Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Ecological Anthropology

Julian H Steward introduced ecological anthropology in his Theory of Culture Change in 1955.He argued that environment and technology play a major role in determining the social organization of culture and can be correlated with an evolutionary framework.

The main concepts of ecological anthropology are

Adaptation- the ability to respond to environmental stress

Means of subsistence- the method of exploiting an environment such as fishing,hunting,gathering,herding or agriculture.

Ecological niche- the set of resources  used in a particular environment.Different people may exploit different ecological  niches in the same environment.

Carrying capacity- the maximum number of people following a particular means of subsistence who can exist in a particular environment.Sometimes this supposes a specific means of subsistence.

Social organization refers to the activities of members of a society.It is related to the idea of society as social structure (the positions people occupy in relation to one another).

Cultural materialism is the extreme view that environment and technology together determine the social organization.This view was given by American anthropologist Marvin Harris and the key text was his book titled Cultural Materialism.

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