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Introduction (html) |
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| Population, Environment, and Evolution. The most fundamental interactions between culture and environment pertain to the process of feeding ourselves, and the first section of the course introduces several Big Ideas on this process. Few ideas are bigger than that of human population growth outstripping the food supply: we confront this idea first in the cariacature form of the famous Ehrlich - Simon bet, and then look at its origins by comparing perspectives of Malthus, Godwin and Marx. (We will look at other aspects of the ecology and politics of population growth throughout the course). We also confront other historic Big Ideas on culture, environment, and evolution. Do cultures really evolve by changing their adaptation to environment? Do cultural adaptations become more energy-efficient as they evolve? What is the role of population pressure in such evolution? Does the environment shape culture, and if so, how? |
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Population Bomb film
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Malthus and Malthusianism (ppt) |
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Materialism, evolutionism, environmental determinism
(ppt) |
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Low-Population Human Ecology: Foraging, Agricultural Origins, and Shifting Cultivation. Humans actually evolved as hunter-gatherers (foragers); how do foraging systems work? How efficient and productive is foraging? What is the historic and political context of foraging groups used in classic studies? Why was foraging replaced by cultivation, and what role did population play in the transition? We will then look at the slash & burn cultivation that is practiced in low-population areas, including how the system actually works, and at its relationship todeforestation (using the case study of the Amazon rain forest). |
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Energetics, cultural ecology and political ecology
(html) |
- White 1949 (scan Energy and the Evolution of Culture)
- Murphy 1977:21-25 (Anthropological Theories of Julian H. Steward)
- Steward 1938:101-111 (excerpt from Great Basin Shoshonean Indians) Ares
- Robbins 2004 (The Hatchet and the Seed, from Political Ecology)
- optional: Hardin 1986, Cultural Carrying Capacity (with comments) [cf White reading]
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Hunter-Gatherers and the Kalahari case (ppt) |
- Lee 1968 (What Hunters Do for a Living, excerpt)
- Sahlins 1972 (Original Affluent Society, from Stone Age Economics)
- Wilmsen 1994 (Creation of Subsistence Foraging in the Colonial Era)
- Optional: Gordon 1992, chapters 1-2 from The Bushman Myth; Solway & Lee 1992 Foragers, Genuine or Spurious? Situating the Kalahari San in History. Current Anthropology 33:187-224; Hunter-gatherers film (link).
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Behavioral ecology of hunting (ppt)
QUIZ #1 |
- Hawkes & Bird 2002 (Showing Off, Handicap Signaling, and the Evolution of Men’s Work)
- Knight/Siskind, Sharanahua case study
- Optional: Marlowe 2005, Hunter-Gatherers and Human Evolution (pdf); Hawkes 1990, Why Do Men Hunt (in Cashdan, Risk and Uncertainty)
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Demography and the origins of agriculture (ppt) |
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Shifting cultivation; Rainforest agroecology and deforestation (ppt) |
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| Population Density and Intensification. There are few questions as far-reaching as how human production systems change with population density. We look at the theory that turned Malthus on his head, and at important recent writing, to understand what intensive agriculture is, why is it practiced, and how it relates to other aspects of culture. We use case studies from West Africa, East Africa, East Asia, and ancient Mesoamerica. |
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Intensification (ppt)
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Midterm I |
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Fall Break / SAR seminar |
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Intensification case studies: Kofyar (ppt) and Machakos case study
(ppt)
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Asian wetrice; expanding ideas of intensification
(ppt, lecture notes) |
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| Ecology and Politics of Conflict. Conflict over resources has been seen as the perpetual consequence of overpopulation, from Malthus through many contemporary writers. We will examine these ideas in light of classic anthropological studies in Papua New Guinea and the Amazon. We will see how conflict relates to the process of agricultural intensification, using cases in West Africa and prehistoric US Southwest. Is "primitive warfare" a characteristic of indigenous society that Western colonizers quells or creates? |
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Big Ideas; the famous New Guinea case; Yanomamo; a better example of ritual regulation (html) |
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State Intervention : Communal Agriculture. State interventions into indigenous agriculture had profound effects on society during the 20th century. Although the most sustained transformations have resulted from the promotion of capitalist agriculture, Communist attempts to redesign agrarian societies have led to some spectacular tragedies. The answers to how an idealistic agricultural policy could kill 50 million farmers lie mainly in the cultural aspects of intensive agriculture. We will also look at state-directed communal agriculture in East Africa and Israel. |
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Great Leap Forward
(html)
(malthusian interp) |
- Becker 1996 (Hungry Ghosts) Chaps 1-7, 18-20
- optional: Becker 1996, Chaps 13-14
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Seeing Like A State and ujamaa
(ppt)
QUIZ 2 |
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| Industrialization: Science and Capitalist Agriculture. Although they are both called "intensive," the intensive smallholder farming examined earlier and the industrial agriculture epitomized by the US today are profoundly different. We will explore the interactions among science, capitalism, and the state in the industrialization of agriculture, and explore one of the ongoing legal conflicts resulting from industrial farming in Missouri. |
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Capitalist Agriculture in the US: Seeds and Industrialization (ppt) |
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Harnessing Energy: Bombs, Beef, and Guano (ppt) |
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Mechanization;
Malthus Inverted in the US (ppt) |
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Green Revolution: Mexico and India (ppt)
Midterm Review |
- Perkins 1997:211-246 (from Geopolitics and the Green Revolution)
- optional: Pearse 1980:33-40 (Seeds of Plenty, Seeds of Want: Social and Economic Implications of the Green Revolution); Simmonds and Smartt 1999:347-355 (The Green Revolution); Buttel, Kenney & Kloppenburg 1985 (From Green Rev to Biorevolution); Chrispeels & Sadava 1994 (Green Revolution, from Plants, Genes and Agriculture) Ares
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Midterm II |
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Political Economy of the Green Revolution (video) |
- Shiva 1991 (Violence of the Green Revolution) Chaps 1-4 Ares
- Ross 1998:137-199 (Malthus Factor chaps. 6-7)
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Thanksgiving Break |
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GMO's (ppt)
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Morality, Politics and Sustainability. |
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Morality and anthropogenic envioronments (ppt) |
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Alternative Production and Ethical Commodity Chains
(html) (ppt) |
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| Mon, Dec 19 Final Exam |
