Living with Nature Across Time, Space and Cultural Perspectives: Introduction

Abstract

The introductory chapter describes conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches employed in the book to address environmentally informed histories. It also provides an overview of the thematic contents of individual chapters that combine archaeological data, oral history, linguistic research as well as ritual life and different testimonies of agency of Native communities, connected by major questions and overarching themes of the book. We argue that these interrelated studies, grounded in a variety of theoretical tools and representing different but complementary positionalities, build a multi-angled and diachronic account of complex entanglements between Indigenous peoples and their natural and social environs. Taken together, they offer a vivid and critical dialogue between different time periods, geographic areas, disciplines and epistemologies, driven by a fruitful interaction between academic perspectives and Indigenous methodologies. Referring to the environment as nature worked upon by historical and modern communities in culturally sensitive and transformative ways, we embrace the concepts of territory and place linked to the sense of identity and belonging. The introductory essay also highlights the importance of cultural continuity nurtured through ancestral languages and anchored in dynamic relationships with the environment, natural resources and community knowledge.