The Role of Anthropology in the Global Sustainability Movement

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Abstract

Although the field of anthropology is well positioned to evaluate and foster the global sustainability movement, it has not taken a leadership role in this global discourse. The cause rests in antghropology's focus on the study of the small and its adherence to an anti-globalist perspective. Anti-globalists argue that protecting cultural diversity gives humans the best chance at survival and that sustainability cannot happen with continuing social and environmental injustices driven by the globalization of a Western hegemonic worldview. Advocates for a global sustainability movement also recognize these structural flaws but argue that the health of ecology, society, and economy must be understood as interdependent aspects within the interrelated ecosystem that is our shared world. This seeming globalist/anti-globalist divide within anthropology can be bridged by employing an organizing rather than a mobilizing approach to social change. By using an organizing model, anthropology can continue to promote self determination, environmental and social justice, rights to access, and sustainable practices at the community level, and, at the same time, link those community practices into a global sustainability movement.