摘要: In this essay we consider four criticisms of ecological anthropology: its over-emphasis on energy, its inability to explain cultural phenomena, its preoccupation with static equilibria, and its lack of clarity about the appropriate units of analysis. Recognizing that some of these criticisms may not be justified, we nevertheless point to parallel concerns in ecology. Further, we ask whether new directions indicated by some ecologists might be appropriate paths for future work in ecological anthropology. A central theme is the desirability of focusing on environmental problems and how people respond to them. The kind of environmental problems we are especially concerned with here are those constituting hazards to the lives of the organisms experiencing them. In other words, we are particularly concerned with problems that carry the risk of morbidity or mortality, the risk of losing an" existential game" in which success consists simply in staying in the game [82, 85; cf 80, cited in 78]. Our focus upon hazards and responses to them emerges partly from consideration of neo-Darwinian selection theory. As Colinvaux [22, p. 499] notes:" Selection... chooses from among individuals those which are best adapted to avoid the hazards of life at that time and place". Our focus reflects also the new concern of biologists such as Slobodkin [81, 82, 85] with the actual