Name: Tom Abel
Email address: abeltd@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu
URL of home page: none
Postal address: 2291 W. University Ave.
Gainesville, FL 32603
Phone: 352-395-6420
Affiliations: University of Florida
How did you hear about PCP? net search
I am a cultural anthropologist PhD candidate. I am currently writing my
dissertation on the fieldwork that I completed last year. I'm working
with H.T. Odum and Mark Brown in ecology, and my anthropology faculty
committee members are Marvin Harris and Bill Keegan and Tony Parades.
My research is in culture change, which I view in a cultural evolution
framework. My dissertation fieldwork is looking at culture change
associated with tourism development on the island of Bonaire in the
Netherlands Antilles. I am looking at multiple scales of cultural and
ecological self-organization brought on by economic development.
Specifically, at a small scale, I am looking at the effects of
development on local household economic strategies, which include the
use of natural resources (farming, fishing, foraging) and economic
opportunities (in hotels, etc.). At a larger scale, I am looking at the
effects of development on the island ecological economic organization of
businesses and resources in ecosystems.
My theoretical interests are in the study of complex adaptive systems.
I am particularly interested in the energetic or thermodynamic aspects
of complexity theory, influenced strongly by the work of H.T. Odum in
ecology (also C.S. Hollings, who is also at UF), and Marvin Harris in
cultural evolution theory. My research, and future research interests,
are in the relations between social and ecological dynamics. In
otherwords, placing cultural systems within ecosystems, within an
evolutionary theoretical perspecitive.