26 Major branches of ecological anthropology

Yogesh Sharma

 

Contents:

 

Introduction

Major approaches or model of human ecology

a. The ecosystem- based on human ecology.

b. The Actor Based model of human ecology

c. System based model of Human Ecology

Determinism:

Possibilism

Summary

 

Learning outcomes:

Students will be able to learn the concept of human ecology.

Students will be able to learn the different methods or approaches of human ecology.

 

INTRODUCTION

 

Ecology is the study of the interaction between living things and their environment. It’s important to understand the different branches, thus in ecology one of the major branches is human ecology Human ecology is the study of the relationships and interactions among humans, their biology, their cultures, and their physical environments. Human ecology mainly includes ecological anthropology (which includes a great deal of biological anthropology) and environmental anthropology (a more cultural side of the field). Thus human ecology takes on an interdisciplinary approach.

 

Human ecology mainly deals with the study of the interactions of humans with their environments, or the study of the distribution and abundance of humans. These are ideas based directly on conventional definitions of biological ecology. Ecology is usually known for the study of interactions of organisms with their environments. More pointedly, it can be defined as the study of the distribution and abundance of organisms. This definition is deceptive. It implies much more than it says explicitly because virtually everything that human are or do (and the same goes for any species) affects their distribution and abundance. Thus, using the term “human ecology” actually expresses a broad ambition to understand human behavior (Foley, 1987).

 

Human ecologists study many important aspects of culture and environment, such as how and what cultures do to solve their subsistence problems, how communities and groups of people understand their environment, and how they share their knowledge of the environment. Further the field of human ecology is subdivided into different fields or branches, of which one of them is human biological ecology which is the study of the ways in which culture is used by people to adapt to their environment

 

Human ecology is an approach to the study of human behavior marked by two commitments. First, human ecologists think that humans should be studied as living systems operating in complex environments. The human sciences encompasses a wide range of fields such as social sciences, humanisties, and human biological disciplines integrated within the framework of human diversity and sustainability. Ecologists are used to thinking that systemic nature of individual organisms and population of organisms mean that we typically have to understand how diverse parts of the system operate together to produce behavior. The traditional human science disciplines take people apart; human ecologists endeavor to put us back together. Breaking complex problems down to operationally tractable parts is a great strategy, but only as long as some are committed to putting them back together in the end. Second, human ecologists think that humans are subject to very similar ecological and evolutionary processes as any other species (Foley, 1987).

 

Major approaches or model of human ecology

 

1.      The ecosystem- based on human ecology.

 

In human ecology, the concept of ecological system was mainly formulated by biological ecologist during the world war II, American ecologist Andrew Vayda and Roy Rappaport suggested that instead of studying new cultures which are adapted to the environment attention should be focused on the relationship of specific human populations to specific ecosystem. According to them, all human being constitute simply another population among the many population of plants and animal species that are interacting with each other and with the non-living components (like climate, soil and water) of their local ecosystem. So culture rather than the ecosystem, constitutes the fundamental unit of analysis in their conceptual framework for human ecology. Cultural traits are of interest because they can be shown to contribute to the survival of population in the context of the ecosystem. So, such framework is attractive and might seem to be reintegrating human ecology into general ecological thinking where the cultural traits are studied in terms of possible contribution that contribute to adaptation of a population to its ecosystem. Rather than as being part of coherent systems in their own right where ecosystem based model tends to be guided by the unspoken assumption that if a cultural trait exists then it must somehow necessarily serve the adaptive needs of a local population.

 

This model in human ecology was first described by Roy Rappaport in his book of pigs for the ancestors in 1968 and he attempted to demonstrate population of Tsembaga tribal group of New Guinea on how the illusion of religion practiced maintain a balance in their population with the available resource of their environment. Religion and institution that Steward had largely excluded from his concept of cultural core was seen by Rappaport as playing a key regulatory role among the Tsembaga population with other components of their environment.

 

Many of the tribal population groups of central highland of New Guinea, mainly Tsembaga tribe employ the Sweden system of farming. The main principal domestic animal raised in New Guinea is pig where they have a custom of slaughtering about 85% of the pigs duringan elaborate ritual which is also called the pig killing ritual.

 

While people go meatless for most of the time from a nutritional standpoint it would that the bolder slaughter smaller animals on regular basis to ensure more frequent consumption of protein by human population. Rappaport after living for fourteen months amongst the Tsembaga tribal group, concluded that far from maladaptive features of their culture, killing pig ritual regulation actually better adapted the Tsembaga population on their tropical forest ecosystem and he asserted that the ritual restriction of killing pig only on certain ceremonial occasions serve to increase the supply of protein at the time when Tsembaga needed and it also helps to maintain available resources.

 

Rappaport further opined that the Tsembaga are able to raise adequate supplies of carbohydrates in the form of sweet potatoes, and sugar cane in their swidden plots, but they are often chronically short of protein, particularly high quality animal protein which are necessary to ensure good health and resilience in the face of disease or injury. It is a fact that numbers of pigs are raised by the Tsembaga Maring tribe but they can be slaughtered only on ritual occasions associated with illness, battles and the beginning and the end of period of lighting which may severe that the availability of protein at the time when it is most needed.

 

Thus, Tsembaga killing of pigs is done for supernatural reasons to appease evil spirits believed to cause sickness and ensure the help of ancestral spirits in fighting since it occur at times of illness and war which may allow the human population the maximum nutritional benefit from the small supply of animals protein that their tropical forest ecosystem is capable of producing.

 

Rappaport not only sees ritual as serving the nutritional needs of the Tsembaga population but he further claims that the ritual cycle functions to maintain the population density compatible with long term carrying capacity of the ecosystem by regulating die frequency and intensity with which warfare occurs.

 

2.   The Actor Based model of human ecology

 

This model of human ecology was mainly given the term by Orlove in 1980. This model is a new wave in human ecology which reflects both anthropologists’ general concern with individual decision making process and evolutionary biologists’ current preoccupation with showing that natural selection operates exclusively at the level of the individual organism, so according to this view, any higher level of organization whether ecosystem, communities or human social systems exist only as the fortuitous outcome of interaction among many individual organisms like in the case of human society where the environmental adaption is seen as occurring not as the result of the outcome of natural selection on the cultural or social system level but, rather as the result of the outcome of thousands of individuals’ decision about how best to interact with the environment. Individuals are assumed to be making choices constantly about how to exploit available resources while coping with environmental hazards and therefore who makes the correct choices will survive and prosper. Successful adaptive strategies will become institutionalized as cultural norms, this norm are no more than the statistical outcome of choice and have no independent reality of their own as has been the usual conception of social scientists.

 

Example: an actor based analysis of the Tsembaga community might explain the ritual cycle of pig killing described by Rappaport as simply the accidental outcome of hundreds of separate decisions by individual tribes men about how to best minimize the use of the limited resources available in order to achieve power and prestige within their society.

 

The actor based model which mainly emphasizes on the process by which people make decisions about how to interact with their environment is a valuable approach for understanding how change occurs in social systems in response to environmental perturbations. This approach is particularly useful for the insight it gives into why traditional farmers accept or reject agricultural innovations. A study by Michael Moerman in 1968 helped to explain why peasant rice farmers in northern Thailand have adopted tractors under certain environmental circumstances while they continue to rely on water buffaloes under certain circumstances.

 

The actor based model of human ecology is limited but it can appreciability reveal a great deal about individuals within particular choices and their interaction with the environment, but it cannot explain why their social system presents them with the particular choices it does.

 

The systems model of human ecology describes social system as they interact with ecological systems adaptation is assumed to occur not at the level of discrete cultural traits or social institutions but as in the model of cultural ecology or in terms of specific human populations as the ecosystem based model of human ecology, or in terms of specific individual decision makers as in the actor based model of human ecology.

 

SYSTEM BASED MODEL OF HUMAN ECOLOGY

 

In the systems model of human ecology both the social system and the ecosystem with which it interacts retain their integrity as systems with each changing its structural configuration according to internal dynamics and each system from other system of the same kind so that a social system may be altered by inputs received from a neighboring social system. Systems model of human ecology is extremely complex with no primacy being assigned a priority to any element force in the total system.

 

This model mainly emphasizes four relational aspects such as:

  1. Inputs from the ecosystem into the social system where inputs can be in the form of flow of energy (e.g. food petroleum), materials (e.g. protein, construction materials, or information (e.g. sound, visual stimuli).
  2. Inputs from the social systems into the ecosystem. Again this can take the form of flows of energy, materials or information generated by human activities.
  3. Change in the institutions making up the social system in response to inputs from the ecosystem such change may be either primary, as when an increase in the death rate due to environmentally transmitted diseases changes the population structure of a society, or secondary as other social system institutions change in response to environmentally generated primary change in one institution. Social system changes in response to inputs from the ecosystem may be or often adaptive that is they contribute to the continuing survival of the social system under changed environmental conditions. They need not however, result in a better or happier way of life for individual human participants.
  4. Changes in the ecosystem in response to inputs from the social system just as human society change in response to environmental influences so does the ecosystem change may be either primary, the direct impact of human activity on an ecosystem component such as the killing of a particular animal species by over hunting, or secondary alterations in other ecosystem components caused anthropogenic primary change in one component.

    Determinism

 

It is a theory or doctrine based on the occurrences in nature, or social or psychological phenomena causally determined by preceding events or natural laws. From a metaphysical and philosophical position, for everything that happens there are conditions, such that without those conditions, nothing else could happen. It is also viewed that every event has a cause and that everything in the universe is absolutely dependent on and governed by causal laws. Since determinists believe that all events, including human actions are predetermined, determinism is typically thought to be incompatible with free will.

 

Determinism believes that the physical environment especially climate exclusively shapes humans, their action and their thought. Determinists perceive that the most dominant effect of environment is on the livelihood of human beings. It can also influence the economic activity and livelihood strategy associated with the real lifestyle and mode of their life as well. Semple and Ratzel argued that environmental manifestations like climatic influences are persistent, often obdurate in their control. And also agriculture and sedentary life in the arid region is possible only with the help of irrigation. For example, “Egypt is the gift of the Nile”. Domolins also explored that physical environment influences the livelihood of man. For example, in Steppe region, grass used for nomadism is produced. People in cold areas use and depend more on some equine like horse and mule for their livelihood. The animals also determine the type of societal engagement like craft and their diet . This implies that the climatic situation influences the livelihood of human beings.

 

Friedrich Ratzel from Germany and his American disciple, Ellen C. Semple, viewed that humans were completely the product of their environment, and this theory was later called as environmental determinism. Followers of this school, which dominated geographical thought well into the 1920s, asserted that all aspects of human culture and behavior were caused directly by environmental influences. For example, the British were a nation of seafarers because they were an island-dwelling race surrounded by seas; the Arabs were monotheistic Muslims because they were living in the vast empty desert which turned their minds toward a single God; the Eskimos were primitive nomads because of the harsh conditions of their arctic habitat which forbade their development into a complex civilization. The books of Semple and others were filled with endless listings of seemingly plausible environmental determinants of cultural forms, although, seductive when first encountered, such claims of causal correlation between culture and environment were easily refuted once given careful consideration. For example, the Tasmanians, who lived on an island not unlike the one inhabited by the English, made no ships; the Arab tribes who had wandered that vast lonely desert for thousands of years before the appearance of Muhammad were believers in a large pantheon of spirits; and the icy wastes once traversed by Eskimo dog sleds are now the scene of snow mobile races alongside giant oil pipelines. There is simply too much variation in human behavior in seemingly similar geographical settings for it to be environmentally determined.

 

If we see today, the environmental determination theme has been largely replaced by the emergence of man environment models that assign environment a limiting but uncreative role or that recognizes complex mutual interaction. So, describing humans continue to have a strong deterministic orientation model of genetic change in human population for instance are still dominated by the theory of natural selection that assigns to environment a strong and active role in shaping gene pools and the most popular explanation for the distribution of skin colour is based upon selection for pigment granules that help block ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

 

Possibilism

 

When the environment possibilism theory was proposed, it mainly asserted that environment did not directly cause specific cultural developments, the presence or absence of specific environmental factors placed limits on such developments by either permitting or forbidding their occurrence. Thus, island people could be seafarers, but residents of Inner Mongolia could not be; inhabitants of temperate regions might practice agriculture, but those living in arctic circle could not. The value of the possibilist approach was perhaps best demonstrated by the American anthropologist Kroeber, who showed that the Indians of North Western America could not adopt maize agriculture from their southern neighbors because the frost-free growing season in their region was shorter than the four months required for the maize plants to reach maturity. Their environment thus limited the ability of their culture to evolve in an agricultural direction.

 

Possibilism also suffers from one overriding defect as a scientific theory; it lacks any general predictive or explanatory power since it is able to explain only why certain developments could not occur in certain environment. It is totally unable to predict whether or not they would occur under favorable circumstances. For example, the failure of Eskimos to grow corn is explainable, but possibilism cannot explain why the English were great seafarers while the Tasmanians were not. Clearly, the difference in the latter was due to existence of very different cultural traditions and bodies of technological knowledge rather than reflecting environmental influences. The British anthropologist D. Forde concluded in his book, Habitat, Economy and Society(1934), which was perhaps the last major scientific exploration of possibilism that “between the physical environment and human activity there is always a middle term, a collection of specific objectives and values, a body of knowledge and belief: in other words, a cultural pattern”.

 

Environmental possibilism is the inverse of a determinist. It is the critics of determinist that seem to act against the determinist. Possibilism is the view that the physical environment provides the opportunity for arrange of possible human responses and that people have considerable discretion to choose between them. Possibilism removes the absolutist causal approach found in determinism and maintains human agency. Infrastructures as both part of the physical and social environment provide in a range of human responses. Infrastructure possibilism at the moment seems to hold a bit more promising than determinism.

 

SUMMARY:

 

Human ecology is mainly the study about human interactions with the environment, and it also deals with how human beings adapt to various aspect of environmental stress. In human ecology there are some important approaches or model which helps in studying human relations with different environments. These approaches like ecosystem based model which mainly studies ecological balance and other approaches like actor based model which mainly emphasis on the decision making of the people for how to interact with their environment. The important value of human ecology lies in helping humans to see previous relationships between what people do and the environment in which they do live. Many important insights have already been provided, changing in profound ways how people think about the world and their place within it. Systematic research on human ecology has only really just begun, however, areas of our ignorance far exceed areas of our understanding.

 

References

  • Brahn G J. (1974). “Human Ecology: A unifying science”. Springer. 2 (2) :105 -125.
  • Foley R. (1987 .Evolutionary Human Ecology. John Wiley and Son.
  • Kottak P. C. (1999). “The New Ecological Anthropology”. American Anthropology Association Wiley. 101(1) :23- 35.
  • Orlove S.B. (1980). “Ecological Anthropology”. Annual Review of Anthropology. 9 :235- 273.
  • Rambo Terry A . (1983). Conceptual Approaches to Human Ecology. East West Environment and policy institute.
  • Vayda P. A. (1977). “Ecological Anthropology”. American Institute of biological science Oxford University. 27 (12) : 813.
  • Vayda.P.A and Bonnie J. (1975). “New Direction in Ecology and Ecological Anthropology” Annual Review of Anthropology, 4 : 293-306 .

    Suggested Readings

  • Anderson, J N.1973. Ecological anthropology and anthropological ecology In Handbook of Social and Cultural Anthropology, ed J J Honing- pp 179-239 Chicago Rand McNally
  • Bates, D.G. Human Adaptive Strategies: Ecology, Culture and Politics 3rd edn. 2005 Pearson Education Boston.
  • Begon, M.; Townsend, C.R.; Harper, J.L. Ecology: From Individuals to Ecosystems 4th edn. 2005 Blackwell Publishing Malden, MA
  • Bubolz, M. M.; Sontag, M. S. 1993. “Human Ecology Theory.” In Sourcebook of Family Theories and Methods: A Contextual Approach, ed. Boss, P. Doherty, W. J. LaRossa, R. R. Schumm, W. K. Steinmetz, S. . Plenum Press New York
  • Diamond, J. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.2005 .Viking Penguin London.
  • Hagen, Joel B. 1992. An Entangled Bank: The Origins of Ecosystem Ecology. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press,
  • Nesse, R. M.; Williams, G. C. 1994. Why we get sick: The new science of Darwinian medicine. Times Books New York
  • Sutton, M.Q.; Anderson, E.N. Introduction to Cultural Ecology 2004 Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc Walnut Creek, CA
  • Worster, Donald. 1994. Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas. Second edition. New York: Cambridge University Press,