project whereby the results of the workshop are used as the building foundation. In fact, the intention of the organizer and of the participants is to investigate the hypothesized cultural models by the acquisition of cross-cultural comparative ethnographic and experimental data. At the same time, the ultimate goal is to scrutinize the fundamental role that space may play in the generation of cultural models, and specifically models of self, i.e., proprioception, and about nature and the environment. Each workshop participants contributed their ethnographic, cultural, and linguistic expertise about a specific culture. The cultural areas (in large brushes) represented are: Amazonia, China, Germany, Japan, Kenya, Lithuania, Menonimee (Native American, US), Namibia, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, and US (see Figure 1). Figure 1: Distribution of Cultural Areas. Preferential ways of mentally representing spatial relationships contribute to the construction of specific cultural models. Cultural models of nature and the environment are fundamental to the generation of behaviors that respond to or result from a rapidly changing physical environment. Thus, the goal and relevance of the proposed large cross-cultural investigation is to obtain insights into the genesis (role of space) and form/content of such knowledge organizations (cultural models of nature). This newly acquired knowledge will ultimately allow researchers to better understand human behavior in the domain of human relationship to nature and the environment. The workshop included two full days of work. Day one was devoted first to the introduction of the theoretical and methodological challenges that the project presents. Second, participants in the workshop gave a brief presentation about their cultural area. They provided the group with linguistic and ethnographic data, e.g., about the kinship system, the religion, and the economy (i.e., farming, fishing, herding) of their own areas of expertise. The impact of climate change on each area and its population were also discussed. Finally, each presenter, after focusing on the existing literature (including their own) about the concepts of nature and the environment in the population/community/culture at hand, advanced an hypothesis about a possible cultural model of nature and the environment held within that culture. Day two was devoted to the presention and discussion of issues concerning methodology. Past experiences were discussed and possible implementations of a number of methods to acquire the data necessary to satisfy the demand of the many goals of the research project were evaluated. Methods aimed at understanding cross culturally the extent to which cultural models of nature and environment correlate with conceptualizations of space and self were also considered. At the end of the second day of the workshop, the participants agreed on the possibility of adopting a certain number of methodological tools to be used in their future contribution to the research project. Some of the methodologies discussed were deemed as ‘core’ ones, that is, any contributing researcher regarded them as essential to the acquisition of data in the field and to the analyses to be conducted once back home. Another number of methodological tools were considered optional. That is, some researchers, while acknowledging their usefulness, spelled out how the use of some tasks in their specific field would be ecologically inappropriate. All participants in the end agreed that a description of all these tools, both core and optional groups, containing suggestions on how they could be employed in the field for acquiring data and used at home to analyze those data, would be highly recommended. It is for this reason that the planned publication of the proceedings of the Workshop by the ESE at NIU (May 2012) includes a section named Field Manual. This manual contains exactly what the participants collectively demanded, a short description of the methodological tools, both for acquiring data and for analyzing them, that each researcher will use in the oncoming stage of the research project the workshop promoted. The proceedings will be beneficial to area scholars, policy makers, and lay individuals who are active in conducting research on and pursuing solutions to climate change, a challenging species-survival issue. The results of the research project promoted by the workshop can foster sound policies based not only on de-contextualized scientific notions, but grounded in the local knowledge of the people directly responsible for adopting and possibly embracing those changes.
