Anthropology

Social Ecology, Kurdistan, & the Origins of Freedom

Reflections on a recent visit to Turkey and North Kurdistan. Many Kurdish revolutionaries describe their struggle as one of organic society against authoritarian society and have forged a unique role in the continuing evolution of human freedom.

New book reviews and an interview

Reviews are starting to come in for the recent books by Brian Tokar and Dan Chodorkoff that were profiled here: • The Swiss Ecologie Sociale website has reviewed both books (in French) • PopularResistance.org has reviewed Toward Climate Justice

New books from Dan Chodorkoff & Brian Tokar

From New Compass Press in Norway, a new collection of Dan Chodorkoff’s essays, The Anthropology of Utopia, plus a revised and expanded edition of Brian Tokar’s Toward Climate Justice.  Both available in September; review copies now available from New Compass:
THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF UTOPIA
Essays on Social Ecology and Community Development
By Dan Chodorkoff

How can we avert ecological catastrophe? How can we build community? What is the practical relevance of utopia? These are [...]

The return of “scientific” racism

Alan Goodman, a professor at Hampshire College, co-director of the American Anthropological Association’s Understanding Race project, and long-time friend of the ISE, has posted a review on Counterpunch.org of a disturbing new book by New York Times science writer Nicholas Wade, which aims to revive long-discredited theories proposing a biological basis for racial divisions among peoples.  Here’s an excerpt:
Nicholas Wade’s book, A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race, and Human History, is what the title suggests: a troubling view of [...]

Dan Chodorkoff on the origins of the ISE

Video of Dan Chodorkoff discussing the origins of the ISE, focusing on early renewable energy experiments at Cate Farm in central Vermont.

New book on participatory evolution

Counterpunch this week features an interview with molecular biologist James Shapiro, whose new book, Evolution: A View from the 21st Century, seeks to offer a comprehensive view of current work in evolutionary biology and concludes that concepts of innovation, self-organization, and self-directed evolution have now overtaken traditional Darwinian views of evolution driven by random mutations.

The book begins:
How does novelty arise in evolution? Innovation, not selection, is the critical issue in evolutionary change. Without variation and novelty, selection has [...]

August 2012 Social Ecology Colloquium

Invitation and Call for Papers:
Social Ecology in the Occupy Movement
6th Annual Summer Colloquium
Institute for Social Ecology
Marshfield, Vermont, August 17-19, 2012
Application/Registration Deadline: June 1, 2012  (details below)
Contact: colloquium@social-ecology.org

The Institute for Social Ecology invites you to attend our 6th annual summer colloquium.

ISE colloquia offer the opportunity to gather with an international community of social ecologists and students of social ecology to present written work, discuss activist projects, and examine ideas related to the theory and praxis of [...]