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Human Ecology

People and environment

Human Ecology is the study of the interactions between human and non-human nature in different cultures. Human Ecology combines the ideas and methods from several disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, biology, economic history and archeology. Our multidisciplinary approach enables us to comprehensively address issues of environmental justice, sustainability and political ecology.

Human activity in different ecosystems

Human Ecology studies human life and human activity in different ecosystems and different cultures in the present and in the past in order to gain a better understanding of the factors which influence the interaction between humans and their environment.

The ambition to achieve a more complete view requires an integrated perspective that transcends traditional boundaries between the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and technology.

A fundamental issue in human ecology is how people's cultural beliefs about the nature affect and are affected by their livelihoods and the social order.

An anthropological perspective

While cultural beliefs come into focus in the influential modern sciences like economics, human ecologists examine the modern concepts of economic growth and technological development from an anthropological perspective. By comparing those concepts with other scientifical insights about environmental degradation, climate change and global inequality, human ecology challenges the ideas that perpetuates an unsustainable and unequal global society. 

Studies in Human Ecology give you a broad and theoretically deep understanding of the interactions between man and nature in different times and in different parts of the world. Of central importance is to understand how the human relationships with the environment are influenced by their history and their place in the world system. 

Career prospects

Human ecology is an ideal subject for you if you want to make a career with broad opportunities in educational, environmental or humanitarian work. The capacity to communicate and negotiate issues of global sustainability will be increasingly important for a wide range of professions, including careers in education, journalism, public and private management, development aid, and non-governmental organizations devoted to achieving a globally sustainable development. In these sectors, trans-disciplinary approaches combining perspectives from both the natural and the social sciences can be expected to be increasingly in demand.

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studievagledare [at] hek [dot] lu [dot] se