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Paper No. : 11 Ecological : Cultural and Biological Dimensions Module : 24 Concepts in : Biological Dimension

Development Team

Principal Investigator Prof. Anup Kumar Kapoor Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi

Dr. K. R. Rammohan Paper Coordinator Department of Anthropology, Sikkim University, Sikkim

Mr. Sagar Chettri Content Writer Department of Anthropology, Sikkim University, Sikkim

Prof. A. Paparao Content Reviewer Department of Anthropology, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati 1

Concepts in Ecology : Biological Dimension Anthropology

Description of Module

Subject Name Anthropology

Paper Name : Cultural and Biological Dimensions

Module Name/Title Concepts in Ecology : Biological Dimension

Module Id 24

Contents: Introduction Development of and related theories Cultural Ecology approach Cultural Evolutionist approach Ecology and Functionalist Approach Cultural Materialistic approach Political Ecologist approach Ethno ecologist approach Summary

Learning Outcomes: After studying this module, students would be able to understand:  The Role ecological in the debate of  How major ecological theories rose against environmentalism

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Concepts in Ecology : Biological Dimension Anthropology

Introduction In the early twentieth century, ecology was established as a sub-discipline of known as “natural ecology”. During the 1930s, “ ecology” was founded, applying the methods of natural ecology to human (Hawley, 1950). is the study of the relationships and interactions among , their biology, their , and their physical environments. The human ecologists study many aspects of and environment including how and why cultures do what they do to solve their subsistence problems, how groups of people understand their environment, and how they share their knowledge of the environment. The broad field of human ecology includes two major sub-divisions; these are human biological ecology and cultural ecology. Human biological ecology is the study of the biological aspect of the human/environment relationship, and cultural ecology is the study of the ways in which culture is used by people to adapt to their environment (Sutton & Anderson, 2010). At around the same time, the began to analyze the cultural dimensions of the ecological adaptation of indigenous groups (Steward, 1938), and later his research is known as “cultural ecology” (Steward, 1955). By the mid 1930s, American school of thought emerged as a reaction against the ninetieth century unilinear evolutionism and as a scientific study of the environment and culture. The Cultural Ecology theory considers how environmental forces influence humans and how human activities affect the biosphere and the Earth itself (Kottak, 1999). Julian Steward coined the term ‘cultural ecology’ and defined it in his book, The Theory of Cultural Change (1955), as "a heuristic device for understanding the effect of environment upon culture" (Steward, 1955). Cultural ecology then branched out within anthropology, engendering such sub-fields as (Conklin, 1954), neo-functionalist ecology (Rappaport, 1968), human ecology (Moran, 1990), processual ecology (Bennett, 1993), (Kinsley, 1995) and (Schmink & Wood, 1987). These multiple sub-fields of the ecological reveal a constant increase in the scope of its application, and represents ecological science’s response to the new political and environmental faced by contemporary societies. Cultural Ecology focuses on how cultural beliefs and practices help human adapt to their environments and live within the means of their . It contributes to social organization

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and other human institutions. Cultural Ecology also interprets cultural practices in terms of their long- term role in helping humans adapt to their environment (Kottak, 1999). To understand the relationship between culture and environment, several different theories or emerged during the course of its development. Besides the work of Steward, Harris’s work led to the development of new methodologies in the 1960s. For Harris, cultural change begins at the infrastructural level. Harris’s cultural incorporates the ecological explanation and advances of a more explicit and systematic scientific research strategy (Barfield, 1997, p.137). Harris’s main explanatory mechanism was the concept of adaptation (Milton, 1997). Subsequently, Rappaport and Vayda also contributed importantly to the application of new methodologies in the 1960s. They focused upon the ecosystem approach, systems functioning, and the flow of . These methods rely on the usage of measurements such as caloric expenditure and protein consumption. This ecosystem approach remained popular among ecological anthropologists during the 1960s and the 1970s (Milton, 1997). Ethno-ecology was a prevalent approach throughout the same decade. The of ethno-ecology falls within . The 1970s and 1980s saw the emergence of radical cultural . In the 1990s, ecological anthropologists rejected extreme and attacked modernist dichotomies (body and mind, action and thought, and culture) (Milton, 1997). Recent ecological anthropology studies have included political ecology, uniting more traditional concerns for the environment–technology-social-organization nexus with the emphasis of on power and inequality seen historically, the evaluation and critique of the Third World development programs, and the analysis of environmental degradation (Netting, 1996, p. 270).

Development of Cultural ecology and related theories In The Origin of Species (1859), presented a synthetic theory of based on the idea of descent with modification. In each generation, more individuals are produced than can survive (because of limited resources), and competition between individuals arises. Individuals with favorable characteristics, or variations, survive to reproduce. It is the environmental context that determines whether or not a trait is beneficial. Thomas R. Malthus had an obvious influence on Darwin's

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formulations. Malthus pioneered demographic studies, arguing that human populations naturally tend to outstrip their food supply (Seymour-Smith, 1986, p.87). This circumstance leads to disease and hunger which eventually put a limit on the growth of the (Seymour-Smith, 1986, p.87). As a reaction to Darwin’s theory, some anthropologists eventually turned to environmental determinism as a mechanism for explanation. The earliest attempts at environmental determinism mapped cultural features of human populations according to environmental information (for example, correlations were drawn between natural features and human technologies) (Milton, 1997). The detailed ethnographic accounts of Boas, Malinowski, and others led to the realization that environmental determinism could not sufficiently account for observed realities, and a weaker form of determinism began to emerge (Milton, 1997). At the same time, steward looked for the adaptive responses to similar environments that gave rise to cross-cultural similarities (Netting, 1996, p.267). Steward’s theory cantered around a culture core, which he defined as "the constellation of features which are most closely related to subsistence activities and economic arrangements" (Steward, 1955, p.37). By the 1960s and 1970s, cultural ecology and environmental determinism lost favor within anthropology. Ecological anthropologists formed new schools of thought, including the ecosystem model, ethnoecology, and (Barfield, 1997, p. 138). Researchers hoped that ecological anthropology and the study of adaptations would provide explanations of customs and institutions (Salzman & Attwood, 1996, p. 169). Ecological anthropologists believe that populations are not engaged with the total environment around them, but rather with a habitat consisting of certain selected aspects and local (Kottak, 1999, p.23-24). Furthermore, each population has its own adaptations institutionalized in the culture of the group, especially in their technologies (Salzman & Attwood, 1996, p.169).

A field such as ecological anthropology is particularly relevant to contemporary concerns with the state of the general environment. Anthropological knowledge has the potential to inform and instruct humans about how to construct sustainable ways of life. Anthropology, especially when it has an environmental focus, also demonstrates the importance of preserving cultural . Biological

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diversity is necessary for the adaptation and survival of all species; culture diversity may serve a similar role for the human species because it is clearly one of our most important mechanisms of adaptation.

Cultural Ecology approach Julian steward (1902-1972) is an American Neo-evolutionist and his concept of cultural ecology was particularly interested in the relationship between culture and environment. He believed that cultures at similar technological levels, in similar environments, would develop broadly similar institutions. His work thus depended on cross-cultural comparisons (Nanda & Warms, 2007). He divided the evolutionary thought into three schools- unilinear, universal and multilinear. Steward stated that E.B. Tylor and H. L. Morgan are associated with the unilinear approach to . L. White and V. G. Child are related with universal approach to cultural evolution. Steward classified himself as a multilinear evolutionist. Steward (1968) wrote cultural ecology is the “study of the processes by which a adapts to its environment. Its principal problem is to determine whether these adaptations initiate internal social transformations of evolutionary change” (p. 337). Like biological ecology, which analyzes adaptation to the complex interconnections that make up an environment, cultural ecology is a view of “man in the web of life” (Steward, 1973b, p. 31). That web consisted of both natural and cultural realities: “Cultural ecology is broadly similar to biological ecology in its method of examining the interactions of all social and natural phenomena within an area, but it does not equate social features with biological species or assume that competition is the major process. It distinguishes different kinds of socio-cultural systems and institutions, it recognizes both cooperation and competition as processes of interaction, and it postulates that environmental adaptations depend on the technology, needs and structure of the society and on the nature of the

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environment. It includes analysis of adaptation to the social environment” (Steward, 1968, p. 337).

He studied the Shoshone of the Great Basin in the 1930s and noted that they were hunter-gatherers heavily dependent on the pinon nut tree. Steward demonstrated that lower population densities exist in areas where the tree is sparsely distributed, thus illustrating the direct relationship between resource base and population density. Steward argued that the links between environment and culture were particularly clear in societies like the Shoshone where the margins of survival were slim. In contrast, in societies which “have adequately solved subsistence problems, the effect of ecology become more difficult to ascertain. In complex societies certain components of the social superstructure rather than ecology seem increasingly to be determinants of further developments. With greater cultural complexity analysis becomes increasingly difficult” (Steward, 1938, p. 262).

Steward outlined three basic methodological steps for a cultural-ecological investigation. First, “the interrelationship of exploitative or productive technology and environment must be analyzed,”, that is, the relationship between and natural resources. Second, “the behavior patterns involved in the exploitation of a particular area by means of a particular technology must be analyzed” (Steward, 1973b, p. 40–42). For example, certain animals are best stalked by individual hunters while other game can be captured in communal hunts; different social behaviors are involved in the exploitation of different resources. The third step in the analysis is to determine how “behavior patterns entailed in exploiting the environmental effect other aspects of culture” (Steward, 1973b, p.41). This three-step empirical analysis identifies the cultural core, “the constellation of features which are most closely related to subsistence activities and economic arrangements” (Steward, 1973b, p. 37).

Robert McC. Netting (1934-1995) is a distinguished cultural ecologist; Netting conducted lifelong studies of the vital relationships linking peoples’ social institutions, individual behaviors, and

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collective beliefs to their production practices. He wrote about agricultural practices, household organization, land tenure, warfare, historical , and cultural ecology (Netting, 1977). Robert McC. Netting uses his study of a Swiss alpine to show relationships between land tenure and land use. He also discusses the future of shifting cultivation and the consequences of the Green (Netting, 1997). In the 1960s, he undertook research among the Kofyar of Northern Nigeria. He took ecological approach that Julian Steward pioneered in his 1938 study of mobile hunting societies in the Great Basin of the Southwestern United States. Netting (1965) in his “Trial Model of Cultural Ecology” argued that social and cultural factors, and not only biological and physical factors (i.e., Steward’s “relevant environmental features”), must be included in the definition of effective environment. The innermost core of Netting’s functionalist model is taken up by what he calls “social instrumentalities”—namely, demography, productive groups, and rights in resources— precisely those aspects of social organization that have direct adaptive significance. He uses the example of the small independent family among the Kofyar, an institution admirably adapted to the labor needs of intensive in small parcels of land. He contrasts it with the extended family of the neighbouring Chokfem people, who are better adapted to shifting cultivation on dispersed lands. Here Netting’s early interest in the functional links that relate household composition and labor requirements to the ways in which land is put to productive use. Netting in his book, Hill Farmers of Nigeria, is a more complete analysis of the intensive ways in which the Kofyar managed their homestead gardens on hilly slopes by terracing and fertilizing. Netting demonstrates that population density, division of labor, and rights to land and labor are functionally interrelated with crucial aspects of the ecosystem.

Cultural Evolutionist approach (1900-1975) is an who developed the theory of Cultural Evolution and he was deeply influenced by Morgan’s model of evolutionary theory and the Karl

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Marx’s theory of Materialism. His main contribution was that he provided scientific insights to the evolution of culture. He created a formula that measures the degree of cultural development. In The Evolution of Culture (1959), White turned his attention to the course of evolution from the ‘Primate Revolution’ to the fall of Rome. He opined that ‘energy’ is the key mechanism in evolutionary development, with amount of energy available per capita per year determining the overall level of cultural evolution at any given time and space. In the earliest phase, energy existed in the form of the human body alone. Later, men and women harnessed other sources: fire, water, wind, and so on. Advances in the manufacture of tools, in the domestication of animals and plants, and in the intensification of agriculture all increased efficiency and spurred the cultural evolution (Barnard, 2000). He also illustrated that “culture developed when the amount of energy harnessed by people per capita per year is increased, or as the efficiency of the technological means of putting the energy to work is increased or as both factors are simultaneously increased. It is expressed with the following formula: E X T→ C, in which C represents the degree of cultural development, E the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year, and T the quality of efficiency of the tools employed in the expenditure of energy (White, 1949, p. 368–369). White divided culture into three subsystems – 1. Technological, 2. Sociological and 3. Ideological. He argued that the technological system is the basis of cultural evolution and composed of the material, mechanical, physical and chemical instruments, as well as the way people use these techniques. The sociological system is made up of interpersonal relations expressed in patterns of behavior, collective as well as individual. The ideological system is composed of ideas, beliefs, and knowledge expressed in articulation speech or other symbolic form (White, 1949, p. 362–363). White’s three categories of culture—technological, sociological, and ideological—are not equivalent; technology has priority because, according to White’s definition, it involves the capture and transformation of energy that is essential for life in all organisms.

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CULTURE (Cultural Evolutionist Approach)

TECNOLOGIES SOCIOLOGICAL IDEOLOGICAL (Material, (Interpersonal (Ideas, beliefs, Mechanical, physical relations, behaviors) knowledge) and chemical instruments)

Fig 1: Cultural Evolutionist approach

According to White “The technological system is therefore both primary and basic and important as all human life and culture rest and depend upon it” (White, 1949, p. 365). White’s argument on the importance to the technological realm of culture goes as follows: 1. Technology is an attempt to solve the problem of survival. 2. It means capturing enough energy and diverting it for human need. 3. Those societies that captured more energy and use it most efficiently were at an adaptive advantage; they were, in an evolutionary sense, more advanced. 4. Therefore, in this way some societies are more advanced than the others in an evolutionary sense. In his theory of cultural evolution, White believed that culture has general laws of its own. Based on this universal principle, culture evolves itself. Therefore, an anthropologist’s task is to discover those principles and explain the particular phenomena of culture. He called this approach , which attempts to define and predict cultural phenomena by understanding general pattern of culture.

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Ecology and Functionalist Approach A. ((1926-1997) first defined the ecology in terms of structural functionalist approach. He was influenced by Julian steward. He saw culture as a function of the ecosystem and culture as a means of adaptation to environments. The and energy expenditure are central themes in Rappaport’s studies conducted in New Guinea. He completed the first systematic study of , religion, and ecology, and this study is characterized as synchronic and functionalist. Rappaport (1971) defines an ecological population as "an aggregate of organisms having in common a set of distinctive means by which they maintain a common set of material relations within the ecosystem in which they participate" (p.238). Similarly, he defines ecosystem as "the total of living organisms and non-living substances bound together in material exchanges within some demarcated portion of the biosphere" (p.238). The classical example of an ecological approach to the ritual system of a small-scale society is found in Roy Rappaport’s Pigs for the Ancestors, a study of the ritual system of the Tsembaga of New Guinea. In this book, Rappaport postulates that the slaughter and consumption of pigs in Tsembaga ritual – the ‘kaiko’ – functions as a regulatory mechanism that keeps within acceptable parameters the size of the herd of pigs, the intake of animal protein, and the amount of female labor needed to take care of them as well as of the gardens. The picture presented by Rappaport is one in which all the components of Tsembaga – ecological, nutritional, social, military, ideological – constitute a coherent totality. Rappaport’s study provide a model for understanding the role of ritual in the creation and maintenance not just of social , but in the maintenance of the conditions within which human organisms can survive.

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Andrew Vayda serves at present on the editorial boards of Anthropological Theory, Borneo Research Council publications, and Human Ecology and is a founding board member of the Association for Fire Ecology of the Tropics. He in his monograph “Maori Warfare” (1960) focused on such matters as the importance of understanding variability and considering context in human-ecological interactions, on seeing humans as important agents of environmental change, and on the centrality of historical analysis in explanation. He specializes in methodology and explanation at the interface between social and ecological science. Additionally, he has directed and participated in numerous research projects focused on people’s interactions with forests in and Papua New Guinea. 'Progressive contextualization' emerged in the 1980s and was originally developed by Andrew Vayda (1983). This approach links the environment with development issues by analysing the power of "non-place-based' forces' like transnational corporations over "place- based activities" involving agriculture and the like (Bryant 2001: 153). In the late 1970s, Vayda initiated a long-lasting involvement in applied research on people- forest interactions in Indonesia, collaborating first with the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Program, and later with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)-Indonesia and the Center for International Forest Research.

Cultural Materialistic approach The American anthropologist (1927-2001) in his book “The Rise of Anthropological Theory” (1968) first developed the anthropological theory known as Cultural Materialism. His concept of cultural materialism was influenced by the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, yet is a materialism distinct from Marxist dialectical materialism, as well as from philosophical materialism (Moore, 2004). The cultural materialism embraces three anthropological thoughts, materialism (Karl Marx’s & Friedrich Engels’s dialectical materialism), cultural evolution (Leslie White) and cultural ecology (Julian Steward) [Barfield, 1997, p. 232].

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The Rise of Anthropological Theory, Harris described cultural materialism as the socio-cultural analogue of Darwinian selection and immediately identifies it as non idealist and evolutionary. Harris developed “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 co-ordinate their activities by means of similar systems of values and beliefs. Translated into a research strategy, the principle of techno-environmental, techno-economic determinism and assigns priority to the study of the material conditions of socio-cultural life, much as the principle of natural selection assigns priority to the study of differential reproductive success” (Harris, 1968, p.4). Harris insisted that the relevant question is not “the reality” of the actions versus the ideas of people, or of socio-cultural phenomena as observed versus socio-cultural phenomena as experienced. Instead, Harris asserted, we must make two sets of distinctions: “First, the distinction between mental and behavioral events, and second, between events”. Behavioral events are simply “all the body motions and environmental effects produced by such motions, large and small, of all the human beings who ever lived”. Mental events, on the other hand, “are all the thoughts and feelings that we humans experience within our minds” (Harris, 1979, p. 31–32). The second set of distinctions is between emic and etic. Emic perspectives convey a participant’s point of view; etic perspectives are from an observer’s point of view. These two ways of knowing imply different research approaches and agendas. These distinctions lead to specific categories of human actions and thoughts. First are those relating to the needs of meeting subsistence requirements, the etic behavioral mode of production. Second are the actions taken to ensure the existence of the population, the etic behavioral mode of reproduction. Third are actions taken by each society to maintain “secure and orderly behavioral relationships among its constituent groups and with other societies”, and because this is a principal area of discord. The associated set of behaviors are “the economic processes which allocate labor and the material products of labor to individuals and groups” (Harris, 1979, p. 51). Therefore, we are concerned with the etic behavioral domestic economies and etic behavioral political economies. A final

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etic category, behavioral superstructure, consists of acts related to the importance of symbolic processes for the human psyche—from art to advertising, ritual to sport. Harris then lumps—for no clear —modes of production and reproduction under the rubric “infrastructure” and domestic and political economies under the name “structure”. When “behavioral superstructure” is added to these two categories, voilà—a tripartite scheme of etic behavior emerges: infrastructure, structure, and superstructure. Although Harris (1979) briefly sketched a parallel tripartite scheme for mental and emic components, he was uninterested in the effort and collapsed the framework as soon as it was constructed, leaving us with infrastructure, structure, and superstructure (all etic categories) and the fourth catch-all, mental and emic superstructure (p.54). Cultural materialism explains cultural similarities and differences as well as models for within a societal framework consisting of three distinct levels: a. Infrastructure: Cultural materialism promote the idea that infrastructure consists of ‘material realities’ such as technological, economic, and reproductive (demographic ) factors that mould and influences the other two aspects of culture. b. Structure: The structure sector of culture consists of organizational aspects of culture such as domestic economy (family, division of labour, age and roles) and systems and political economy (class, , police and military). c. Superstructure: It consists of ideological and symbolic aspects of society such as art, music, religion, ideas, , sports, science and (Scupin & DeCorse, 2012, p. 288).

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CULTURAL MATERIALIST APPROACH

INFRASTRUCTURE STRUCTURE SUPERSTRUCTURE (Material realities: (Domestic economy, (Art, music, religion, technological, political economy) ideas, literature, economy) science)

Fig 2: Cultural Materialistic Approach

The structure and superstructure are dependent on the infrastructure and any change in the infrastructure will create change in structure and superstructure. Marvin Harris explained this relationship through his article titled ‘The Cultural Ecology of India’s Secret Cattle’ that was published in the year of 1966. McGee and Warms (2012) commented: “…Hindu prohibition on killing cattle should be understood in relation to the role that cattle play in the production of food crops, fuel and fertilizer. Marvin Harris convincingly demonstrates the material and ecological importance of cattle to Indian society and argued that this, rather than Hindu religious doctrine, is the ultimate basis of the ban on killing and eating cattle … the sacredness of cattle is the result of their productive importance” (p. 261). Therefore, cultural materialists believe that technological and economic aspects play the primary role in shaping a society. Cultural materialism aims to understand the effects of technological, economic and demographic factors on moulding societal structure and superstructure through strictly scientific methods.

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Political Ecologist approach Political ecology has engaged with the of pretty much since it started. In the days of cultural ecology, researcher such as Harold Conklin (1954) showed that shifting cultivation was not necessarily as damaging as many governmental or environmental scientists assumed, and that this kind of cultivation could both support livelihoods and have a beneficial impact on . Since the transition to political ecology, various researchers have emphasized on how science always reflects politics. The British Political Research Group was formed in 1976 partly to access how science was used to support state authority concerning decision about energy or technology. Thompson, Warburton and Hatley (1986) showed how different scientific projections of environmental calamity in the Himalayas could be linked to the political of scientific institutions. Since, then a variety of political ecological researches have looked on how scientific explanations of environmental problems are affected by politics, and how we need to reassess these explanations in order to achieve more accurate, and more useful, environmental policies (Fairhead & Leach, 1996; Bassett & Zueli, 2000; Forsyth, 2003). Political ecology in Anthropology started in the 18th century with philosophers such as Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and Thomas Malthus. Political economy attempted to explain the relationships between economic production and political processes (Perry, 2003, p. 123; Ritzer, 2008, p. 28). It tended toward overly structuralist explanations, focusing on the role individual economic relationships in the maintenance of social order (Wolf, 1997, p. 7-9). Within anthropology, pushed political economy towards a neo-Marxist framework which began addressing the role of local cultures as a part of the world capitalist system as opposed to earlier political economists and anthropologists who viewed those cultures as “primitive isolates” (Wolf, 1997, p. 13). Eric Wolf first introduced the term ‘political ecology’ in 1972 and reflected on cultural ecology, an approach associated with anthropologist Julian Steward, who assessed the degree to which small scale societies developed cultural attributes based upon material and environmental endowments and possibilities (Butzer 1989). He emphasises on the "problematics of adaptation to the environment without attending to the structures of inequality that mediated human-

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nature articulations", while at the same time the obsessive concentration of orthodox Marxists on economic analysis served to neglect the importance of nature and environment (Biersack 2006: 3).

Ethno ecologist approach Harold Conklin’s (1926- 2016) work focuses on integrating the ethnoecology and cultural ecology of the agro ecosystems of the Hanunoo and Ifugao in the Philippines (Barfield, 1997, p.138). He is renowned in ecological anthropology for opining that slash-and-burn cultivation under conditions of abundant land and sparse population is not environmentally destructive (Netting, 1996, p.268). He showed that shifting hill cultivation was not necessarily as damaging as what many governments or environmental scientists assumed, and this kind of cultivation could both support livelihoods and have a beneficial impact on . Furthermore, he gives complete descriptions of the wide and detailed knowledge of plant and animal species, climate, topography, and soils that makes up the ethnoscientific repertoire of indigenous food producers (Netting, 1996, p.268). He sets the standards for ecological description with detailed maps of topography, land use, and village boundaries (Netting, 1996, p. 268). Most Anthropological studies of traditional knowledge have been conducted within the general framework of , which can be defined as “the study of systems of knowledge developed by a given culture who classify the objectives, activities and events of its universe” (Hardesty, 1977). A subset of ethnoscience, ethnoecology, refers to the study of how traditional groups organize and classify their knowledge of the environment and environmental process. Conklin (1954, 1955, 1957) and Frake (1961, 1962) suggested that ecologically oriented ethnographers should combine traditional techniques from cultural and biological ecology with others, principally derived from , that were deemed to be better suited to explore native conceptions of the environment (Fowler, 1977). The basic assumption of the ethnoecology is that the environmental interactions of human beings that are greatly influenced by thought, knowledge and . Another basic assumption of ethnoecology is that different group of people, or cultures, perceive and conceive of the world somewhat differently as a result of varying

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social, historical, cultural and environmental conditions and experiences. Sharecropping in Brazil ‘is a form of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on their portion of land’ is given by Johnson (1974). It is a cognized model with environmental events and behavior by share croppers. The study compares two sets of data on swidden agricultural activities by these farmers. The first set consists of a cognitive model of land categories, their attributes, and rules stating ‘which crops like which lands best’. There were eight relatively stable and mutually contrasting land categories, which the sharecroppers tended to identify in terms of two sets of attributes, one set reflecting soil fertility ("strong" vs. "weak") and the other referring to soil moisture ("hot" meaning dry vs. "cold" meaning wet), which reflects soil drainage conditions. The sharecroppers verbally associate individual crop types with particular combinations of land attributes. In the case of squash, for instance, the most "liked" lands were those that were "strong" and "hot". There were two varieties of manioc, one preferring lands that is “strong” and “cold” and the other prefer "hot" soils. The association of crops with land categories was codified by rules such as the following: 1. One need not bother planting crops on sandy hillsides or saline soils. 2. It is "almost" worthless to plant on an old swidden field. 3. River bottoms will only produce potatoes.

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Summary • Cultural Ecology focuses on how cultural helps in human adaptation to their environments. • The subject studies social organization and other human institutions. • And understand the relationship between culture and environment

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