Introduction to Social Anthropology B

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Introduction to Social Anthropology B

• Lecture 4

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Environment and sustainability

• Human population and environment impacts. What
  can anthropology tell us about the complex
  relationships between society and environment?
• Models from systems analysis and from ecology.
• ecological niche,
• homeostatis,
• sustainability,
• carrying capacity.
• These are functionalist explanations of the
  interaction of social, environmental and
  technological factors.

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Tropical environment

• Tropical rain forest natural climax cycles,
• high rain fall, limited seasonality, soils,
• trees, canopy, light competition, leaf litter,
• nutrient poor, subject of erosion, iron pan

http//www.stacey.peak-media.co.uk/Year8/8-3Ecosys
tems/8-3Rainforest/8-3Rainforest.htm
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Tropical environment

• Horticulture, gardening
• slash and burn, adaptation.
• Colonial and other degenerations

• http//www.jerbarker.co.uk/images/liberia/IMG_6095
  .jpg

http//www.chikyu.ac.jp/rihn_e/project/images/4FR-
1_photo4.jpg
http//pro.corbis.com/images/WK014676.jpg?size67
uid7B545B392C-5B92-4BCE-A436-A5B2464CB91C7D
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Forest modified by slash and burn horticulture

• www.jenniferfrogers.net

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Tropical environment
http//griffjon.com/host/Guaguanco/images/tours/co
ffee_plantation.jpg

• http//media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/16/1005
  16-004-CCB5059D.jpg

http//greengoldforestry.com/images/article-images
/deforestation-impact-1.jpg
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Highland New Guinea.

• Dense population of horticulture based on
  cultivation of sweet potato and raising pigs.
• Discovery of highland peoples in the 1930s found
  large community groups, partilineal clans, and
  competitive ceremonies exchanging food and pigs.
  (Brown 1979238)
• Stone and woods tools were used for agriculture
  and construction of houses and fences. Soil
  fertility was improved with complete clearing,
  burning of cut vegetation, deep tillage, drainage
  ditches, and mounds for planting sweet potato
  vines, gradual harvesting, preparation of ditches
  and mounds for replanting, cultivated casuarina
  trees, fallow periods, integration of pig keeping
  with forest fallow, cultivation and settlement
  areas. Chimbu agriculture is intensive and well
  adapted to the steep terrain and crop
  requirements. (Brown 1979239)

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Australasia
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Papua New Guinea
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Social characteristics of Highland New Guinea
societies

• Tribal society
• big man leadership.
• pig farmers
• Warriors
• Traders
• Feasting and exchange
• Competitive leadership through expectation of
  reciprocity force extra production from others.

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• Contemporary example of a feast with the sharing
  of a roast pig.
• www.eecs.harvard.edu

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(No Transcript)
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• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v6w_MecFRyus
  carving shield
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vo-8OVGcFsYY
  environment

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Maring Warfare as described by Harris (1975)
p.50-51

• Through intermediaries, an unforested area
  located in the borderland between the combatants
  is agreed upon as an appropriate fight ground,
  the ground is cleared and a start date agreed.
• After war magic rituals the warriors single file
  on to the battle field, plant man-sized wooden
  shields in the ground and shout and taunt the
  enemy.
• Occasional salvos of arrows with few casualties.
  Some seek revenge and sortie with axes.
• When someone is killed there is a truce for
  funeral and praise of the ancestors. But if no
  winner they return to the battlefield.
• Over time allies start to go home and weaknesses
  start to show. The stronger force looks to rush
  the weaker and chase them from the field.
• The defeated clan takes its moveable possessions
  and flees to its allies villages
• The victor destroys property and crops, abducts
  pigs and kills stragglers but does not
  immediately occupy the defeated clans lands but
  may well encroach later.

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Maring warriors in ritual finary rspas.anu.edu.au
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Importance of allies and ceremonies

• Maintaining the support of allies is difficult
  because they are less enthusiastic about
  defending other peoples land. Rappaport recounts
  two instances in which local group lost conflict
  and their land because their allies failed to
  lend support.
• Feasts and ceremonies enable allies to tell the
  strength and vigour of the clan and gifts of pork
  keep them sweet and marriages strengthen
  alliances.

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Issues from New Guinea ethnography

• Why do people work so hard to produce pigs?
• What keeps environmental degradation in check?
• What keeps warfare in check?

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Rappaport account of the Maring.

• Roy A. Rappaport (1968) Pigs for the Ancestors
  New Haven Yale University Press.
• Roy A. Rappaport (1971), Ritual, Sanctity, and
  Cybernetics American Anthropologist New Series,
  Vol. 73, No. 1 pp. 59-76
• James G. Peoples (1982), Individual or Group
  Advantage? A Reinterpretation of the Maring
  Ritual Cycle Current Anthropology, 23(3)291-310.
• Harris, Marvin. (1977) Cows, pigs, wars and
  witches the riddles of culture. London
  Fontana,

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Maring ritual cycle
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Rappaports classic account of homeostatic cycles

• Rapport argues that the ritual cycle acts as a
  regulating device whereby obligations to repay
  ancestors times the pattern of growth of pig
  herds and their slaughter before they cause
  environmental damage. Further, that warfare
  redistributes land from declining to growing
  populations helping maintain a population
  environment equilibrium.
• Harris emphasises war as keeping population
  expansion down by selective preference for male
  warriors.

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Critiques of functional and materialist traditions

• Systems are not bounded and social change is
  under examined
• Historical introduction of sweet potatoes 300
  years previously opening new ecological niche
• Advent of colonialism with cash crops and courts.
• Environmental determinism under plays both
  culture and human agency as explanations.

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Paula Brown 1979 Change and the Boundaries of
the System in Highland New Guinea The Chimbu
pp. 235-251 in P.C.Burnham and R.F.Ellen Social
and Ecological Systems. London Academic Press.
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Paula Brown 1979 Change and the Boundaries of
the System in Highland New Guinea The Chimbu
pp. 235-251 in P.C.Burnham and R.F.Ellen Social
and Ecological Systems. London Academic Press.
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Paula Brown 1979 Change and the Boundaries of
the System in Highland New Guinea The Chimbu
pp. 235-251 in P.C.Burnham and R.F.Ellen Social
and Ecological Systems. London Academic Press.
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Paula Brown 1979 Change and the Boundaries of
the System in Highland New Guinea The Chimbu
pp. 235-251 in P.C.Burnham and R.F.Ellen Social
and Ecological Systems. London Academic Press.