Cultural ecology

PINOY KASI

Cultural ecology
By Michael Tan

Inquirer
Last updated 01:57am (Mla time) 06/08/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- The rains are here so, ever so conscious of the dangers of mosquitoes, we go out to our gardens to check for possible breeding grounds. We look for empty flowerpots, buckets, cans, even old tires that might have accumulated water which is now teeming with squirming mosquito larvae, draining them and feeling our families are safe.

Think again. Have you checked inside the house? Do you have flowers that have been in their vases for several days now, with unchanged water? What about those bromeliads, with leaves designed by nature to keep water? Do you have an aquarium, a fishpond, now without fish but still with water? Do you have toilets that are rarely used but because you left the seat cover up, its water has now become a sports club for mosquitoes?

I was shocked the other day when my father told me he’d found mosquito larvae in his toilet, not in the latrine but, of all places, in his water pick setup. These gadgets have a little receptacle where you pour in water, which flows into a pick to clean the teeth. If you forget to throw out the water after use, it attracts mosquitoes.

Not only that, my father found mosquitoes breeding as well in his bedroom, in the drainage slot or filter below the taps of the water dispenser! These filters take up the water that misses your cup when you’re filling it. The water can accumulate, and is stagnant, providing a virtual resort pool for the mosquitoes.

Scary, huh? You’re surrounded by mosquitoes waiting with dengue, malaria. Even the dogs are at risk, from heartworm.

Tapping nature

We tend to blame nature for many of our health problems, from winds (“ay, nahanginan”) and the heat to mosquitoes and birds (for avian flu) but forget it’s what we do to nature that either creates health or illness.

There’s a whole area of study, sometimes called cultural ecology, sometimes ecological anthropology, that looks into human interactions with our natural environment. The term “cultural ecology” is especially useful, highlighting how our interactions with the environment create “culture.” Early humans looked for ways to protect themselves from the elements, and came up with clothes and shelter, both of which are components of culture. (And because humans were imaginative, we went beyond function to create aesthetics, which is why we have fashions and architecture, and that’s still cultural.)

Nature poses challenges to us, but is also often a source of resources and solutions. All over the world, people learned to tap all kinds of materials for clothing, from plants as well as animals (until furs became politically incorrect). In Mindanao, many of our indigenous groups still know how to process tree barks into cloth (as in the T’boli tnalak). Today, we still rely pretty much on nature for clothing materials, cotton and silk, for example.

We transform nature each time we tap it, and often enough, there will be consequences. Depleted resources would be one of the more dramatic effects, but there are many smaller chains of events that we overlook, as I have just described with the mosquitoes.

We just need to be more aware of how our interactions with nature bring both benefits and risks. Pets are a prime example. We domesticated dogs (and they, us) for mutual benefit, but for most of human history, dogs stayed outside the home in most cultures. In the last 50 years or so, for many different reasons -- companionship, therapy, even as work animals such as seeing-eye dogs -- more people began to bring dogs into the home. That has meant adjusting to new problems like fleas and allergies. For the most part, we’ve managed quite well. I sometimes wonder if it’s the dogs that face greater risks, confronted with new problems in a home environment.

Let’s not forget, too, the technologies we developed to tap into nature more effectively. My father’s water pick and water dispenser are examples of ways by which we’ve tried to bring water into our household for specific purposes. In modern times, the technologies have allowed more intensive ways of exploiting nature, which can mean greater risks and problems.

CSI

In many ways, cultural ecology is a bit like doing forensic investigation except that it looks at culture and society for “evidence” and answers. Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and writer, is an example of someone who understands cultural ecology. One of his best-known investigations was into a neurological disease in a South Pacific island. Like a detective, he looked into every cultural nook and cranny and eventually found that the disease was caused by a kind of wild root crop they were eating.

As a medical anthropologist, I look into how cultures deal with health and illness. Inevitably, cultural ecology comes into the picture. I include a bit of cultural ecology whenever I can in lectures to health professionals, and I am developing a module on the topic for the medical schools at University of the Philippines and Ateneo (OK, OK, I’ll share it, too, with West Visayas State University and....). We need to train our health professionals to go beyond germs as they try to control diseases. I’m going to give one more example for mosquito-borne diseases. I remember one public health expert telling me years ago that he suspected cement hollow blocks to be another breeding area for mosquitoes. He’s probably right, given how porous the blocks are. That’s cultural ecology, too.

The world is finally coming to its cultural ecological senses. Awareness of human-instigated climate change is the best example. Our activities have set off global warming in an unprecedented way, and fears of new health problems, including “tropical” diseases emerging in temperate areas.

In a way, diseases and their vectors (like mosquitoes) are “smart” because they embed themselves in our culture, in our lifeways, which we take for granted. Really now, who but the most obsessive-compulsive would have looked at the water dispenser filter for mosquito larvae?

You, too, can be a cultural ecologist. Think now of all the other interactions we have with nature -- in nutrition, shelter, clothing, in all kinds of daily activities -- and identify the benefits they bring as well as the problems. Recruit your kids for your own Disease-busting Crime Scene Investigation at home and don’t arm them with insecticide to kill the mosquitoes. Explain that all you need to do is empty all those buckets and cans, clean out the water dispenser, re-stock ponds and aquaria with fish. Work with, rather than against, nature.