This group focuses on the historical processes of interaction between people and nature in different geographical and temporal contexts. From Antiquity to the globalized and industrialized world, it seeks to discuss and analyse some of the most pressing contemporary problems by combining study topics such as: food and energy dependence on natural resources and ecosystems in the long term; religious syncretism and symbolic representations of nature; imperialisms and othernesses from a global and connected perspective; artistic, scientific and technological exchanges; the circulation of raw materials, products and objects in the world; systemic interactions between communities and landscapes; approaches to sustainability and environmental education; environmental disruption and ecological globalisation.
Hence, the work conducted by the group's researchers seeks to frame the evolution of societies in different cultural realities (local, traditional, indigenous, imperial, global, and virtual), different geographical and chronological contexts, as well as different ecosystems and eco-cultural realities. In this scope, different societies are analysed as an integral part of the natural world, based on the relations with other species, also recognised as agents of interactions, changes and adaptations in the construction of historical narratives.
In order to debate the ways in which nature has shaped human societies, and how the latter have exploited and appropriated it, the ‘Environment, Interactions and Globalisation’ group is particularly interested in developing reflection on: settlements; religious-cultural transfers, trade routes and exchanges; globalisation; imperialism and colonialism; appropriation; extractivism; sustainability and collapse; industrialisation; knowledge and technology.