Collaborative Research: Cultural Models of Nature Across Cultures: Space, Causality, and Primary Food Producers

这项跨文化研究调查了几种文化和五大洲的人群所持有的自然文化模型（CM），从长期的初级食品生产者，例如，从农民、渔民、牧民（还有猎人和采集者）到最近由于全球化力量而转变为主要粮食消费者的人。自然界的CM，通常在个人或社区的意识之外，以不一定由更传统的生态模型预测的方式影响环境行动。该项目由15名学者和6名研究生组成，他们都是特定文化领域的专家。语言和实验数据将通过一个结合定性和定量方法的通用协议进行收集和分析。方法论和民族志起着至关重要的作用。研究人员希望发现各种各样的自然CM，以表征每个被调查的社区。这些CM代表构成自然概念的基本类别的特定组织，即人类，动物，植物，天气，物理环境和超自然。他们还期望因果关系成为将这些类别编织在一起的主要力量之一（除了空间关系之外）。同样，虽然归因于不同的元素和不同的效力，意向性将普遍存在。由于对初级食品生产者的关注，结果将提供关于这类人群通常如何构建自然CM的见解。此外，人们可以探索空间概念是CM（在这种情况下，自然）构建的核心的可能性，从而为包括空间领域在形成其他知识领域中的主要作用的心灵架构提供支持证据。最后，更重要的是，研究结果旨在为政策制定者提供，即，在寻找气候变化引起的问题的解决办法方面，主要的行为者，关于自然的土著文化多样性的信息，将有助于他们的决策。

This cross-cultural research investigates cultural models (CMs) of nature held by populations across several cultures and five continents ranging from long-time primary food producers, e.g., farmers, fishermen, herders (and also hunters and gatherers) to those who recently shifted to become primary food consumers due to globalization forces. CMs of nature, typically held out of one's or a community's awareness, affect environmental actions in ways not necessarily predicted by more traditional ecological models. The project comprises fifteen scholars and six graduate students who are experts in a particular cultural area. Linguistic and experimental data will be collected and analyzed by a common protocol that combines qualitative and quantitative approaches. Methodology and ethnography play paramount roles. Researchers expect to discover a variety of CMs of nature that characterize each community investigated. These CMs represent specific organizations of the constitutive categories underlying the concept of nature, that is, humans, animals, plants, weather, physical environment, and the supernatural. They also expect causal relationships to be one of the major forces (in addition to spatial relationships) weaving together these categories. Similarly, while attributed to different elements and in a different potency, intentionality will be universally present.The results, because of the focus on primary food producers, will provide insights on how this kind of population typically constructs a CM of nature. In addition, one can explore the possibility that conceptions of space are central to the construction of CMs (in this case, of nature), thus, provide supporting evidence for an architecture of the mind that includes a major role for the spatial domain in the forming of other domains of knowledge. Finally and more importantly, the findings are intended to supply policy makers, i.e., major actors in finding solutions to climate change induced problems, with information on indigenous CMs of nature that will assist them in their decision-making.