ESP/ANT 133
Cultural Ecology
Lecture
8
Classificatory
cultural ecology II: Julian
Steward, part 1
One
of major anthropologists of the twentieth century—and second part of the
paradigm classificatory cultural ecology
do
a great deal of work in different areas, broad interests:
main
contribution here,
develop
the term "cultural ecology"
but:
the problems that Steward define, seem main ones;
even
if I do not always agree with his kinds of solutions
he
had a long career as an anthropologist from 1930's to 1960's
did
many different sorts of research
extensive
field work, in U.S., Latin America, Asia, elsewhere
archeologist
too
he
has made a number of theoretical contributions
a
number of solid theoretical works:
(part
1 of his approach)
this
materialist perspective
work
out theory and method
apply
in a range of situations - cultures at particular points in time
indicate
where it could be tried in new places
look
at regular patterns in culture change
neither
extreme unilinear evolution of Morgan and Tylor, of White’s culturology
nor
extreme particularism of Boasians
synchronic:
at one point in time. Diachronic: across time, over a period of time.
Though
he did not fully integrate them into a single approach, he did see the strong
connections between them. He did not separate out the study of culture change as
a subject separate from the study of cultures at particular moments in time. In
this, he is different from White - who emphasizes diachronic approaches
theories
of complex society: US, relevance
get
anthropology beyond the "tribe"
previously,
anthropology look at small-scale societies or seen civilization as culmination
of evolution or seen nation-states vaguely in terms of culture traits
Steward
work on this a lot:
so:
I'll review very briefly the anthropological context in which he wrote,
describe his life,
look
over his basic elements
how
he handles environment, culture, society
[note
reversal of order of society, culture: like White, Steward
gives greater emphasis of culture]
describe
cultural ecology as he sees it briefly
I've
described the state of American anthropology in lecture on Leslie White
important
to remember just the strength of the historical particularist approach
Steward
born in 1902, Washington, D.C., family high-level government bureaucrats, at 16,
go to private school: Deep Springs
Preparatory School, near Death Valley
intense: careful intellectual; also physical: get into wilderness
to
Berkeley. study anthropology with Boas students --Kroeber, Lowie,
Gifford;
Kroeber
and Lowie:
Kroeber
had come out with a major text
culture
areas: places where sets of culture
traits develop, diffuse out to less vital areas, periphery
so:
historical particularist explanation of how it comes to be that in some
areas of world, cultures are generally similar
environment
limit this, affect this, not too strongly
based
on huge amount of California Indian data
Lowie:
Primitive Society: shoot
down unilinear evolution of Morgan, Tylor
Steward
involved in this:
learn
a lot of hard ethnographical details
do
library and field studies in West, Southwest
What
I want to do now, is go over how he uses basic elements. methods, theory in
general today; more examples next time.
(like
White, he tends to include society within culture, but at least he treats
environment separately)
in particular,
we'll see the anomalies which Steward found in the Boasian paradigm of
historical particularism
unlike
White, Steward accepted other approaches than his own
he
never made as sharp a break with Boasians
more
willing to admit that other people do their own work too
although
careful and well-thought out in his eclecticism
at
times Steward use descriptive approach, at times typological: we'll see both
he
distinguish clearly between effective and total environment
not
concerned so much with the total environment, but the part of it to which a
group is most closely related
what
they use, what affects them
perceived
environment to an extent, too
depend
how people see the environment
structural
environment. the spatial and
temporal patterns of availability and distribution of resources
(not
limit himself to mere description of particular environments)
California
however,
he tend to see environment as fixed background against which culture develops
note: I'm
rearranging the order of environment, society and culture.
Though all 3 are present here, as in all cultural ecological paradigms,
their relative importance in paradigms can be different.
he
admits that, different meanings to culture
title
book, theory of culture change
A
trait is a practice which a culture either has or does not have.
-- items of food, dress, religion, etc.
example: eat with fork/knife/spoon; tortilla; chopsticks.
I emphasize the importance of traits here, since his paradigm rests on
them.
26,
3 for traits of industrial society
traits
are fixed entities, present or absent
they
are countable: potentially, one
could say that a particular culture has a certain number of traits.
like
White: above people, passed on
look
for laws of culture, in relation to itself, to other things
(not
like White culturology)
different
traits can fulfill
seem
to include: food production,
education, health, recreation, religion
admit
psychological factors in this way
within a large culture (say, U.S., India) can have different groups, each
with its own distinctive culture: with
traits shared with overall culture and with some specific traits of its own
this
is an important concept, a major contribution of Steward's. probably the single
term from all of cultural ecology that has become most widely accepted: linked traits
like
Indians in U.S., borrow some from national culture selectively
one of 3 main components of cultural ecology
remember,
culture's primary, society secondary
like
any other part of culture:
patrilocal
residence, mother-in-law avoidance
joking
relationship between uncle and nephew, whatever
i.e.,
tend not to see as system
population
size, density, settlement patterns
like
for bands
this
concept is very important -- it makes sense on an intuitive level, but hard to
pin down
related
to subculture concept, which we'll get to later
look
at social interaction: take place
on different levels let's look at
levels:
·
family (people
who eat together and sleep under one roof)
·
band or village
or tribe -- a grouping of families
·
sometimes
chiefdoms -- a grouping of bands or villages or tribes under one leader
"the
method of cultural ecology" -- methods
culture core
p. 37, 2 (READ TO CLASS)
this
is critical
what
Steward is going to do, most basically, to anticipate
is
say, effective environment and culture core are interrelated,
do
ecological explanations of culture core, and the secondary part of culture,
outside culture core, can be explained by the historical particularist,
especially diffusion, independent invention
Demonstrated
both in specific cases (e.g., Shoshone) and regularities (e.g., patrilineal
band)
traits
are present or absent, easy to find. so you can look at one community—a
village, group of households, etc—and generalize from them.
Relations
of concepts of culture and environment.
what
are methods --
Note:
unit of analysis is "a culture."
Steward's
method of cultural ecology: outlined it in an article "The Concept and
Method of Cultural Ecology", 1955
He
stated that there are three [or four] fundamentally related procedures:
The
Concept and Method of Cultural Ecology
Steward's
method of cultural ecology: outlined it in an article "The Concept and
Method of Cultural Ecology", 1955
He
stated that there are three fundamentally related procedures: [or
four, if you count the secondary features]
When
you follow these procedures for a given culture of cultures, you find the culture
core. The core is the part of the culture that is linked to the environment.
You could call this Steward's "big thing"--the idea that most
stands out as representative of his approach to cultural ecology. In his view,
some parts of cultures are linked to environments and other parts are not, and
he figured out a way to separate these two parts out.
technology
include part of "material culture":
hunting and fishing devices, containers, sources of water and fuel,
clothing and heating
in more developed societies: agricultural
herding techniques; manufactured implements
example:
the patrilineal hunting band
Exploitation
of resource with technology requires certain behavioral
interaction.
For
instance. seed-gathering, by individuals usually; generally can gather more
alone. some kinds of hunting require groups of people
example:
the patrilineal hunting band [the following 7 points are all
behavioral patterns that are shaped by using this particular technology in this
particular kind of environment]
e.g.
political leadership, property rights, settlement of patterns
sometimes
empirically it's going to turn out that exploitation of environment shape the
rest of the culture
sometimes
it's going to turn out to be much less important
example:
the patrilineal hunting band
Summary:
Steward tends to think: If
proceed step 1, 2, 3, one obtains the culture core
get
cultural core: other cultures
w/similar structural effective environments and with shared culture cores =
cross-cultural regularities
example:
the patrilineal hunting band
([e.g.,
musical instruments])
i.
Bushmen (Kalahari Desert, Africa)
ii.
Pygmies (Congo [Ituri] rain forest, Africa)
iii.
Semang (Malay peninsula, [Malaysia] Asia)
iv.
Negritos (Philippines, Asia)
v.
Aborigines (Australia)
vi.
Tasmanians (Australia)
vii.
Ona (Tierra del Fuego, South America)
viii.
Tehuelche (Patagonia, South America)
ix.
Southern California Indians
note
also that there is some room for historical particularism in secondary traits,
see how emphasis on culture traits organizes this work.
by
considering three steps, get cross-cultural similarities or REGULARITIES
sometimes
get diachronic sequences too:
development
of irrigation civilizations. leads to next point:
Show
how cultural ecology works diachronically [changes over time] as well as synchronically
[at one point in time]
separation
of culture core and secondary features of culture across time
note
the recurrent: like regularity, it indicates repeating, hence an anomaly
for Boasian historical particularism. this is why Steward likes multilinear
evolution. He can show that a) several cultures move through time on the same
line. b] there are many such lines
cultures
evolve. they move along lines of evolution (like Leslie
White)
towards
greater complexity [ with more culture traits];
towards
higher (--> levels of
integration) and
towards
progress (--> weakly defined: well-being;
scientific knowledge; decline of magic; etc.
parallelism
(certain
features) stages or eras
[note: Steward
needs the notion of culture traits to get this idea of parallelism]
NOTE:
importance of parallelism to get line of evolution [NOTE: much as regularity is important in synchronic portion
of paradigm, parallelism is in diachronic: a challenge / anomaly
to historical particularism]
causality
(regular patterns of co-occurrence--cause and effect)
--
based on production, environment, technology, organization
He
wrote a detailed study of the rise of civilization, to check out the stages of
Andean civilization. founds similar stages [parallelism] in different areas
[recurrent], moved along by the same causes [irrigation]:
d:
a case: the rise of civilizations.
“Development of Comples Societies: Cultural Causality and Law A Trial
Formulation of the Development of Early Civilizations” (summarized in Murphy
article).
5 cases [Mesopotamia, Egypt,
China, Peru, Mesoamerica],
5 stages
hunting and gathering
incipient agriculture with beginning of agriculture, based on rainfall
formative, with early irrigation, food surplus, beginning of crafts,
small states
regional florescent: large-scale irrigation, theocratic regional states;
cities
cyclical conquests: warfare, militarism, state secularism, dynastic empires. Civilizations can’t grow too large: irrigation works silt in, nomads attack, elites decline.
note parallelism [all cases pass through the same stages, marked by shifts in traits and levels of socio-cultural integration]] and causality [same forces at work in shifts from stage to stage]
Yes:
basic elements; theory; method
Basic
elements: environment (effective
environment); culture (traits; level of socio-cultural integration)
Two
examples I could discuss:
Patrilineal
hunting band -- a regularity; this would be an anomaly for Boasian
historical particularism (widely separated cases)
In
Steward's "Patrilineal Band" adds comparison as methodological
instrument
Each
unit of analysis = one culture