Time and space are two of the most basic dimensions of human life. They envelop all human beings from birth to death. As such, they provide the context for human existence. At the same time, however, time and space also serve as major influencing factors in mankind's actions. Hence, a vast literature has developed on time and space as separate dimensions, and recently on time-space as joint dimensions. Interestingly enough, the social connotations of time and space have mostly been studied with the individual human being in mind. The more societal significance of time and space, whether separately or jointly, have been relatively neglected. It is the purpose of this volume to help fill this lacuna through discussions on some of the many junctions of time, space, and society at large. The discussion will naturally involve concepts and findings from more than just one discipline -- notably, geography, sociology, social history and political science. It is, thus, obvious that the topic may be highlighted from several perspectives. Given my own education and work, the approach will lean more to the geographical perspective. Geography has a special merit as an integrating framework for the study of time, space, and society. It is a discipline that has space at the center of its raison d'etre and, as such, has always striven for integration, holism and comprehensiveness.

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Originally published in 1982, Time Resources, Society and Ecology examines and seeks to examine the time dimension in terms of the ecology, technology, social organization and spatial structure of the human habitat. Approaches to time resources – sociological time-budget studies, anthropological activity analysis, and economic analysis of money allocation – have been limited by their sectoral scope or their failure to relate effectively to the processes of social interaction, technological change and environmental structure. In this book, the book’s articulation of time resources is developed in a general theoretical framework of action and interaction in time and space. The book examines constraints and possibilities facing preindustrial societies and throws light on the impact of technology on modern societies. Basic models of time allocation are presented, and, finally, a cross-cultural comparison is made of the mobilization of time resources in preindustrial societies. Geographers, social anthropologists and human ecologists should find this work directly relevant to their interest in understanding the interactions between man and environment.

This book presents the current state of the art in Social Ecology as practiced by the Vienna School of Social Ecology, globally one of the main research groups in this field. As a significant contribution to the growing literature on interdisciplinary sustainability studies, the book introduces the purpose and nature of Social Ecology and then places the “Vienna School” within the broader context of socioecological and other interdisciplinary environmental approaches. The conceptual and methodological foundations of Social Ecology are discussed in detail, allowing the reader to obtain a broad overview of current socioecological thinking. Issues covered include socio-metabolic transitions, socioecological approaches to land use, the relation between actor-centered and system approaches, a socioecological theory of labor and the importance of legacies, as conceived in Environmental History and in Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research. To underpin this overview empirically, the strengths of socioecological research are elucidated in cases of cutting-edge research, introducing a variety of themes the Vienna School has been tackling empirically over the past years. Given how the field is presented – reflecting research carried out on different scales, reaching from local to global as well as from past to present and future – and due to the way the book is structured, it is suitable for classroom use, as a primer, and also as an overview of how Social Ecology evolved, right up to its current research frontiers.

In this highly original book, Robert Dodgshon suggests that in order to understand change we first need to understand the geographical circumstances under which society finds change difficult. Secondly, he shows how society's use of space is a powerful source of this inertia, and the different sources of geographical inertia are explored. By examining this inertia we learn that society has long steered change around such spaces. This is an important and innovative book and will be of interest to a range of geographers, historians and social theorists.

This book is not a descriptive monograph, but an essay in cultural analysis, one which views culture as a system of symbols and which takes form under the impact of modern structural theory. A theme which runs throughout is the concept of dual organization, a structure which once characterized ten to fifteen percent of all known human societies, and which is found in a highly developed form among the Tewa today. Defined as "a system of antithetical institutions with the associated symbols, ideas, and meanings in terms of which social interaction takes place," a dual organization is for the Tewa a natural result of adapting to an environment comprised of opposites--two extremes of weather during the year; two means of subsistence, hunting in winter and farming in summer; and two periods and directions of migration in the origin myth.

Hailed once as giants of the Amazon , Panará people emerged onto a world stage in the early 1970s. What followed is a remarkable story of socio-demographic collapse, loss of territory, and subsequent recovery. Reduced to just 79 survivors in 1976, Panará people have gone on to recover and reclaim a part of their original lands in an extraordinary process of cultural and social revival. Space and Society in Central Brazil is a unique ethnographic account, in which analytical approaches to social organisation are brought into dialogue with Panará social categories and values as told in their own terms. Exploring concepts such as space, material goods, and ideas about enemies, this book examines how social categories transform in time and reveals the ways in which Panará people themselves produce their identities in constant dialogue with the forms of alterity that surround them. Clearly and accessibly written, this book will appeal to students, scholars and anyone interested in the complex lives and histories of indigenous Amazonian societies.