The Mutual Dynamics Of Cultural And Environmental Change
An Introductory Essay

The picture that won the first award at the annual international competition for photo journalism in Amsterdam on 11 February 2005 shows a grieving Indian woman who had lost her family in the recent tsunami. For days the Western media in particular devoted much space and time to the 'Century's Catastrophe', the 'Killer Waves' of 26 December 2004 which left in its wake well over 200,000 dead or missing. Was the devastation wrought by these 'cruel forces of nature' inevitable, or was it itself partly a result of the interplay of environmental and cultural agency and change? This introductory essay considers the various aspects of this basic issue of mutuality. The chapters that follow examine from different disciplinary perspectives the nature of such interplay over time in a variety of cultural and environmental contexts.