DEVELOPMENT OF ECOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 
 

As discussed in Vayda & Rappaport reading [V&R], there have been various approaches to relation between human societies and their environments in the history of Western scholarly thought

Want to discuss some of these here, elaborating & updating V&R

First 2 perspectives−environmental determinism and possibilism−are really precursors of ecological anthro, but provided part of context in which it developed

My primary interest in these is not historical, but rather in the ways in which they illustrate certain logical problems that can arise in analyzing relationship between culture and environment

In particular, since many people (esp. critics of ecological approach) still mistakenly equate ecological explanations with environmental determinism, it's important to grasp why this equation is wrong

Environmental Determinism

Environmental determinism (ED) has deep roots in Western thought (e.g., Hippocrates' theory of "humours")

Essential feature of ED = claim that environmental features directly determine features of human behavior (and hence of society)

ED takes various forms:

a) Strong claim (environment accounts for most social variation) vs. more moderate one (environment affects some aspects)

b) Various environmental factors might be emphasized (e.g., climate; topography; foodstuffs)

ED achieved considerable popularity among various 18th and 19th century scholars, partly as product of Enlightenment -- ED was one alternative to racial determinism, and in tune with views on the "psychic unity of mankind" (i.e., notion that thought processes of people everywhere are fundamentally the same, so that diffs. must be due to history of their surroundings rather than being innate)

However, in its cruder forms, ED just as insensitive to cultural differences and culture history as the racial determinism it supplanted

Most popular version of ED ascribed direct effects of climate on human social variation: e.g., hot climates lead to passionate, lazy people who fail to build culture; extremely cold, dark climates lead to morose peoples, while temperate environments are most conducive to elaboration of civilization, etc.

Main problems with ED are now clear:

1) use of loose correlations and anecdotal evidence (e.g., Huntington's view that hot climates dulled mental and physical energies supported by statements that "no one touches serious books in Virginia in the summer") [cited in V&R]

2) Ignoring contrary evidence (e.g., earliest civilizations all arose in hot tropical/subtropical regions: Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indus, Mesoamerica, coastal Peru)

3) Inability to explain occurrence of different types of societies in same environment (either sequentially or simultaneously)

4) Strong tendency toward ethnocentric ranking of environments (e.g., Hippocrates put ideal climate in Greece, Cicero in Rome, Montesquieu in France, and Huntington in New England)

For these reasons and others, no scholars take ED seriously any more, though continues to be popular among folk theories

Possibilism

The predictable (over)reaction to ED was to deny that environment played a significant role in determining sociocultural [s/c] differences

Since denying any role to environment flew in face of some obvious realities, environment was given minor role of limiting the range of possible s/c forms -- hence the term "possibilism"

Possibilism is associated with anthropology's rejection of any sort of non-cultural determinism (racial, economic, etc.)

This rejection began roughly around 1900; associated with anthropology staking out its own academic turf (distinguishing itself from biology, economics, psychology, etc.)

Essence of "possibilist" view is that the environment may limit, but doesn't directly cause, s/c variation

That is, environmental factors may explain why some cultural features don't occur in a particular setting (e.g., absence of agriculture in arctic), but cannot explain why they occur (presence of agric. in other areas)

As with ED, possibilism took various forms: some possibilists fiercely opposed any significant role for environmental factors in explaining s/c diversity beyond obvious things like absence of pineapple plantations in Greenland, while more moderate ones looked at subtle ways in which environment can limit the spread of cultural traits

An example of latter (as discussed in V&R) is Kroeber on maize (corn) agric. in Native North America [NNA]:

--Kroeber used climatic data to show that frost and low rainfall limited spread of maize to certain parts of NNA

--but, Kroeber argues, environment did not cause maize horticulture to spread:
"...the Southwestern Indians did not farm because nature induced them to make the invention. They did not make the invention at all. A far away people made it, and from them it was transmitted to the SW through a series of tribal contacts. These contacts, which constitute the specific cause of SW agriculture, constitute a human social factor; a cultural or civilizational factor. Climatic or physical environment did not enter into it at all, except to render agriculture somewhat difficult in the arid SW....Had the SW been thoroughly desert, agriculture could not have got a foothold there. But this would be only a limiting condition; the active or positive causes that brought about SW agriculture are its invention farther south, the spread of the invention to the north, and its acceptance there." [A. L. Kroeber, 1923:185f, quoted in Vayda and Rappaport 1968]

So where do we stand these days on debate between ED and possibilism?

If ED means that environment directly determines s/c features, and that there is an invariant relationship between the two (i.e., same environment leads to same culture), then it is clearly wrong:  possibilist argument that different cultures can occupy same environment (either at same time or consecutively) is abundantly supported by historical & ethnographic record

In this limited but important sense, we are all possibilists today

But assertion that environmental factors do nothing but limit possible range of s/c variation oversimplifies things:

First, within the range of environmental possibilities, some outcomes appear to be more likely to occur than others; in other words, of the possible outcomes, some are more probable than others (evidence for this will be considered throughout the course)

Second, while it succeeded in refuting ED, possibilism did not offer anything in its place except vague assertion that culture comes from culture (as per Kroeber on spread of agriculture, quoted above)

As V&R cogently put it, possibilism "is neither a theory nor a hypothesis lending itself to empirical test. It is simply a way of saying that causation is not simple."

Cultural Ecology

An alternative to both ED and possibilism is position that cultures interact with their environmental settings via a process of adaptation

This view was first articulated in detail by Kroeber's student Julian Steward, who offered what he called "cultural ecology" as an alternative to "fruitless assumption that culture comes from culture"

Steward proposed that cultural change driven by technoeconomic factors

"Cultures do, of course, tend to perpetuate themselves...But over the millennia cultures in different environments have changed tremendously, and these changes are basically traceable to new adaptations required by changing technology and productive arrangements." [Steward 1955]

Cultural ecology (CE) breaks with determinism/possibilism dichotomy in several ways:

1) focuses on environment as presenting adaptive problems & opportunities, not just limits or simple determinants

2) argues that adaptive processes shape cultures to achieve patterns that are best suited to given environment, not just any possible

3) suggests that effect of environment on culture depends on existing s/c features that any particular human population brings with it, and indeed that cultural change is driven not so much by environmental change as by technoeconomic change ("changing technology and productive arrangements")

These innovations in CE have many important implications for understanding relationship between environment and s/c variation

For example, in contrast to Kroeber's possibilism, CE portrays spread of agriculture as an adaptive process involving interaction between culture & environment:  much evidence (discussed later in course) indicates that agriculture doesn't simply spread wherever it is possible, nor according to some internal cultural logic unrelated to environmental factors, but rather is adopted when it yields either greater return on labor than foraging, or increased food yield per unit land

With regard to "multiple cultures in same environment," CE argues that because ecological adaptation depends just as much on features of culture as on those of environment, we cannot predict outcome from environment alone (for example, a population with stone tools and relying on wild foods will adapt to the Great Basin desert in a very different way that one with metal, agriculture, and fossil fuels)

But exactly how does this process of cultural adaptation occur?

CE conceptualizes this process using a "layer cake" model reminiscent of historical materialism (Marx & Engels)

Careful reading of Steward reveals that layer cake has 4 levels, not 3 usually assumed (e.g., by Vayda & Rappaport):

At the bottom of the cake is the environment, specifically those aspects of the natural environment that are relevant to a given culture's way of life

Interacting directly w/ environment are "subsistence, technology, economic arrangements" -- what Marvin Harris has termed technoeconomic factors

Culture core = "such social, political, and religious patterns as are empirically determined to be ... most closely related to subsistence activities and economic arrangements" (Steward 1955: 37)

Finally, there are "innumerable other cultural features" that Steward says have "great potential variability because they are less strongly tied to the core" and "are determined to a greater extent by purely cultural-historical factors -- by random innovations or diffusion" (ibid.)

Steward thus argued that many features of culture (outside the "core") change little and are not closely adapted to environment, while others change tremendously in response to changes in "technology and productive arrangements" (see previous quote)

Thus, CE gives priority to technology and other material forces (what Marx termed "infrastructure")

Steward offers no clear justification for this materialist bias; however, others (Marx, Marvin Harris) have, essentially arguing that material factors cannot be changed at will the way other factors (kinship, religion, etc.) purportedly can

This has been a very controversial aspect of materialist theories of s/c variation or history

In any case, Steward's basic argument is that with a given technology, the local environment presents a series of problems and opportunities that elicit adaptive cultural responses

Fact that Steward was trained in evolutionary biology (as undergrad at Cornell) probably explains why he approached problem of ecological determinism using concept of mutual interaction and adaptation -- a sophisticated position for his time (1930s through 1950s)

By taking this interactive point of view, Steward side-stepped the increasingly sterile debate between determinism and possibilism that had dominated views on human-environment interactions in anthro and other social sciences during previous decades

Given the importance of this move, it's fair to say that Steward's CE = beginnings of modern ecological anthropology

But CE remains vulnerable on a number of grounds:

1) justification for privileging material forces is inadequately explained (as noted above)

2) focus on subsistence overlooks other adaptive domains (health/disease, reproduction, politics, etc.)

3) vague re adaptive mechanism -- is it decision-making, natural selection, or what?

[This last issue will be addressed directly in next lecture and associated readings: What is adaptation, and what roles does it play in biological ecology and ecological anthropology?]

Ecological Functionalism

Partly as result of dissatisfaction with problems of CE (as outlined above), 2nd school of ecological anthropology emerged in late 1960s, associated especially with Vayda & Rappaport (see Rappaport 1971 reading, and Rappaport's famous book-length treatise on Tsembaga Maring of New Guinea, Pigs for the Ancestors [1968])

Although it built on CE, this new approach emphasized

1) cybernetics (feedback loops) rather than linear causality
2) study of non-subsistence traits, esp. ritual and population regulation

Because of focus on how traits functioned to maintain populations in balance with their resources, and emphasis on homeostatic regulation, this approach often termed "ecological functionalism" (EF) or "neofunctionalism"

One major contribution of EF was explicit attention to measurement of ecological variables (such as population density, land area, energy flow, etc.) -- Steward had been much more vague about this

However, the theoretical framework of EF has been subject to several major criticisms:

1) Homeostatic equilibrium focus: Are ecological systems really stable & self-regulating? If so, how does change ever arise?

2) System-level adaptation: Ignores conflicting interests within human groups, as well as between human population and other populations in local ecosystem

3) Reliance on functionalist explanation: Begs question of how beneficial consequence of a given trait or practice explains its presence or maintenance

First 2 points taken up in next set of lecture notes, but 3rd needs some attention here

The "ABCs" of functionalist explanation can be diagrammed as:

------> C ---------------> B ------
|                                  |
|                                  |
|                                  |
--------------- A <----------------

where A = an Actor who possesses some Characteristic C that produces some unintended Benefit B for A

The explanatory logic here is that there is some causal process that makes C's beneficial effect B on actor A more likely to occur or be repeated -- the feedback loop that connects B to C via the causal path through A

Without this feedback loop, it's hard to see how an effect (B) can explain the characteristic (C) that causes this effect (i.e., how the causal arrow can go from B to C)

For intentional behavior, this feedback loop is easy to understand: we engage in action C because we know it will produce benefit B -- we are motivated, have foresight, etc. (these cognitive mechanisms providing the feedback loop through actor A); similarly, other psychological mechanisms (e.g., negative & positive reinforcement) can drive this feedback loop

For inherited, evolved characteristics, we also have a powerful feedback mechanism, in the form of natural selection: as long as characteristic C provides a net fitness benefit B to A (i.e., increases A's reproductive rate), and is likely to be inherited by A's offspring, then natural selection will increase the frequency of C in the population

But for EF (and sociological functionalism in general), the usual assumption is that the ecological benefits analyzed are neither intended (subject to rational choice) nor evolved (subject to natural selection); yet typically no alternative feedback mechanism is hypothesized or demonstrated

This leaves the EF approach vulnerable to the charge of confusing effects (the Bs) with causes, and in general of having no real explanation for why some characteristics (the Cs) occur in one case but not in another

These criticisms raise once again (as with Steward's cultural ecology) the problem of developing an adequate theory of adaptation or historical-ecological change -- a fundamental issue discussed in the next lecture (and readings)
 

Current Approaches in Ecological Anthropology

While some contemporary anthropologists continue to practice a form of Steward's cultural ecology, most have moved on to different approaches (while ecological functionalism has only faint echoes among those who focus on "resilience" and "social-ecological systems," as exemplified by our Berkes & Turner 2006 reading later in the quarter)

We will encounter the major current approaches at different points in the quarter, but I briefly "preview" them here

Ethnobiology:  Briefly discussed (disparaged?) by Vayda & Rappaport, ethnobiology has a long history in ecological anth, and fuses biological systematics (taxonomy) with cognitive anthropology

Ethnobiology focuses on how people cognize the environment (particularly plants and animals), and the ways in which such knowledge is both shaped by the environment and shapes it in turn

Ethnobiology is offered as a UW course (ANTH 458), and discussed in our readings by Drew (2005) and Maffi (2005), among others

Historical ecology:  This approach emphasizes the role humans have played in shaping and changing environments over time, and generally takes a non-equilibrium view of ecosystems (in clear contrast to ecological functionalism)

The major bioscience influence on HE comes from landscape ecology; it is also closely allied with the social-science specialty of environmental history

The Balée (2005) reading is a key example of the HE approach

Political ecology:  As the name suggests, PE foregrounds political issues; that is, it focuses on environmental issues as arenas for political struggle, both overt (as in land rights or environmental contamination conflicts) and covert (as in conflicts between standard conservationist views of "pristine nature" vs. local people's views of "homeland" and places for livelihood)

PE has come to dominate the cultural anthropology wing of ecological anth, as well as having an ever stronger presence in the discipline of geography; PE is quite diverse, but many practitioners are strongly influenced by Marxist political economy

PE is exemplified in our assigned readings by Alcorn (1991) and Fraser (2003); it is featured in several UW courses, including ANTH 459 (Culture, ecology, and politics), ANTH 487 (Environmental justice), and several courses in Geography

Behavioral ecology:  BE constitutes a fusion of evolutionary biology and decision theory (particularly microeconomics and game theory); it has a more fully developed theory of change and adaptation than other forms of ecological anth, and thus offers an explicit answer to the question of functionalism (How can beneficial consequences explain the characteristics that produce these benefits?)

BE focuses on the micro-level of individual decisions and interactions (both social and environmental), and attempts to generate understanding at larger scales as aggregate outcomes of these lower-level processes; for example, it analyzes the shift from hunting-gathering to agriculture as a process driven by individual choices over preferred food types and subsistence modes (see Winterhalder & Kennett 2006 reading)

While BE does not have as many adherents in anthropology as PE, they are quite active in research and publishing, and it is your instructor's favored paradigm, so you will encounter it frequently throughout this course