January 2004
Rebecca Zarger, Contributing Editor
Anthropology and Environment Section
Lund Conference on World System History and Global Environmental Change
Alf Hornborg and Christian Isendahl, Human Ecology Division, Lund University
During four days of intense scholarly interaction across disciplinary boundaries, anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, geographers, geologists, ecologists, sociologists, economists, and political scientists from five continents met at the Grand Hotel in Lund, Sweden, to discuss “World System History and Global Environmental Change”. Organized by Alf Hornborg and Christian Isendahl of the Human Ecology Division, Lund University, with financial support primarily from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, the conference took place September 19-22, 2003.
The central goal of the meeting was to bring together researchers from the social, historical, geographical, and environmental sciences in an effort to broaden our view of the ecological dimensions of global, economic processes in a long-term, historical perspective. Invitations were extended to a limited number of key scholars representing a variety of relevant fields. The aim was to initiate transdisciplinary communication and cooperation between those devoted primarily to the historical study of societal and economic processes and those devoted to anthropogenic environmental transformations. The organizers anticipated that the conference would contribute to the international research community by integrating historical, social science perspectives on global economic systems and studies of long-term, biophysical changes. For instance, studies in environmental history and environmental archaeology are concerned with long-term anthropogenic transformations of ecosystems. Very rarely, however, do they show a theoretical concern for the political and distributional aspects of environmental deterioration reflected in concepts such as “accumulation” and “unequal exchange”, which might give a more complete picture of the socio-ecological dynamics of large-scale environmental change over time. At the same time, these concepts—deriving from the world systems discourse of economic historians, sociologists, and political scientists—have much to gain in analytical precision from becoming more firmly anchored in the material realities of socio-ecological processes. Ultimately, the overall aim of the conference was to provide theoretical and historical contexts for understanding the contemporary concern with sustainable development.
Contributions were organized into six different sessions, the first of which was a series of keynote addresses offering transdisciplinary perspectives on the link between world system history and global environmental change. These were delivered by Karl Butzer, Alfred Crosby, Carole Crumley, Joan Martínez-Alier, Emilio Moran, and Immanuel Wallerstein. Subsequently, five thematic sessions were held during three consecutive days, adding up to a total number of 65 papers, each allotted 30 minutes including discussion. Session themes and papers demonstrate a wide spectrum of approaches to the study of socio-ecological interactions. Fourteen contributions, including papers by Andre Gunder Frank, Jonathan Friedman, Richard Grove, Frank Oldfield, Andrew Sherratt, Ian Simmons, Joseph Tainter, and Michael Williams, offered general theoretical perspectives on world system/earth system dynamics. Sixteen presentations offered archaeological and historical case studies of environmental impacts of world systemic processes, primarily from Amazonia (William Balée, Rafael Gassón, Betty Meggers, Eduardo Neves, and Gustavo Politis) and eastern Africa (e.g., Felix Chami, Thomas Håkansson, and Paul Sinclair), but with some cases from Asia (Robert Marks), Europe (e.g., Donald Hughes and Kristian Kristiansen), and Mesoamerica and the Caribbean (Christian Isendahl, John McNeill, and Richard Wilk). Twelve contributors to a thematic session on ecological aspects of unequal exchange discussed topics such as material flow analysis, environmental load displacement, and ecological footprints (e.g., Stephen Bunker, Marina Fischer-Kowalski, and Tom Abel). Nine papers focused on the role of climate change in socio-ecological systems, and included contributions by Chris Chase-Dunn, John Dearing, and William Thompson. In the final session, eight presenters—including Riley Dunlap, William Fisher, Josiah Heyman, and Susan Stonich—discussed development, modernity, and environmental justice.
The organizers and participants seemed to agree that the conference was a great success in integrating studies of the earth system with those of the world system and in providing a forum for trans-disciplinary communication and cooperation. Progress in this endeavor may ultimately assist our ability to conceptualize human-environmental relations in terms that will be conducive to dealing with the challenges of global sustainability. The contributions will be edited for publication in a coherent series of volumes. Further information about the conference is available at www.humecol.lu.se/woshglec.
Send essays, news, and other information to the section editor: Rebecca Zarger (zarger@fiu.edu), Dept. of Environmental Studies & Sociology/Anthropology, ECS 332, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199.