Dominion and Domestication
Ingold, in his classic
article From Trust to Domination: An alternative history of human-animal
relations argues the shift from a ecocentric to anthropocentric worldview
can be traced to the origins of domestication. The idea being that as people
began to farm, their relationship with their environment changed from a
situation where people existed within their environment, as part of their
environment, to a situation where they sought to impose their control upon it.
Others, notably
Wickham-Jones in her book Fear of Farming are beginning to reach similar
conclusions and suggest that we should look to hunter-gather societies (both
past and present) in order to re-learn some of their values that were lost with
the advent of farming.
This is not to suggest
that we should abandon our farming lifestyles, especially since many farming
societies today hold similar worldviews to those of hunter-gatherer communities
(see next slide):