Thomas Love

Toward a Cultural Ecology of Mountains: The Central Andes and the Himalayas Compared [and Comments and Reply]

A model of the cultural ecology of tropical high mountains based on a comparison of the Central Andes and the Himalayas is presented. It is argued that mountain adaptations have three basic elements: (1) an array of vertical production zones, each characterized by a complex interaction of variables including agricultural regime, social organization, stratification, land tenure, labor organization, and level of productivity; (2) choice by the population of an overall production strategy for the exploitation of the vertical production zones available to it, a strategy that may involve specialization in one zone or, in response to a variety of constraints, the combined exploitation of several zones; and (3) a potential for change in production strategy, within the constraints of the mountain environment, under the influence of endogenous and exogenous factors.

Wind, Sun and Water: Complexities of Alternative Energy Development in Rural Northern Peru.

Abstract Drawing on recent research with NGO-driven projects in rural Cajamarca, Peru, we examine the paradoxes of relying on wind, solar and micro-hydro generation of electricity for rural community development. In spite of cost, vagaries of these energy resources and limited material benefits, especially with wind and solar systems, villagers are eagerly invested in these projects. While still desiring the power of grid electricity, local electricity is valued for how it illuminates shops and dwellings, extends the workday for children’s studies and women, and powers TV/DVD players and cell phones connecting households with the wider world. Electrification with small-scale renewable technologies blurs the urban/rural binary, tied as it is symbolically with ‘progress’, modern consumption styles and the trappings of urban life, even as these technologies paradoxically reinforce rural autonomy with electricity that is locally produced, with local resources.

To what are humans adapting

Emilio F. Moran, Human Adaptability: An Introduction to Ecological Anthropology. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1982. xv + 404 pp.

Valuing the temperate rainforest: wild mushrooming on the Olympic Peninsula Biosphere Reserve

25.00 cloth,

Cultures of Energy: Power, Practices, Technologies

13.50 paper.