GG270 Lecture 2: GG270 LEC 2
Document Summary
Ecology (ch 4: multidisciplinary study of the relationship between things in their environment, not about conservation. Issue of whole system and structure (holism: humans incorporated with social darwinism, human ecology, sociology 1920s -1930s. Chicago school (ecological school) studied urban change and employed language of ecology; succession, segregation, competition. Cultural ecology: anthropologist julian stewart saw culture, not physical science, as key to understanding human relationships with nature, especially in terms of environmental adaptation while accounting for culture (similar to possibilism). Technology and environment relations behaviour affecting environment relations between these patterns and other aspects of culture: stewart saw ecology as an approach to explain cultural features not to derive universal laws, cultural materialism amended/expended the concept. Cultural materialism: raymond williams saw possibility of scientific accounts of human behavior through observation by those external to social group (etic-perspective of the observer, not the insider), societies have an infrastructure (modes of production and reproduction).
