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Development Team Paper No. : 11 Ecological Anthropology: Cultural and Biological Dimensions Module : 09 A gradual shift from Determinism to Possibilism 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 Ms. Nisha Thapa Content Writer Department of Anthropology, Sikkim University, Sikkim Prof. A. Paparao Content Reviewer Department of Anthropology, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati 1 A gradual shift from Determinism to Possibilism Anthropology Description of Module Subject Name Anthropology Paper Name Ecological Anthropology: Cultural and Biological Dimensions Module Name/Title A gradual shift from Determinism to Possibilism Module Id 09 Contents: 1. Introduction 2. Environmental Determinism 3. Environmental Possibilism 4. The Ecological perspective 5. Summary Learning Objectives: After studying this module, students will be able to understand: The concept of possibilism and determinism. Development Team The relations between man and environment. How environment sets the culture of a man. Principal Investigator Prof. Anup Kumar Kapoor Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi How culture is influenced by the environment. Paper Coordinator Prof. Anup Kumar Kapoor Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi Vineet Kumar VermaDepartment of Anthropology, University of Content Writer Delhi Prof. SubirBiswas, Department of Anthropology, West Content Reviewer Bengal State University, Barasat, West Bengal 2 A gradual shift from Determinism to Possibilism Anthropology Introduction The differentiation and establishment of a new sub-discipline in social sciences can ultimately be traced back to already existing ideas and orientations. Changing relations between culture and environment as well as changes within a culture, give rise to new ways of looking at and conceptualizing the old truths. Ecological anthropology is a holistic approach. It deals with the interaction between environment, cultures, and human beings. Culture is a primary source for adaptation to environment. An ecological analysis of how people lived in the past, and how they adapted. There is a dialectic relation between environment and culture and it has its cause and effect. The roots of ecological anthropology are to be found in several different traditions of environmental explanation, some of which are tightly woven into western thought. In this context, let us begin by examining these roots. Apparently, in recent years, human ecology has been given greater attention by the scientists and social scientists. A number of different conceptual approaches have been employed in the study of human ecology. Anderson (1977) argues that the necessity to view man within the framework of his habit tended towards the adaptation of two fruitless positions that for long dominated the thoughts of social scientists. With some simplification these positions can be seen as extremes on a continuum, one pole being environmental determinism and the other cultural determinism. Their less extreme versions are known by the terms environmentalism and possibilism. Vayda and Rappaport (1968) tend to separate man and his culture from environment, and behaviour from ecology. They tend to treat them as opposing entities. These views although much diluted, still have their adherents. 3 A gradual shift from Determinism to Possibilism Anthropology Ecological Anthropology Human cultures interactions Environment Fig 1. Ecological Anthropology studies the interactions between Human cultures and the Environment Environmental Determinism During the first quarter of the twentieth century many scientists adhered to the doctrine of environmental determinism. These scholars believed that the physical environment, especially the climate and terrain was the active force in shaping cultures, emphasizing that humans were essentially a passive product of the physical surroundings. As analyzed by Jordan and Rowntree (1990), the logic of the deterministic view considered humans equivalent to clay, to be moulded by nature. Similar physical environments were likely to produce similar cultures. Environmental determinists thus viewed human ecology as a ‘one way street’. Hussain (1994) and Jordan and Rowntree (1990) gave a number of examples of determinists’ beliefs. Determinists believed that people of the mountains were predestined by the rugged terrain to be simple, backward, conservative, and unimaginative and freedom loving. Dwellers of the desert were likely to believe in one God, but to live under the rule of tyrants. Temperate climates produced inventiveness, industriousness and democracy, whereas coastlands produced great navigators and fisherman (Gulia,2005). Environment determines Cultural Factors Fig 2. Shows Environment determines the cultural factors 4 A gradual shift from Determinism to Possibilism Anthropology Perhaps the most pervasive theme is the belief that the physical environment plays the role of “prime mover” in human affairs. Personality, morality, politics and government, religion, material culture, biology- all of these and more have at one time or another have been subject to explanation by environmental determinism. The humour theory of Hippocrates was probably the single, most important foundation for environmental determinism until the nineteenth century. Hippocrates saw the human body as housing four kinds of “humours”- yellow bile, black bile, phlegm, and blood, representing fire, earth, water, and blood, respectively. The relative proportions of the four humours caused variation in individual physique and personality, as well as in sickness and health. Climate was believed to be responsible for the “balance” of the humours and, therefore, for geographic differences in physical form and personality. Thus, people living in hot climates were passionate, given to violence, lazy, short-lived, light and agile because of an excess of hot air and lack of water. The effect of climate on personality and intelligence determined other human affairs, particularly, government and religion. Both Plato and Aristotle associated climate with government, viewing temperate Greece as the ideal climate for democratic government and for producing people fit to rule others. Despotic governments, on the other hand, were best suited for hot climates because the people lacked spirit and a love for liberty and were and given to passionate excesses. Cold climates had no real form of government because the people lacked skills and intelligence and were strongly given to a love of individual liberty. The eighteenth century Frenchman Montesquieu continued this line of reasoning and applied it to religion. Hot climate create lethargy, according this scholar, and are apt to be associated with passive religions. Buddhism in India was given as a classic example. By contrast, Montesquieu believed that religions in cold climates, , are dominated by aggressiveness to match the love for individual liberty and activity. (Christianity, Montesquieu’s religion, was elevated above environmental determinism because it was revealed). The geographer Ellsworth Huntington (1945) carried this thinking well into the twentieth century by arguing, in the Mainsprings of Civilization, that the highest forms of religion are found in temperate regions of the world. His basic argument was that temperate climates are more conducive to intellectual thinking. The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries brought a decline in the popularity of humour theory but no less vigorous apologists for environmental determinism. There are several reasons for its 5 A gradual shift from Determinism to Possibilism Anthropology persistence. The developing method of science was marked by the search for simple, linear, cause-and effect relationships; that is A causes B causes C, and so forth. There was no recognition of the complex interactions and feedback processes that make today’s science. Anthropologists and geographers searched for simple causes of the geographical distribution of cultural traits. Some proposed environment while others favoured diffusion. Both offered simple, straightforward explanations that were consistent with linear science. Therefore, it is not surprising to see the resurgence of environmental determinism at this time. The rise of “technological determinism”, as espoused by Marxist social philosophy, also contributed to the resurgence. Environmental determinism was a rebuttal to the anti -environmental position of Marxist writers. Finally, an explanatory model of this kind was the simple way to categorize and explain the mass of data on human diversity being accumulated as a result of world exploration, in much the same way that the “Three-Age system” helped classify ancient artefacts. The “culture area” concept was particularly suitable for this purpose, allowing diverse cultures within large geographical areas to be classified into a single type because some traits are held in common. Some early geographers and anthropologists quickly noted the general correspondence between culture areas and natural areas and argued that environment caused the occurrence of distinct cultural areas. Material culture and technology were believed to be most affected by the environment. For example, in a discussion of the prehistory of the American South west, William H. Holmes, (1919) a turn-of the- century-anthropologists, states that: it is here made manifest that is not so much the capabilities
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