TY  - SER
AU  - Williams,Dee Mack
TI  - Representations of nature on the mongolian steppe: an investigation of scientific knowledge construction
PY  - 2000///
CY  - Arlington
PB  - American Antropological Association
KW  - SOCIOLOGIA
KW  - INDIGENAS
KW  - CHINA
N1  - En: American Anthropologist. -- Vol. 102 No. 3 (Septiembre 2000), pp. 503-519. ISSN 00027294
N2  - Extensive land degradation across the Mongolian steppe has prompted a variety of multinational and multidisciplinary research projects over recent years. The situation provides an important opportunity to investigate and illuminate some of the international, national, and local dimensions of scientific practice that critically condition the production of environmental knowledge. In this article I juxtapose the competing knowledge bases and assumptions of various relevant groups (including natural vs. social scientists, nationalist Chinese vs. ethnic Mongolians, and urban intellectuals vs. indigenous herders) to develop the argument that multiple ideological and institutional boundaries work together to circumscribe scientific inquiry and data collection. The situated construction of knowledge undermines prospects for improving incremental objectivity and impedes more comprehensive understanding of serious environmental problems
ER  -