20
GERALD L. YOUNG
not formally articulated in an ecological context until the definitive
book “Theory of Culture Change” by Julian H. Steward (1955). Harris
(1968), however, identifies this book as an outgrowth of an earlier work
by Steward, “The Economic and Social Basis of Primitive Bands”
(1936), claimed by Harris to be “among the important achievements of
modern anthropology” because “it constitutes the first coherent statement of how the interaction between culture and environment could be
studied in causal terms without reverting to a simple geographical
determinism”. Steward (1955) used the term “cultural ecology” to
differentiate the anthropological concept from that of biology, geography and sociology and admitted that it was “not generally understood”, presumably by anthropologists since his essay was produced
quite late in the development of an ecological point of view in the social
sciences generally.
Steward seemed to be concerned primarily with differentiating
“cultural ecology” from social ecology and with establishing the ecological approach as an explanatory method in anthropology, rather than
being concerned with general principles. He did, however, emphasize
three fundamental procedures in cultural ecology:
1. The analysis of “the interrelationship of exploitative or productive
technology and environment”.
2. The analysis of “the behavior patterns involved in the exploitation
of a particular area by means of a particular technology”.
3. The ascertainment of “the extent to which the behavior patterns
entailed in exploiting the environment affect other aspects of culture”.
The perspective brought to the ecological method by anthropologists
is in large part the result of what Helm (1962) called the “traditional
anthropological emphasis on ‘primitive culture’ ”. Focusing on such
cultures has “tended to keep environment in the fore”, has presented
the anthropologist with continual examples of immediate “contact”
interaction between man and his natural environment.
A curious paradox is suggested by the cultural ecological emphasis in
anthropology. Functionalism and a focus on the “immediate” aspects of
interaction are major components of the anthropological tool kit in the
ecological study of man. Yet the greatest concentration of the discipline
overall (including cultural ecology) is on culture-many times defined as
the distinguishing concept in anthropology. The paradox lies in the
concern with the immediacy of the action system’s involvement with
environment on the one hand, and on the other the primacy of the overall
concern with man’s major tool of separation from the environmentculture.
Many of the societies of concern to the anthropologist are engrossed
overwhelmingly with the “dailiness” of exploiting their immediate
GERALD L. YOUNG
not formally articulated in an ecological context until the definitive
book “Theory of Culture Change” by Julian H. Steward (1955). Harris
(1968), however, identifies this book as an outgrowth of an earlier work
by Steward, “The Economic and Social Basis of Primitive Bands”
(1936), claimed by Harris to be “among the important achievements of
modern anthropology” because “it constitutes the first coherent statement of how the interaction between culture and environment could be
studied in causal terms without reverting to a simple geographical
determinism”. Steward (1955) used the term “cultural ecology” to
differentiate the anthropological concept from that of biology, geography and sociology and admitted that it was “not generally understood”, presumably by anthropologists since his essay was produced
quite late in the development of an ecological point of view in the social
sciences generally.
Steward seemed to be concerned primarily with differentiating
“cultural ecology” from social ecology and with establishing the ecological approach as an explanatory method in anthropology, rather than
being concerned with general principles. He did, however, emphasize
three fundamental procedures in cultural ecology:
1. The analysis of “the interrelationship of exploitative or productive
technology and environment”.
2. The analysis of “the behavior patterns involved in the exploitation
of a particular area by means of a particular technology”.
3. The ascertainment of “the extent to which the behavior patterns
entailed in exploiting the environment affect other aspects of culture”.
The perspective brought to the ecological method by anthropologists
is in large part the result of what Helm (1962) called the “traditional
anthropological emphasis on ‘primitive culture’ ”. Focusing on such
cultures has “tended to keep environment in the fore”, has presented
the anthropologist with continual examples of immediate “contact”
interaction between man and his natural environment.
A curious paradox is suggested by the cultural ecological emphasis in
anthropology. Functionalism and a focus on the “immediate” aspects of
interaction are major components of the anthropological tool kit in the
ecological study of man. Yet the greatest concentration of the discipline
overall (including cultural ecology) is on culture-many times defined as
the distinguishing concept in anthropology. The paradox lies in the
concern with the immediacy of the action system’s involvement with
environment on the one hand, and on the other the primacy of the overall
concern with man’s major tool of separation from the environmentculture.
Many of the societies of concern to the anthropologist are engrossed
overwhelmingly with the “dailiness” of exploiting their immediate