Human Ecology As Human Behavior

Human interaction with the natural environment has a dual character. By turning increasing quantities of natural substances into physical resources, human beings might be said to have freed themselves from the constraints of low-technology survival pressures. However, the process has generated a new dependence on nature in the form of complex "socionatural systems," as Bennett calls them, in which human society and behavior are so interlocked with the management of the environment that small changes in the systems can lead to disaster. Bennett's essays cover a wide range: from the philosophy of environmentalism to the ecology of economic development; from the human impact on semi-arid lands to the ecology of Japanese forest management. This expanded paperback edition includes a new chapter on the role of anthropology in economic development.Bennett's essays exhibit an underlying pessimism: if human behavior toward the physical environment is the distinctive cause of environmental abuse, then reform of current management practices offers only temporary relief; that is, conservationism, like democracy, must be continually reaffirmed. Clearly presented and free of jargon, Human Ecology as Human Behavior will be of interest to anthropologists, economists, and environmentalists.

""à required reading for anyone interested in the economy, ecology, and demography of human societies."" --American Journal of Human Biology ""This excellent book can serve both as a text¼book and as a scholarly reference."" --American Scientist

Human interaction with the physical environment has a dual character. By turning increasing quantities of natural substances and other living species into "natural resources," human beings might be said to have freed themselves from the constraints of the natural world. However, this "freedom" has resulted in population increases and environmental damage that make human beings ever more dependent on nature. In Human Ecology as Human Behavior, John W. Bennett, one of the few anthropologists concerned with contemporary environmental issues, goes to the heart of this paradox to provide a wide-ranging, cross-disciplinary inquiry into the behavioral aspects of environmental problems and economic development. Bennett's essays are headed by an exposition of basic theory, followed by presentations of his major field studies of resource management. In the theoretical chapters he defines the behavioral and social processes whereby human beings realize their ability to shape nature to their own ends, for better or for worse. These chapters have an underlying pessimism: if human behavior toward the physical environment is the distinctive cause of environmental abuse, then reform of current management practices offers only temporary relief; that is, conservatism, like democracy, must be continually reaffirmed. The research project chapters show how these ideas were put to work in studies of Japanese forest management, water allocation in the North American West, and the management of communal agricultural resources and property among the Hutterian Brethren viewed from the standpoint of the "sustainability" issue in development studies. Finally, in a third and concluding section, Bennett reviews recent literature on the environmental movement and resource management. and in the last chapter surveys the rise of ecological philosophies that reject the centrality of human beings in nature and advocate the rights of other species. Clearly presented and free of jargon, Human Ecology as Human Behavior will be of interest to anthropologists, economists, and environmentalists.

Human interaction with the natural environment has a dual character. By turning increasing quantities of natural substances into physical resources, human beings might be said to have freed themselves from the constraints of low-technology survival pressures. However, the process has generated a new dependence on nature in the form of complex "socionatural systems," as Bennett calls them, in which human society and behavior are so interlocked with the management of the environment that small changes in the systems can lead to disaster. Bennett's essays cover a wide range: from the philosophy of environmentalism to the ecology of economic development; from the human impact on semi-arid lands to the ecology of Japanese forest management. This expanded paperback edition includes a new chapter on the role of anthropology in economic development.Bennett's essays exhibit an underlying pessimism: if human behavior toward the physical environment is the distinctive cause of environmental abuse, then reform of current management practices offers only temporary relief; that is, conservationism, like democracy, must be continually reaffirmed. Clearly presented and free of jargon, Human Ecology as Human Behavior will be of interest to anthropologists, economists, and environmentalists.

Following upon the first two volumes in this series, which dealt with a broad spectrum of topics in the environment and behavior field, ranging from theoretical to applied, and including disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and professionally oriented approaches, we have chosen to devote sub sequent volumes to more specifically defined topics. Thus, Volume Three dealt with Children and the Environment, seen from the combined perspective of researchers in environmental and developmental psy chology. The present volume has a similarly topical coverage, dealing with the complex set of relationships between culture and the physical environment. It is broad and necessarily eclectic with respect to content, theory, methodology, and epistemological stance, and the contributors to it represent a wide variety of fields and disciplines, including psy chology, geography, anthropology, economics, and environmental de sign. We were fortunate to enlist the collaboration of Amos Rapoport in the organization and editing of this volume, as he brings to this task a particularly pertinent perspective that combines anthropology and ar chitecture. Volume Five of the series, presently in preparation, will cover the subject of behavioral science aspects of transportation. Irwin Altman Joachim F. Wohlwill ix Contents Introduction 1 CHAPTER 1 CROSS-CULTURAL ASPECTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN AMOS RAPOPORT Introduction 7 Culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Environmental Design 10 The Relationship of Culture and Environmental Design . . . . . . . . . 15 The Variability of Culture-Environment Relations 19 Culture-Specific Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Designing for Culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Implications for the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 CHAPTER 2 CROSS-CULTURAL RESEARCH METHODS: STRATEGIES, PROBLEMS, ApPLICATIONS RICHARD W.

This classic is arranged as follows: Preface 1. The Question of Practical Application. 2. The Question of Natural Science. 1. Introduction and Orientation I. The Selection of a Path II. The “Singleness of the Superlative” III. The Principle of Least Effort IV. The Scope of the Principle: “Tools-and-Jobs” V. Previous Studies VI. Prospectus 2. On the Economy of Words I. In Medias Res: Vocabulary Usage, and the Forces of Unification and Diversification II. The Question of Vocabulary Balance III. The Orderly Distribution of Meanings IV. The Integrality of Frequencies V. The Integrality of Rank VI. The Length of Intervals Between Repetitions VII. The Problem of Spreading Work Over Time (The Even Distribution of Work Over Time) 3. Formal Semantic Balance and the Economy of Evolutionary Process I. The “Minimum Equation” Of Arrangement II. The Law of Abbreviation of Words III. The Law of Diminishing Returns of Tools IV. The Law of Diminishing Returns of Words 4. Children’s Verbalizations and the “Origin of Speech” I. The Problem II. Quantitative Data III. Theoretical Discussion of the “Origin” Of Speech IV. Summary 5. Language as Sensation and Mentation I. The Comparative Conservatism of Tools in the Risks and Opportunities of the Environment II. The Economy of Sensation III. Mentation: The Correlation of Sensory Data IV. A Mind as a Unit Semantic System V. Intellectual Rigidity and Death: Miscellanea V. Summary: The N Minimum 6. The Ego as the “Origin” Of a Frame of Reference I. A Definition of an Organism II. The Biosocial Population of Organisms III. The Economy of Procreation IV. The Synchrony of the Biosocial Continuum 7. Mind and the Economy of Symbolic Process: Sex, Culture, and Schizophrenia I. Human Sexual Activity II. The Economy of Symbolic Process (Substitution III. Culture, Society, and the Superego IV. Autism and the Confusion of Kinds of Reality V. On Schizophrenic Speech VI. Semantic Dynamics: Summary VI. Language and the Structure of the Personality 8. The Language of Dreams and of Art I. The Language of Dreams II. The Language of Art III. Language and the Structure of the Personality: Mary of Part One 9. The Economy of Geography I. A Lemma in Which a Number of Human Beings Becomes Increasingly More Organized II. The Hypothesis of the “Minimum Equation” III. Empiric Tests IV. Concluding Remarks 10. Intranational and International Cooperation and Conflict I. Canadian Data II. Unstable and Stable Intranational Conditions III. Stable and Unstable International Equilibria 11. The Distribution of Economic Power and Social Status I. Theoretical Considerations II. Empiric Data III. The Interaction Between Individuals: Dominance and Submission IV. Summary 12. Prestige Symbols and Cultural Vogues I. Theoretical Considerations II. Pioneer Empiric Data III. Musical Composers and Compositions IV. Samples of Congressional Action V. Summary

The Ecological Transition studies the relationships between humans and the physical environment. It also assesses some converging approaches in cultural anthropology, including cultural ecology, economic anthropology, social exchange, and behavioral adaptation. Comprised of ten chapters, this book focuses on ecological transition, which refers to the process by which humans incorporate nature into society. It discusses how to formulate a policy-oriented cultural ecology and looks at the ecological transition as material evolution and as a problem of equilibrium. The succeeding chapters review some of the contributions of cultural ecology, including its successes and failures. Finally, the book examines the concept of adaptive and maladaptive actions in human ecology. This book is useful for anthropologists who are interested in cultural-ecological research and its implications in public policy.

Ecologists have long based their conceptual frameworks in the natural sciences. Recently, however, they have acknowledged that ecosystems cannot be understood without taking into account human interventions that may have taken place for thousands of years. And for their part, social scientists have recognized that human behavior must be understood in the environment in which it is acted out. Researchers have thus begun to develop the area of “human ecology.” Yet human ecology needs suitable conceptual frameworks to tie the human and natural together. In response, Cultural Values and Human Ecology uses the framework of cultural values to collect a set of highly diverse contributions to the field of human ecology. Values represent an important and essential aspect of the intellectual organization of a society, integrated into and ordained by the over-arching cosmological system, and constituting the meaningful basis for action, in terms of concreteness and abstraction of content as well as mutability and permanence. Because of this balance, values lend themselves to the kinds of analyses of ecological relationships conducted here, those that demand a reasonable amount of specificity as well as historical stability. The contributions to Cultural Values and Human Ecology are exceedingly diverse. They include abstract theoretical discussions and specific case studies, ranging across the landscape of Southeast Asia from the islands to southern China. They deal with hunting-gathering populations as well as peasants operating within contemporary nation-states, and they are the work of natural scientists, social scientists, and humanists of Western and Asian origin. Diversity in the backgrounds of the authors contributes most to the varied approaches to the theme of this volume, because differences in cultural background and academic tradition will lead to different research interests and to differences in the empirical approaches chosen to pursue given problems.