Tree Cultures

The relationship between nature and culture has become a popular focus in social science, but there have been few grounded accounts of trees. Providing shelter, fuel, food and tools, trees have played a vital role in human life from the earliest times, but their role in symbolic expression has been largely overlooked. For example, trees are often used to express nationalistic feelings. Germans drew heavily on tree and forest imagery in nation-building, and the idea of 'hearts of oak' has been central to concepts of English identity. Classic scenes of ghoulish trees coming to life and forests closing in on unsuspecting passers-by commonly feature in the media. In other instances, trees are used to represent paradisical landscapes and symbolize the ideologies of conservation and concern for nature. Offering new theoretical ideas, this book looks at trees as agents that co-constitute places and cultures in relationship with human agency. What happens when trees connect with human labour, technology, retail and consumption systems? What are the ethical dimensions of these connections? The authors discuss how trees can affect and even define notions of place, and the ways that particular places are recognized culturally. Working trees, companion trees, wild trees and collected or conserved trees are considered in relation to the dynamic politics of conservation and development that affect the values given to trees in the contemporary world. Building on the growing field of landscape study, this book offers rich insights into the symbolic and practical roles of trees. It will be vital reading for anyone interested in the anthropology of landscape, forestry, conservation and development, and for those concerned with the social science of nature.

The relationship between nature and culture has become a popular focus in social science, but there have been few grounded accounts of trees. Providing shelter, fuel, food and tools, trees have played a vital role in human life from the earliest times, but their role in symbolic expression has been largely overlooked. For example, trees are often used to express nationalistic feelings. Germans drew heavily on tree and forest imagery in nation-building, and the idea of 'hearts of oak' has been central to concepts of English identity. Classic scenes of ghoulish trees coming to life and forests closing in on unsuspecting passers-by commonly feature in the media. In other instances, trees are used to represent paradisical landscapes and symbolize the ideologies of conservation and concern for nature. Offering new theoretical ideas, this book looks at trees as agents that co-constitute places and cultures in relationship with human agency. What happens when trees connect with human labour, technology, retail and consumption systems? What are the ethical dimensions of these connections? The authors discuss how trees can affect and even define notions of place, and the ways that particular places are recognized culturally. Working trees, companion trees, wild trees and collected or conserved trees are considered in relation to the dynamic politics of conservation and development that affect the values given to trees in the contemporary world. Building on the growing field of landscape study, this book offers rich insights into the symbolic and practical roles of trees. It will be vital reading for anyone interested in the anthropology of landscape, forestry, conservation and development, and for those concerned with the social science of nature.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.

This volume focuses on the tree, as a cultural and biological form, and examines the concept of folk value and its implications for biocultural conservation. Folk value refers to the value of the more-than-human living world to cultural cohesion and survival, as opposed to individual well-being. This field of value, comprising cosmological, aesthetic, eco-erotic, sentimental, mnemonic value and much more, serves as powerful motivation for the local performance of environmental care. The motivation to maintain and conserve ecology for the purpose of cultural survival will be the central focus of this book, as the conditions of the Anthropocene urgently require the identification, understanding and support of enduring, self-perpetuating biocultural associations. The geographical scope is broad with chapters discussing different tree species from the Americas and the Caribbean, East Asia, Eurasia and Australia and Africa. By focusing on the tree, one of the most reliably cross-culturally-valued and cross-culturally-recognized biological forms, and one which invariably defines expansive landscapes, this work illuminates how folk value binds the survival of more-than-human life forms with the survival of specific peoples in the era of biocultural loss, the Anthropocene. As such, this collection of cross-cultural cases of tree folk value represents a low hanging fruit for the larger project of exploring the power of cultural value of the more-than-human living world. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of conservation, biodiversity, biocultural studies and environmental anthropology.

A wide-ranging study of the symbolism and cultural meaning of the tree through history, from the Cosmic Tree of antiquity to modern European, American and Asian customs and beliefs. In the companion volume, The Spirit of Trees, Fred Hageneder captivated readers with a passionate and informed account of the natural life and ecology of trees. The Heritage of Trees evokes forest customs, images and meanings of the forest from the Stone Age to modern times.