Review by Choice Review
Captivating, meticulous, invaluable, and awesome best describe this book. Ethnobotanist Johnson (Athabasca Univ., Canada) reports on her extensive firsthand experience living with indigenous cultures that are finely tuned into the biodiversity in their environments: the Gitxsan and Witsuwit'en of northwestern British Columbia, the Kaska Dena of the southern Yukon, and the Gwich'in of the Mackenzie Delta. Johnson describes in detail their knowledge, classification, and meaning about the landscapes that they travel while hunting, fishing, and gathering, as well as associated stories. She argues that the ways that people understand and act in local landscapes is closely interrelated with their daily life, culture, and identity. Furthermore, Johnson compares the intimate ecological, cultural, and spiritual relationships to place (sentient ecology) with Western scientific, resource management, and economic development approaches to objectified and commodified space. The introductory and concluding chapters include an extensive review of relevant literature. Destined to become a classic in ethnoecology, cultural ecology, and spiritual ecology, this book should be relevant to anyone interested in this northwestern region or the subjects in general, including anthropologists, biologists, geographers, and others. Summing Up; Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above. L. E. Sponsel University of Hawaii
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
