The Appropriation of Nature
How do human beings differ from animals? Do we alone produce our food, make tools, cooperate in their use, and share the proceeds? Or do other animals perform likewise? Tim Ingold investigates such questions by exploring the dimensions of human "mastery" over nature, epitomized by the notion of appropriation.
By contrasting human hunting and gathering to nonhuman foraging and to pastoralism and cultivation, Ingold addresses a series of key problems in understanding the most elementary form of human economy. He examines the nature of work and subsistence, tool making and tool using, cooperating and sharing, the appropriation of space, nomadic movement and storage, property and ownership, domestication and sacrifice. The definition of social and ecological relationships, and the interplay between them, constitutes the central theme of this investigation.
Drawing on ethnographic material from regions as far apart as Australia and the Circumpolar North as well as on recent field studies of nonhuman primates, Ingold challenges orthodox assumptions about humanity and animality. He recaptures the essence of hunter-gatherer humanity, isolating what is truly distinctive about this mode of life.
This pioneering book, written in a clear, nontechnical style, will be read by students and professionals at all levels, not only anthropologists but also archaeologists, biologists, psychologists, and philosophers.