22
GERALD L. YOUNG
addition may be mentioned Freilich (19G3), Bohannan (1O63), Lienhardt
(1966) and again Steward (1968).
An offshoot of the functional concentration of cultural ecologists is
a common circumscription of interaction within the “known world”,
with the principle that “interpretation does not go outside experience” (Herskovits, 1948). Helm (1962) delimits this with the word
oecumene, meaning “not only space and habitat but the sociocultural
resources and groups beyond the society but within its experiential
field”.
The Steward (1955) prescription has been widely adapted and seldom
criticized. Two comprehensive critiques recommended here are those by
Harris (1968) and Vayda and Rappaport (1968). Harris recognizes that
“cultural ecology, precisely because it links emic phenomena with the
etic conditions of ‘nature’, strengthens the association between social
science and the ‘harder’ disciplines” and he supports the claim that the
“strategy of Steward’s explanation continues to warrant approval”. His
criticism focuses on methods for which there is too little space here
to provide detailed examination. But, specifically, he suggests that
“multilinear evolutionism [is] not a methodology” and expresses dissatisfaction with the lack of reconciliation of the “cultural core” concept with
Steward’s cultural-ecological method. Harris criticized “the subordination of causality to that of ‘evolution’ ”, rejecting evolutionism (in the
sense advanced by Steward) as not a method and claimed that “the
concept of cultural core makes sense only in relation to the misguided
polemic surrounding the multilinearity of cultural evolution. Steward
has confused the causal implications of the cultural-ecological strategy
with the typological requirements of multilinear sequences”. Harris
does, however, consider the overall research strategy of cultural ecology
as an advance in anthropology, really regretting only that its potential
contribution might be confused and diluted by the above-noted misconceptions.
The criticisms of Vayda and Rappaport (1968) center on Steward’s
(1955) conclusion that the “recurrence of the same interrelations of
cultural and environmental variables” in culture groups with wide
separation and no contact is evidence of “a degree of inevitability” in
the “association between certain cultural traits and certain ecological
adaptations considered to be causative”. They judge negatively
Steward’s lack of concern with devising adequate tests of significant
correlations, doubting the “very existence of [such] correlations between
the cultural traits and ecological adaptations considered”. They question
whether the ecological adaptations are causative and suggest that it
may frequently be the other way around, that the “social factors may
be determinants of particular ecological adaptations”. And even if the
GERALD L. YOUNG
addition may be mentioned Freilich (19G3), Bohannan (1O63), Lienhardt
(1966) and again Steward (1968).
An offshoot of the functional concentration of cultural ecologists is
a common circumscription of interaction within the “known world”,
with the principle that “interpretation does not go outside experience” (Herskovits, 1948). Helm (1962) delimits this with the word
oecumene, meaning “not only space and habitat but the sociocultural
resources and groups beyond the society but within its experiential
field”.
The Steward (1955) prescription has been widely adapted and seldom
criticized. Two comprehensive critiques recommended here are those by
Harris (1968) and Vayda and Rappaport (1968). Harris recognizes that
“cultural ecology, precisely because it links emic phenomena with the
etic conditions of ‘nature’, strengthens the association between social
science and the ‘harder’ disciplines” and he supports the claim that the
“strategy of Steward’s explanation continues to warrant approval”. His
criticism focuses on methods for which there is too little space here
to provide detailed examination. But, specifically, he suggests that
“multilinear evolutionism [is] not a methodology” and expresses dissatisfaction with the lack of reconciliation of the “cultural core” concept with
Steward’s cultural-ecological method. Harris criticized “the subordination of causality to that of ‘evolution’ ”, rejecting evolutionism (in the
sense advanced by Steward) as not a method and claimed that “the
concept of cultural core makes sense only in relation to the misguided
polemic surrounding the multilinearity of cultural evolution. Steward
has confused the causal implications of the cultural-ecological strategy
with the typological requirements of multilinear sequences”. Harris
does, however, consider the overall research strategy of cultural ecology
as an advance in anthropology, really regretting only that its potential
contribution might be confused and diluted by the above-noted misconceptions.
The criticisms of Vayda and Rappaport (1968) center on Steward’s
(1955) conclusion that the “recurrence of the same interrelations of
cultural and environmental variables” in culture groups with wide
separation and no contact is evidence of “a degree of inevitability” in
the “association between certain cultural traits and certain ecological
adaptations considered to be causative”. They judge negatively
Steward’s lack of concern with devising adequate tests of significant
correlations, doubting the “very existence of [such] correlations between
the cultural traits and ecological adaptations considered”. They question
whether the ecological adaptations are causative and suggest that it
may frequently be the other way around, that the “social factors may
be determinants of particular ecological adaptations”. And even if the