Based on Bates' Cultural Anthropology, this text provides a framework for analyzing cultures based on their ecological systems.
Cultural ecology is the study of human behavior and culture within an environmental context. It examines how humans adapt to their environment and how the environment shapes culture. Based on a selection of materials from Bates and Fratkin's Cultural Anthropology, Third Edition, Human Adaptive Strategies uses case studies to show how cultures evolved within the context of their environment and how their methods of surviving in their environment have affected other aspects of their culture. One reviewer says, “Concentrating, as the book does, on subsistence patterns and cultural ecology, it creates a conceptual structure conducive to the needs of the introductory student in anthropology.”
All chapters conclude with “Summary,” “Key Terms, ” and “Suggested Readings.”
1. The Study of Human Behavior.
The Nature of Scientific Inquiry.
Cultural Relativism.
Aspects of Culture.
Behavior, Language, and Learning.
The Science of Anthropology.
2. Evolution, Ecology, and Politics.
The Human Evolutionary Legacy.
Human Ecology.
The Evolution of Procurement Systems.
Adapting to Environmental Problems.
Political Ecology.
3. Foraging.
Box 3.1: Who Speaks for Whom?
The Organization of Energy.
Social Organization.
Settlement Patterns and Mobility.
Resilience, Stability, and Change.
The Dobe Ju/'hoansi.
The Inuit or Eskimo.
The Batak Foragers of the Philippines.
4. Horticulture: Feeding the Household.
The Horticultural Adaptation.
The Yanamamö.
The Pueblo of North America.
5. Nomadic Pastoralism.
The Pastoral Adaptation.
Social Organization.
The Ariaal of Northern Kenya.
The Yörük of Turkey.
Al-Murra of Saudi Arabia.
6. Intensive Agriculture: Feeding the Cities.
The Development of Intensive Agriculture.
The Social Consequences of Intensive Agriculture.
The Tamang of Nepal.
Where the Dove Calls: The Mexican Village of Cucurpe.
The Kofyar of Central Nigeria.
Directions of Change in Rural Egypt.
7. Industrial Society and Beyond: Feeding the World.
From Intensive Agriculture to Industrialized Farming.
Centralization, Collectivization, and Communism.
Dams and Their Consequences.
Village Becomes Suburb: Shinohata, Japan.
Urbanized Rural Society: Farming in the United States.
The Rise and Fall of Collective Agriculture in Bulgaria.
8. Change and Development: The Challenges of Globalism.
The Emerging Fourth World in the New Millenium.
Adaptation and Processes of Cultural Transformation.
Beyond Industrialism.
The Ecological Consequences of Post-industrialism.
Can We Survive Progress?
The Ethics of Development Work.