Folklife, Heritage, and the Environment: A Critique of Natural Capital, Ecosystem Services, and Settler Ecology

Abstract

From a folklife perspective, I address consequences of thinking of the environment as natural capital that provides ecosystem services to people: services that include heritage, both cultural and natural. I examine contemporary environmental policy to reveal advantages and limitations in thinking of folklife and heritage as ecosystem services, and a need to think beyond ecosystem services to ways that folklore studies may contribute to ecojustice. Natural capital and ecosystem services deem the environment to be a commodity, but ecojustice conceives of nature as a community.