Social Ecology brings together a selection of pioneering essays on a subject of increasing interest to sociologists and social anthropologists. With the growing awareness of the causes and consequences of environmental degradation, the once neglected field of social ecology has assumed enormous theoretical and practical importance. The essays assembled in this anthology provide a state of the art survey of the field as well as an orientation to future research. As the first such anthology of its kind, it provides a compact and analytically sophisticated overview of environment and society in contemporary India. It should be of great interest to administrators, activists, and development professionals as well as students and scholars working in the field.