After recently finishing Keith Basso’s ‘Wisdom Sits in Places’ for Intro to Cultural Anthropology, I have been reconsidering place as it applies to Environmental Studies. We discussed at the beginning of the semester about how place provides a method for situating otherwise sprawling research. It provided context for complex environmental issues. While this is certainly one way to view place, Basso provides a look into different ways for place to be interpreted.
Basso studies how the Western Apache people relate to language and place. He shows how place has several different layers of interpretation for them. Every meadow, river crossing, stone formation, etc. has an individual place-name that represents much more than the surface level place. Each place-name has a story that provides history, culture, and a moral. More than that, understanding and reflecting on places determines wisdom. Basso argues for place as an important field for anthropological study; as something that is essential to understanding oneself and something that changes drastically from culture to culture.
So what does this mean for environmental studies? I, at least, have gained a greater understanding of place as something besides as a geophysical location. The boundaries set by place make researching a lot easier, but there are many more factors to be aware of. The importance of place for a culture has to be taken into account when considering place as a method of study. For example, if studying the Western Apache in Cibecue, it is important to know how place represents wisdom in their eyes to understand how place and the people are interconnected. I’m looking forward to seeing this play out in both Cultural Anthropology and Environmental Analysis.