HUMAN ECOLOGY AS AN INTERDISCIPLINARY CONCEPT
13
equilibrium (1) are maintained once they are achieved and (2) the
processes by which, when the biotic balance and the social equilibrium
are disturbed, the transition is made from one relatively stable order to
another”.
The neo-orthodox approach more than anything else seems to have
been an attempt to defend human ecology as a method of sociological
analysis against increasing criticism of the classical position from such
writers as Alihan (1938), Gettys (1940) and Hollingshead (1947); it is in
a sense a slightly more refined “redefinition” of the standard ecological
approach with a minimizing of the “man-environment”, “spatial
distribution” (Quinn, 1939) and “competition” (Hawley, 1944) limitations. Quinn offers little as a substitute for the classical position he
supposedly rejects but instead merely rephrases them; Hawley tries to
redefine human ecology as a theoretical derivation of general ecology
with no distinction between social and sub-social: “the subject of ecological inquiry . . . is the community . . . ecology . . . is [the] study of
the morphology of collective life in both its static and its dynamic
aspects”. The refining emphasis is on morphology, “the nature of
community structure”, and on “the population which is either organized
or in process of becoming organized”. Hawley points t o a “conception of
the adjustment of man to habitat as a process of community development” as the distinctive feature of ecological study.
The sociocultural approach is, in part, a reaction to the emphasis of
traditional ecological approaches in sociology on “economic ecology”,
i.e. to the approach emphasized by McKenzie (1926) and his followers.
Firey (1945) felt that “certain ecological processes” could not be couched
in a “strictly economic analysis” and that a “different order of concepts,
corresponding to the valuative, meaningful aspect of spatial adaptation,
must supplement the prevailing economic concepts of ecology”. In
Theodorson’s (1961) words, the socio-cultural approach emphasizes “that
space takes on meaning for man through cultural definition, and that at
every point cultural values intervene between the physical environment
and the human community”.
Social area analysis, as originally defined by Shevky and Bell (1955)
and as rather widely applied in later studies, seems in many ways a
return to that “misplaced emphasis on spatial relations” so strongly
criticized in the classical approach. The authors do, in fact, state that
their work gets only close enough to ecology to make use of its descriptive data, with “attention focused on relationships . . . different than
. . . the ecologist”. There is some indication that social area analysis
relates to human ecology as taxonomy relates to bio-ecology; it is a
usable, an agreeable, even desirable data source for community and
systems analysis, but it is itself oriented primarily toward differentiation,
13
equilibrium (1) are maintained once they are achieved and (2) the
processes by which, when the biotic balance and the social equilibrium
are disturbed, the transition is made from one relatively stable order to
another”.
The neo-orthodox approach more than anything else seems to have
been an attempt to defend human ecology as a method of sociological
analysis against increasing criticism of the classical position from such
writers as Alihan (1938), Gettys (1940) and Hollingshead (1947); it is in
a sense a slightly more refined “redefinition” of the standard ecological
approach with a minimizing of the “man-environment”, “spatial
distribution” (Quinn, 1939) and “competition” (Hawley, 1944) limitations. Quinn offers little as a substitute for the classical position he
supposedly rejects but instead merely rephrases them; Hawley tries to
redefine human ecology as a theoretical derivation of general ecology
with no distinction between social and sub-social: “the subject of ecological inquiry . . . is the community . . . ecology . . . is [the] study of
the morphology of collective life in both its static and its dynamic
aspects”. The refining emphasis is on morphology, “the nature of
community structure”, and on “the population which is either organized
or in process of becoming organized”. Hawley points t o a “conception of
the adjustment of man to habitat as a process of community development” as the distinctive feature of ecological study.
The sociocultural approach is, in part, a reaction to the emphasis of
traditional ecological approaches in sociology on “economic ecology”,
i.e. to the approach emphasized by McKenzie (1926) and his followers.
Firey (1945) felt that “certain ecological processes” could not be couched
in a “strictly economic analysis” and that a “different order of concepts,
corresponding to the valuative, meaningful aspect of spatial adaptation,
must supplement the prevailing economic concepts of ecology”. In
Theodorson’s (1961) words, the socio-cultural approach emphasizes “that
space takes on meaning for man through cultural definition, and that at
every point cultural values intervene between the physical environment
and the human community”.
Social area analysis, as originally defined by Shevky and Bell (1955)
and as rather widely applied in later studies, seems in many ways a
return to that “misplaced emphasis on spatial relations” so strongly
criticized in the classical approach. The authors do, in fact, state that
their work gets only close enough to ecology to make use of its descriptive data, with “attention focused on relationships . . . different than
. . . the ecologist”. There is some indication that social area analysis
relates to human ecology as taxonomy relates to bio-ecology; it is a
usable, an agreeable, even desirable data source for community and
systems analysis, but it is itself oriented primarily toward differentiation,