Cultural Ecology is an anthropological theory put forward by Julian Steward and used widely by archaeologists. Steward defined cultural ecology in his 1955 book The Theory of Culture Change as "the study of the processes by which a society adapts to its environment."
Patterns of society through production
Wherever we find a community, however primitive, however complex, we find more than an association of individuals, each pursuing their own lives and possessing their own ideas. We find a social pattern, a coherent body of customs and ideas, an integrated unity or production system in which each element, physical, biological and social, has a definite function in relation to the whole environment as a human resource.
But what determines the pattern? It is, says Radcliffe-Brown, 'the necessary conditions of existence of the social organism'. To this the social institutions must correspond. In turn, the necessary conditions of existence, at any stage of social development, depend on the geographical situation and the level of technology. This is true from the 'Stone Age' to the present 'Age of Industrialism'.
Basic to every form of social organization is the method of obtaining those items essential for human survival. In other words, how do the people of a particular society exploit natural resources to produce their food, clothing, tools, and other items that they need in order to live as human beings ?
These 'necessary conditions of existence' shape the relationship of people to each other and their command of natural resources. Individuals utilize nature, directly or indirectly, to produce the necessities of life, not in isolation from each other, not as separate individuals, but in common groups and societies with shared or conflicting cultural norms.
It has not been sufficiently recognized that Stewart's so-called defining work in cultural ecology is called "The Theory of Culture Change: the Methodology of Multilinear Evolution" not "The Theory of Cultural Ecology." Steward's overriding interest was not to define cultural ecology but rather to understand the processes or causes of the 'evolution' of culture. From a possibilist perspective he sought to explain the choices made by cultures in the face of the options presented to them by their history as well as by their environment. He emphasized ecological factors as an important but not exclusive factor in determining culture change. Criticism of the 'functional' nature of Steward's brand of cultural ecology seem misplaced when the full scope of his theoretical ideas are accounted for. Stewart's notion of the "cultural core' has tended to eclipse his other important concepts such as "culture type", "sociocultural integration, " and "multilinear evolution" which actually figure much larger in his overall "theory of culture change". These less recognized concepts, however, stress the interaction of environmental and cultural factors over time (rather than more functional linkages) and the way in which these interactions may produce different and unpredictable paths of development.
Persistent and overriding themes
The broader strokes of Steward's overall project and emphasis on evolutionary change, however, have directly and continually shaped cultural ecology in at least two major ways. (1) Part of Steward’s legacy, Orlove suggests, is the emphasis in cultural ecology on processes. In this context, metaphors from evolutionary biology, such as 'adaptation,' have frequently been drawn on by cultural ecologists to describe the processes linking cultures and their environments. The concept of adaptation has triggered the borrowing of additional biological concepts such as "niche" (see Barth for early elaboration and Wilk for more recent). (2) Therefore, on the conceptual as well as methodological level, cultural ecology has consistently reflected an effort to fuse both the ideas and the approaches of Cultural ecological studies tend to focus on specific cultures and frequently on specific facets of culture (e.g. production systems) in specific environments.
Although this 'ethnographic' focus has led, particularly in previous decades, to an emphasis on considering what McCay and Vayda (1975) call 'homeostatic' settings (where human-environment interactions are more or less balanced), more recent studies have begun to pay greater attention to communities and settings where environmental degradation and negative environmental outcomes occur, particularly in developing countries. natural and social sciences.
Cultural ecology is a system of knowledge about environmental management. It has been created from the inputs of teachers and students at all levels of education. The aim is to stimulate discussion of ideas and projects about how to bring people and nature into equilibrium. The approach is through planning for sustainability based on good science and robust economics in which well-being of planet and personal beliefs are interdependent.
The following definitions are provided to guide its use and development.
Cultural ecology provides windows from many subjects into issues of environmental management.
Cultural ecology is about human communities as makers. In making things, humans are now the main functional components influencing planet Earth’s biological cycles of materials and energy flows.
Cultural ecology is an educational experience that demonstrates the importance of crossing boundaries of traditional subjects in order to understand and solve environmental problems.
Cultural ecology is a set of notions about nature illustrating how everyone interprets the world from within a particular multi factorial framework of perception and thought, which often gives rise to difficulties and dangers in using ones own perspective to judge the values and behaviour of others towards environmental issues.
Cultural ecology is a gathering of local information about the good and bad aspects of neighbourhood. It provides a knowledge base, through environmental appraisal, which is necessary for citizens to participate constructively in local government plans for sustainable development- the Local Agenda 21- particularly in the context of community regeneration.
Cultural ecology is a practical activity. It shows how individuals, families, and organisations can create action plans to set limits on the environmental impact of their day to day uses of materials and energy that flow through home, neighbourhood, workplace and leisure environment.
To bring conservation management to the heart of family life requires an ability in each individual to conceptualise the wholeness of self and environment as a set of beliefs to live by and a context that gives meaning to life. This ability may be described as ecosacy; a third basic ability to be taught alongside literacy and numeracy. The term ecosacy comes directly from the Greek Noikos meaning house, and household management includes making decisions about the natural resources that flow into it. To be ecosate means having the knowledge and mind- set to act, speak and think according to deeply held beliefs and belief systems about people in nature, which is conceptualised as a community of beings.
The educational framework of ecosacy is cultural ecology. The term has its origin in the work of Steward in the 1930s on the social organization of hunter-gatherer groups. Steward argued against environmental determinism, which regarded specific cultural characteristics as arising from environmental causes. Using band societies as examples, he showed that social organization itself corresponded to a kind of ecological adaptation of a human group to its environment. He defined cultural ecology as the study of adaptive processes by which the nature of society and an unpredictable number of features of culture, are affected by the basic behavioral adjustments through which humans utilize a given environment.
Cultural ecology originated from an ethnological approach to the modes of production of native societies around the world as adaptations to their local environments. It has long been accepted that this anthropological view is too narrow. It isolates knowledge about the ancient ways of resource management from possible applications to present day issues of urban consumerism. Conservation management is now an institutional process of political adaptation to the environmental impact of world development. Conservation systems are concerned with stabilizing the functional relationships between people and the environment, and managerialism has to be integrated into people's perceptions of how they fit within environmental systems.
Because traditional systems often involve long-term adaptations to specific environments and resource management problems, they are of interest to resource managers everywhere. Also, there are lessons to be learned from the cultural significance of traditional ecological knowledge with regard to the sometimes sacred dimensions of indigenous knowledge, such as symbolic meanings and their importance for social relationships and values.
Definitions of Adaptation and Adaptive Strategies used in Cultural Ecology
Source | Definition of adaptation and adaptive strategies uses in cultural ecology |
Steward (1953) Steward 1972 (1955: 5, 30) | No definition. This is the question which is to be defined through analysis. Consider how much of culture is adaptation to environment versus other factors and the origin of cultural features which can be traced to relationships with environment (p.31). cultural ecology = effect of environment upon culture. Special type of ecology characterizing man as culture bearer. |
Geertz (1963: 6) | Involution or 'overadaptation'. Driving of an established form (e.g. wet rice agriculture under increasing population density) in such a way that it becomes rigid through an inward-directed over-elaboration. |
Wolf (1966( | Ecotypes. The ecological adaptation of the peasantry consists of a set of food transfers and a set of devices used to harness inorganic sources of energy to the productive process. Together, these sets make up a system of energy transfers from environment to man. Such a system of energy transfers we call an ecotype. Wolf 1966, p.19 |
Cohen (1968-70: 1-4) | Adaptation as organizing principle. Humans alter their relationships to a habitat in order to make that habitat a more fit place to live. |
Rappaport (1971) | Homeostatic. Adaptation is multidimensional. Man adapts to two environments: cognitive and operative. Culture imposes on nature as nature imposes on culture. How men participate in an ecosytem depends not only on the structure and composition of that ecosystem but also upon the cultural baggage of those who enter it -- what they and their descendents subsequently receive by diffusion or invent themselves, the demands imposed on the local population from outside, and the needs which may be fulfilled by the local population from abroad. |
Vayda and McCay (1976: 302) | Existential game. Response to hazards |
Bennett (1976: 3) | Adaptation as social process and strategic behavior. Rational or purposive manipulation of social and natural environments. Multidimensional in terms of impacts: good for one group, not good for another, or for nature. Structure is loose, not fixed. |
Löfgren (1976) | Pattern of resource exploitation within a given macroeconomic framework. The peasant economy is seen as more than a specific form of adaptation to the physical environment. The model also considers forms of supra-regional division of labor, as reflected in the local economies. The diversity of possible modes of adaptation is a response to a specific environment (Mitterauer 1992:139). |
Morán (1982: 325) | Adaptive strategy. Conscious or unconscious, explicit or implicit plans of action are carried out by a population in response to either external or internal conditions. |
Ellen (1982) | Human adaptation involves the modification of behavior in order to adjust to new conditions, cope with hazards, or improve existing conditions. May be an active conscious process or unconscious byproduct of another activity. Individuals are the main agents of adaptation and they adapt mainly through changes in their social and economic relationships. |
Wilk (1991) | Households as adaptive groups. Structures of patterned human action. The household is the logical level of analysis in cultural ecology studies. (Fricke 1986). "Societies adapt in only the most abstract sense of the word but households adapt in concrete and observable ways" (31). Adaptation is an active and dialectical process whereby people change their environment even as they change themselves and their social arrangements. Existing form or 'tradition' provides template for acceptable change and involves interaction between social forms and productive techniques. |
Fricke (1993: 18) | Behavior is fashioned in such a way as to attain certain ends. Like Bennett, distinguishes between adaptive strategies (patterns formed by the many, separate adjustments of people to obtain and use resources) and adaptive processes, the long term changes that result from their choices. Analysis of decision making based on Barth. Choices among alternatives are constrained by intersection of natural and sociocultural environments and individual’s own goals. Adaptation is not a cyclical or seasonal process but a continual one rooted in actors who must constantly decide and act |
( Wilk 1991) Niche is not a place, resource, mode of production, or particular form of social formation, but a combination of different resources and techniques for production and consumption with which members survive and reproduce (survival strategy)
Barth (1994) A niche represents divergent adaptations and ethnicity. Environment and ecology have always provided the main framework in terms of which anthropologists have sought to understand cultural differentiation. The linkage of ethnicity to the concept of niche and to the theme of resource competition demonstrates how breaks and continuities can arise in the continuous variation of culture. Particular cultural traits may be useful as adaptations to particular environments and modes of subsistence in particular times and places. Thus, groups with different cultural features may co-reside and even diverge culturally because these differences are adaptive for their respective exploitation of different resources in the same area.
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