Roy Ellen - Early Publishing

Early Publishing

Roy Ellen tackled the debate between nature and culture. Stating that the conception of nature has varied historically and ethnographically and as a result has become cultural. A popular environmental discourse in which the opposition is drawn between the holistic systemic vision of what is viewed as traditional or tribal and the dualism of the modern scientific Christian tradition. In his view nature has become some topological grid dividing the civilized and the uncivilized, which has led to the rejection of the very idea of nature. This view and the different conceptions of nature have given rise to many problems and thus have given ways to assumptions and implications that it is our task to locate and excavate nature (Ellen, 1996).

Dr. Ellen proposes ways to deal with the categorical status of nature. The first of which is to acknowledge that any one population may generate their own conceptions of nature, which may be inconsistent and contradictory from one another and some may have no concept of nature whatsoever, but it must be acknowledged. The second is to bring down this trend and be able to identify the minimum number of underlying assumptions in which these conceptions are built so as to alleviate the contrasting points of views about nature and focus on the multi-faceted, but ultimately recognizable idea of nature (Ellen, 1988). Dr. Ellen also uses his extensive experience with the Nuaulu to draw on as an example to begin identifying and cultivating cultural phenomena, which explores and permits us to the existence of nature as a domain (Ellen, 1993).

He also emphasizes the indigenous knowledge of the rainforest in preserving the identity and culture of indigenous people whose ways of life are threatened. He had observed that historically the indigenous people have perceived and interacted with the rainforest in many diverse ways. Diversity has been obscured with the process of globalization and the undertaking of oversimplifying the relationships, which the people have established with the forest. He implores conservationists to take indigenous knowledge into account and form a judgment based on evidence for that particular situation and not generalization (Ellen, 1993). Dr. Ellen recognizes that individual subsistence techniques differ among particular populations and have different ecological profiles when it comes to energy transfer, limiting factors, and carrying capacity. The effect on the landscape is varied and is due to the degree of human effort that is required. Empirical knowledge of plants and animals and its broad understanding allows them to comfortably co-exist together and gives way to claims of mutual causation that gives rise to a complex notion of nature He includes that although uncut forest is recognized by Nuaulu as a single entity, it contrasts in different ways with other land types depending on context. The Nuaulu’s concept of their environment is not one of space in which they traverse, but more like a series of fixed points to which particular clans and individuals are interconnected. These interconnections are practical implications between social and environmental and can be very important (Ellen, 1993). Dr. Ellen’s main view, which is perhaps the most important, is that indigenous knowledge and practices must be understood contextually. Outsiders must begin to separate prejudices about our environment and we must apply formal knowledge to different situations. Indigenous knowledge of the rainforest is always situational and varies and ever-changing depending on the situation at hand (Ellen, 1994).