information ecology

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Associate Professor of Anthropology

Dept. of Sociology/
Anthropology
and
the Environmental Initiative

STEPS Building, Room 436
Lehigh University
1 West Packer Ave.
Bethlehem, PA 18015

Tel: (610) 758-2672

Information ecology is an emerging, loosely-defined field generally concerned with modeling information processes in human systems. The term has been used in computer science and business management. In most cases, "ecology" is used metaphorically, rather than using actual tools or principles of modeling developed by biological ecologists. Anthropology has a long tradition of applying the science of ecology to human behavior and adaptation. Information Ecology builds on this tradition by explicitly including information in models of human ecosystems.

A primary concern of anthropology is to understand how culture brings meaning to our lives and guides our behavior. In particular, rituals, symbols, and the meaning they impart determine the way information is used by any culture. These systems of meaning can lead to beautiful expressions of the human spirit or to horrible atrocities. One goal of information ecology is to understand how information is distributed and processed in cultural systems in order to understand why cultures successfully adapt to changes beyond their control, fail catastrophically, or become socio-pathological. The demise of the original human inhabitants of Easter Island, the collapse of the Lowland Classic Maya, and the current failure to meaningfully address climate change are all examples of cultural systems that failed to effectively process or act on crucial environmental information. All of these cultures fell victim to "ecomyopia" (Casagrande & Peters 2013).

The need to understand how we use, or fail to use, information has never been more critical. Human cognition has evolved to a point where it now influences all ecological patterns and processes on our planet (see the "anthropocene"). In 1998, the Human Ecosystems Kuchka (H.E. Kuchka) was formed at the University of Georgia, Dept. of Anthropology to promote a theoretical approach to information ecology that would have real-world applications. We developed a prospectus, which was published as a paper in the Journal of Ecological Anthropology. (Download PDF). Our ideas were developed further in a special issue of the Journal of Ecological Anthropology (Vol. 5), which was dedicated to theory and method for human ecosystem modeling. Some of this work has been re-incarnated on the H.E. Kuchka website. The approach to information ecology we have developed is intended specifically to provide a framework for understanding how we might change the way information is organized so that we might adapt and thrive globally. The key is to understand that technology, the natural environment, and social organization are always changing. The goal is not to model things as they are, but how they change. As Al Gore pointed out in his book The assault on reason: "Any new dominant communications medium leads to a new information ecology in society that inevitably changes the way ideas, feelings, wealth, power and influence are distributed and the way collective decisions are made."

In my work, I seek to elucidate the properties that emerge when shifting scales of analysis from individual cognition to complex human systems, including self-contradictory logics, dissonance vs. consonance, and the concentration of power. The first fundamental concept of my work is that in complex systems the potential for information to occur is unevenly distributed among agents, and this allows for random (stochastic) processes. Secondly, culture is a pattern of informational consensus within diversity. Consensus about core concepts like what it means to be an American--the cultural model of freedom--holds a culture together. But "freedom" means something slightly different to each American. This variation allows for cultural adaptation and change, much like genetic variation allows for biological change. The third concept is that our individual cognitive models of how the world works, as well as shared cultural models, are not necessarily logically coherent. Much of discourse and behavior, as well as pursuit of power, are about managing the cognitive and social dissonance that results from logical contradictions. The leads to the fourth concept: human systems are not necessarily homeostatic, adaptive, or optimal. Information processes provide potential for ecological adaptation, but also maladaptation.

Since 1999, I have been studying how Tzeltal Maya think, communicate, and behave regarding medicinal plants. There is consensus about the use of a core group of plants that holds the system together symbolically. But distribution of information about most plants is constrained by kin-based social networks, because the Tzeltal are leery of information from untrustworthy sources. The result is that this non-literate system can hold more information because everyone knows something different, but not every individual has access to important information. This distribution of information appears to be adaptive at the scale of the culture at large, but not adaptive for individuals. I am also applying these concepts to how people in the American Southwest communicate and think about development, landscapes and water scarcity--an informational and discursive process that is radically transforming the American Southwest--and how rural communities in the Midwest respond, or fail to respond, to the threat of flooding. In both cases, conflicting cultural models appear to create cognitive dissonance that is easily exploited for political or economic purposes. Consensus analysis, discourse analysis of cultural models, cybernetic modeling, social network analysis, and comparative case studies are some of the tools I use to study information ecology.

Examples of my work in information ecology:

• Casagrande, D.G., E. C. Jones, F. S. Wyndham, J. R. Stepp & R. Zarger. 2017. Ecomyopia in the Anthropocene. Anthropology Today 33(1):23-25. (Abstract)
• Casagrande, D.G., H. McIlvaine-Newsad, & E.C. Jones. 2015. Social Networks of Help-Seeking in Different Types of Disaster Responses to the 2008 Mississippi River Floods. Human Organization 74(4):351-361.
• Casagrande, D.G., and C. Peters. 2013. Ecomyopia meets the longue durée: An information ecology of the increasingly arid Southwestern United States. Pp. 97-144, in H. Kopnina & E. Shoreman (Eds.), Environmental Anthropology: Future Directions. New York: Routledge Press. (Abstract)
• Casagrande, D. G. 2004. Bateson, Festinger and the recursive role of cognitive dissonance in social organization. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Dec. 15-19. Atlanta, GA. (Abstract)
• Cook, W., D. Casagrande, D. Hope, P. M. Groffman, and S. L. Collins. 2004. Learning to roll with the punches: Adaptive experimentation in human-dominated systems. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 2(9): 467-474. (Abstract)
• Casagrande, D. G. 2004. Resilience as information redundancy versus discontinuity across organizational scales of human ecosystems. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America August 1-6. Portland, OR. (Abstract) (Download PDF)
• Stepp, J. R., E. C. Jones, M. Pavao-Zuckerman, D. Casagrande, and R. K. Zarger. 2003. Remarkable properties of human ecosystems. Conservation Ecology. 7(3): 11
• Casagrande, D. G. 2002. Ecology, Cognition, and Cultural Transmission of Tzeltal Maya Medicinal Plant Knowledge. Ph.D. Dissertation, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Georgia. (Abstract) (Download PDF)
• Casagrande, D. G. 1999. Information as verb: Reconceptualizing information for cognitive and ecological models. Journal of Ecological Anthropology. 3:4-14. (Abstract) (Download PDF)

"Scientists believe in proof without certainty: most people believe in certainty without proof."

Ashley Montagu