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Ecological Materialism

(Cultural Evolution/Cultural Ecology/Neofunctionalsim/Cultural Materialism)

A major paradigm shift in American anthropology occurred in the third generation of Boasians (around the 1940's and 1950's) with heavy Marxist influence and a resurrection of new techno-environmental evolutionary theories. The theories of such figures as Julian Steward and Leslie White led the way to the development of particular strands of ecological anthropology and cultural materialism, which together share a similar concept of culture as adaptation to environment.

In the early 1940's Leslie White, a student of Edward Sapir, attempted to revise 19th century evolutionary theory by adding energy as the key factor of cultural development, a theory that has come to be termed "cultural evolution". He argued that the efficient utilization of energy provided the catalyst for the development of more complex cultures. Culture, in his theory, was the symbolic mechanism by which humans adapted to their environments. Similarly, in the 1950's Julian Steward, a student of A.L. Kroeber, led the development of "cultural ecology," the systematic investigation of cross-cultural regularities in the relationship between environment, technology, and social institutions and organizations. His theory of the "cultural core" postulated that particular cultural features could be empirically determined as closely connected to subsistence and economic activity. He is said to have wavered between environmental determinism and "possiblism". In Steward's view, culture was also perceived as the product of adaptation to particular environments. As mentioned in the earlier section on Diffusion, A.L. Kroeber and Clark Wissler marked the way toward a cultural ecology approach with their culture-area theory, which situated cultural types in particular environmental settings. Steward, however, was more interested in the laws of cultural phenomena and grand patterns of development.

The next generation of anthropologists under Steward and White further developed the fields of ecological anthropology and cultural materialism. They have been termed neofunctionalists as their perspective stressed culture as a functional adaptation that allowed populations to remain stable and in equilibrium with their environment and resources. The "ecosystem model", led by Roy Rappaport and Andrew P Vayda, was heavily influenced by biological ecology and integrated the concepts and measurements of energy input, output, carrying capacity, homeostasis, feedback, and limiting factors. Rappaport's famous study of the Tsembaga Maring pig festival clearly illustrates his theory. He concluded that the ritual significance of the pig festival was, in fact, a cognized model that worked to maintain the community in homeostasis. More specifically, the eating of a large number of pigs was an activity to prevent the increase in animals (which would cause an increase in labor and a loss of land), to govern feuding as a means of controlling population, and to provide security through alliance formation.

Marvin Harris was the leading proponent of a slightly different version of neofunctionalism called cultural materialism. In this very influential school of thought, Harris rejects dialectics (or feedback) and argues that the ideational levels ("the superstructure" in his terms) and sociological levels ("the structure") are determined by "the infrastructure", that is, by the mode of production and reproduction of societies. All cultural features are by consequence adaptive and rational with respect to particular environments. Harris has written copiously on his approach to academic and popular audiences. One of his most famous examples is his work on "The Cultural Ecology of India's Sacred Cattle"(1966). The sacredness of cattle, he argues, is a result of the productive importance of cattle in Indian society. The Indian taboo against eating beef is not based on Hindu religious doctrine but insures the conservation of cattle, an important resource in the Indian environment.

Within ecological anthropology, many anthropologists and schools (ethnoecology, ecological history, political ecology) have taken issue with this reduction of culture to adaptation. Nevertheless, it holds important sway within anthropological circles and continues to be embraced by many.

Definitions

Leslie White:

"... '[C]ulture' is the name of a distinct order, or class, of phenomena, namely things and events that are dependent upon the exercise of a mental ability, peculiar to the human species, that we have termed 'symbolling.' To be more specific, culture consists of material objects-tools, utensils, ornaments, amulets, etc.-acts, beliefs, and attitudes that function in contexts characterized by symbolling. It is an elaborate mechanism, an organization of exosomatic ways and means employed by a particular animal species, man, in the struggle for existence or survival"(1949a:363)

Marvin Harris:

"I believe that the analogue of the Darwinian strategy in the realm of sociocultural phenomena is the principle of techno-environmental and techno-economic determinism. This principle holds that similar technologies applied to similar environments tend to produce similar arrangements of labor in production and distribution, and that these in turn call forth similar kinds of social groupings, which justify and coordinate their activities by means of similar systems of values and beliefs."(1968:4)

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