16
GERALD L. YOUNGl
which organizes and controls their activities” and the assumption that
“the socio-cultural complex of a people is a surrogate for the drives and
physiological specializations found in the lower forms of life”. Duncan
and Schnore (1959) consider one of the central problems in human
ecology to be the fashioning of a “suitable concept of the ‘aggregate’
. . . as an organized population which can be characterized by its patterns
of activities”. Kunkel (1967) characterizes human ecology as the “ecological approach to the analysis of social organization” and suggests that
even normative variation in learned behavioral aspects of human
activity continue to exist only to the extent that they are reinforced by
the characteristics of the environment.
Hawley (1968) reinforces the same orientation (as he did earlier, in
1950) in a recurring concern with community structure, denoting community as “the unit of organization for ecological purposes”. Many others
would agree, including Quinn (1939), Boskoff (1949), Gibbard (1950),
Long (1958) and Karp (1967), though Quinn (1940a) and Mukerjee
(1938) would also include the “region” as a basic unit. Schnore (1970) in
fact summarizes Hawley’s definitive paper entirely in terms of organization, noting that Hawley enumerates several distinctive features of
human ecology:
a. ‘Ithe hypothesis that organization arises from the interaction of
b. “the emphasis on population as a point of reference, with the view of
c. “the treatment of organization as a more or less complete and selfpopulation and environment;
organization as a property of a population;
sustaining whole.”
Hawley follows these three distinctions of organization in human
ecology with a “cardinal set of assumptions” from which principles of
ecological Organization may be deduced: these he states as the principle
of interdependence, the principle of the key function, the principle of
differentiation, a principle of dominance, and a principle of isomorphism.
At least part of the organizational concern of sociological human
ecologists has been with how aggregates of people have organized themselves in space: spatial analysis has played a prominent part in the
development of human ecology and is the reason for Shepard’s infamous
remark, noted earlier, that it is merely urban geography. One of the
early proponents of a spatial emphasis for human ecology was Quinn
(1934, 1939, 1940b, 1941, I950a, b). This tradition has been carried into
contemporary sociological human ecology most notably by Schmid
(1939, 1950) and Schmid et al. (1958). Schmid’s earlier (1939) work
GERALD L. YOUNGl
which organizes and controls their activities” and the assumption that
“the socio-cultural complex of a people is a surrogate for the drives and
physiological specializations found in the lower forms of life”. Duncan
and Schnore (1959) consider one of the central problems in human
ecology to be the fashioning of a “suitable concept of the ‘aggregate’
. . . as an organized population which can be characterized by its patterns
of activities”. Kunkel (1967) characterizes human ecology as the “ecological approach to the analysis of social organization” and suggests that
even normative variation in learned behavioral aspects of human
activity continue to exist only to the extent that they are reinforced by
the characteristics of the environment.
Hawley (1968) reinforces the same orientation (as he did earlier, in
1950) in a recurring concern with community structure, denoting community as “the unit of organization for ecological purposes”. Many others
would agree, including Quinn (1939), Boskoff (1949), Gibbard (1950),
Long (1958) and Karp (1967), though Quinn (1940a) and Mukerjee
(1938) would also include the “region” as a basic unit. Schnore (1970) in
fact summarizes Hawley’s definitive paper entirely in terms of organization, noting that Hawley enumerates several distinctive features of
human ecology:
a. ‘Ithe hypothesis that organization arises from the interaction of
b. “the emphasis on population as a point of reference, with the view of
c. “the treatment of organization as a more or less complete and selfpopulation and environment;
organization as a property of a population;
sustaining whole.”
Hawley follows these three distinctions of organization in human
ecology with a “cardinal set of assumptions” from which principles of
ecological Organization may be deduced: these he states as the principle
of interdependence, the principle of the key function, the principle of
differentiation, a principle of dominance, and a principle of isomorphism.
At least part of the organizational concern of sociological human
ecologists has been with how aggregates of people have organized themselves in space: spatial analysis has played a prominent part in the
development of human ecology and is the reason for Shepard’s infamous
remark, noted earlier, that it is merely urban geography. One of the
early proponents of a spatial emphasis for human ecology was Quinn
(1934, 1939, 1940b, 1941, I950a, b). This tradition has been carried into
contemporary sociological human ecology most notably by Schmid
(1939, 1950) and Schmid et al. (1958). Schmid’s earlier (1939) work