The perception of the environment.- tim ingold

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The Perception of the Environment
In this work Tim Ingold offers a persuasive new approach to understanding how human beings perceive their surroundings. He argues that what we are used to calling cultural variation consists, in the first place, of variations in skill. Neitherinnate nor acquired, skills are grown, incorporated into the human organism through practice and training in an environment. They are thus as much biological as cultural. To account for the generation of skills we have therefore to understand the dynamics of development. And this in turn calls for an ecological approach that situates practitioners in the context of an active engagement with theconstituents of their surroundings. The twenty-three essays comprising this book focus in turn on the procurement of livelihood, on what it means to ‘dwell’, and on the nature of skill, weaving together approaches from social anthropology, ecological psychology, developmental biology and phenomenology in a way that has never been attempted before. The book is set to revolutionise the way we think aboutwhat is ‘biological’ and ‘cultural’ in humans, about evolution and history, and indeed about what it means for human beings – at once organisms and persons – to inhabit an environment. The Perception of the Environment will be essential reading not only for anthropologists but also for biologists, psychologists, archaeologists, geographers and philosophers. Tim Ingold is Professor of SocialAnthropology at the University of Aberdeen.

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Tools, minds and machines
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The Perception of the Environment
Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skillTim Ingold

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For Anna and Susanna, in memory of my mother, L. M. Ingold (1910–1998)

First published 2000 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EESimultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.
© 2000 Tim Ingold All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known orhereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book has been requested.

ISBN 0-203-46602-0Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-77426-4 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–22831–X (hbk) ISBN 0–415–22832–8 (pbk)

Tools, minds and machines
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Chapter One

Contents

List of figures viii Acknowledgements x General introduction 1

PART I: LIVELIHOOD
Introduction to PARTI 9 Chapter One Culture, nature, environment: steps to an ecology of life Chapter Two The optimal forager and economic man 27 40 13

Chapter Three Hunting and gathering as ways of perceiving the environment Chapter Four From trust to domination: an alternative history of human–animal relations 61 Chapter Five Making things, growing plants, raising animals and bringing up children 77 Chapter...