Cultural Ecology is the study of the interaction between culture and environment. In cultural ecology the surrounding social and physical environment and the effects of culture on environment and of environment on culture is studied. It has been observed that "cultural ecology is largely an American specialty in anthropology" (Eriksen 1995). A central assumption of cultural ecology perspective is the idea that cultures in similar environments will share many characteristics.
Cultural Ecology by Robert M. Netting is a book that illustrates the central concepts and general principles of cultural ecology. Cultural Ecology by Robert M. Netting introduces readers to the topic of ecological anthropology by presenting illustrative ethnographic cases of hunter-gatherer, pastoralist, and agricultural societies. Cultural ecology is the study of human adaptations to social and physical environments. - Frake, Charles O. (1962). Cultural Ecology and Ethnography.
Cultural ecology is a convenient, conventional title rather than an invitation to scholarly debate. In Brazil the study of human ecology on indigenous human populations deals with cultural ecology, ethnology, and models of subsistence. Ecology describes the interactions of animals and plants while considering humans as being animals.
It has not been sufficiently recognized that Steward's so-called defining work in cultural ecology is called "The Theory of Culture Change: the Methodology of Multilinear Evolution" not "The Theory of Cultural Ecology." Steward's overriding interest was not to define cultural ecology but rather to understand the processes or causes of the 'evolution' of culture.
Many of the critical early studies which paved the way for cultural ecology were focused on the indigenous peoples of North America. Cultural ecology has consistently reflected an effort to fuse both the ideas and the approaches of natural and social sciences. Steward also moved cultural ecology into 'middle range' (Merton) research and theory where it has tended to remain. Cultural ecological studies tend to focus on specific cultures and frequently on specific facets of culture in specific environments.
Autocatalysis in cultural ecology:
model ecosystems and the dynamics of biocultural evolution. - Geiger G. -
Biosystems.
Using a well-known mathematical model frequently applied in theoretical population
dynamics, certain ecological mechanisms are investigated that are inherent in the organic
evolution of cultural capacities in man. Culture is argued to involve ecological
interactions exhibiting analogies to the interaction of chemical species in autocatalytic
biomolecular reactions.
The Cultural Ecology of the Corporation: Explaining Diversity in Work Group
Responses to Organizational Transformation - Marietfa L. Baba, Wayne State
University. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 31, No. 2, 202-233 (1995).
The concepts of human ecology and cultural ecology are extended to explain divergent work group
responses to a transformational change program in a Fortune 100 manufacturing corporation.
The internal environment of the corporation, specifically the product development process
(PDP), is conceptualized as an ecological system containing a diverse population of
distinctive work group subculture.
A History and a Cross-Cultural Study of
Motivations for Private Property
Floyd Webster Rudmin, Cross-Cultural Research.
The cultural ecology of private property may be a function of social dominance and escape
from social control. This emphasis is shown by a review
from Aristotle to the Roman Stoics and early Christians, to Aquinas,
to the classical political economists including John Locke, Rousseau, and
Karl Marx to the
nineteenth-century comparative sociologists, and finally to the science of society of
Sumner and Hobhouse, who are the forefathers of modern
quantitative research.
Within societies, these relationships were moderated by societal preference for individual
autonomy. Thus, the cultural ecology of private property may be a function of social
dominance and escape from social control.
Human ecology: an overview of man-environment
relationships
Begossi A.
Cultural ecology, ethnobiology, sociobiology, models of subsistence and of cultural
transmission, and applied ecology as parts of human ecology have a common denominator:
they all present an ecological basis as continued biological force. Cultural ecology
studies the influence of environmental variables on the behavior of human cultures;
sociobiology studies the biological bases of behavior; and ethnobiology studies
classification systems of nature.
Cultural ecology or ecological anthropology arise from the interaction of ecology with anthropology. Sociobiology evolved since the early 1970s, and it includes the disciplines of classical ethnology, evolutive ecology, and genetics. The interaction of evolutive ecology with ethology helped create sociology.
New Technologies and the Cultural Ecology of Primary Schooling:Imagining Teachers as Luddites In/Deed - Mary Bryson, Suzanne De Castell. This article's concern is with discourses of innovation, and it makes some instructive connections between techno romanticist discourses across two "irevolutions ": the industrial revolution at the dawn of the 19th century and the information revolution at the close of the 20th century. Its central question is this: Given the proliferation of futurist and neophilic rhetoric about the "digital revolution" and the wonders of computer-mediated learning, how can we explain teachers' less than enthusiastic participation in bringing about changes involving computers?
THE CULTURAL ECOLOGY OF THE LOCUST CULT IN TRADITIONAL CHINA - SHIN-YI HSU. ABSTRACT: A geographic study of the locust cult in China, in relation to its ecological and cultural-historical basis, reveals the fact that there is a very high degree of association (a significant correlation coefficient of 0.88) between the frequency of locust infestations and the number of cult temples established. In interpreting this cultural-ecological relationship the concept of social equilibrium was applied to the construction of a stress-and-strain model. Culture is viewed as the human coping process against environmental stress, the locust cult temples and the performed rituals being output products serving to restore social equilibrium.