The Functioning of Society and its Basis in Cultural Ecology and the Human Emotional System
Posted by Laura Havstad
I’m working on a presentation for the New England conference on the human relationship to the land and each other coming in June. Here’s the shape of it so far. What might be most helpful feedback is learning what doesn’t make sense as you read it, what needs filling in, correcting, defining.
Joanne Bowen in her paper Anthropology and the Human Family, introduces the scholarly network around Bowen theory to Julian Steward and his methodology for researching society. Steward was a contemporary of Murray Bowen’s, an anthropologist who is credited as the originator of Cultural Ecology and the idea that the natural environment shapes human social relationships. The basic idea is of course relevant to social organization in animal societies as well. (Radiolab Podcast, 10.31.2020)
Steward’s theoretical framework based is based on his ethnographic studies which focused for the most part on subsistence cultures. His theory is that ecology, together with people and their technologies, is the basis of human social organization. Society must be effective in applying the tools at hand to the characteristics of the land to extract or produce food. The relations between people that form subsistence work systems are shaped by what is required to produce or extract food from the land given the ecology and available technology, and “… those activities most closely related to food procurement form(ed) society’s essential organizing principle” and constitute its “cultural core”. (J Bowen, 2020, p. 305). This essential organizing principle underlies the broad social order that develops in a society, and values, beliefs, practices, groups, and institutions emerge to support the cultural core and the essential organization of relations at its foundation. Children are enculturated to the emergent values and practices to which they must adapt to be successful in their society, and these values and practices are transmitted from one generation to the next.
Changes in human functioning, or changes in ecology, or changes in technology can disturb the subsistence equilibrium and change the organization of work relations to extract or produce food. Human systems can impact the land and alter its ecological affordances. Whether from human impacts or otherwise, changes in ecology and technology interact over time and change human relations. These changes can constitute real and/or imaginary threats when they require adaptive changes in the family and the broader community. Effective adaptation may be furthered or hindered by cultural values residing in the existing cultural core, and differentiation levels can impact the capacity of the society to adapt cultural values to the realities of the time. Murray Bowen in his paper Cultural Myths and Realities of Problem-Solving, describes how outmoded cultural beliefs and beliefs based on inaccurate cause and effect thinking can emerge, that, despite being wrong, will inform values and practices that are passed down through generations.
Julian Steward hypothesized that the immediate impact of environment upon culture would decrease as social complexity increased, along with the growth of man’s domination of the environment through technology: “in proportion that societies have adequately solved subsistence problems, the effect of ecology becomes more difficult to ascertain. In complex societies certain components of the social superstructure, rather than ecology, seem to be determinants of further development “(Steward, 1938:262, Steward and Murphy, 24). If cultural practices and their generational transmission do not keep up with essential changes in ecology, society gradually moves towards greater disharmony with nature. Disharmony with nature, Murray Bowen hypothesized, is the basis of societal anxiety and regression. Bowen prescribes comprehensive problem solving for the long term by way of making needed changes in ourselves, based on research most urgently focused on understanding the relationship between nature and the human. Updated knowledge gradually diffuses in society to inform the culture, through, Bowen emphasizes, the role of public education, toward decision making functionaries who produce and administer public policy. (Bowen, M. 1973).
The work of the anthropologists is full of ethnographic examples of the relationships theorized by Steward. I will try and apply the analysis to our current culture. I’m thinking about how Wendell Berry chronicles the modern divorce of our people from the land in this era of industrial agriculture. In his book The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture, he observes connections between ecological, agricultural, and cultural factors, along with associated problems of character that underlie the regressions he sees in the family and society.
I’m also thinking about people who are increasing their knowledge of the human relationship to the environment and some who are changing human practices based on that knowledge. They are a progressive force in in our society. Those practicing regenerative agriculture are an example. They demonstrate understanding of the reciprocal relationship between the human and the land as the foundation of sustainability and living in harmony with nature (Terrell 2003). They are innovating to build economic relationships that support that reciprocity, and the ideas and possibilities gradually are gaining adherents in agriculture and business. The ideas do seem to be gaining traction and to be changing the agriculture and business of some communities. Another example is the Natural Capital Project at Stanford where the aim is public policy and “putting Nature at the heart of decision making.” Their projects include making modest payments to land stewards for moving towards sustainable practices in Costa Rican forests with impressive results. They are tracking similar projects in China where modest public payments for sustainable practices in the agricultural sector are having impressive results. There’s more of this going on than is recognized – that’s my impression anyway. May it continue. It deserves our support.
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References,
Berry, Wendell. 1977. Afterword 1996. The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture. Berkeley. Counterpoint Press. s
Bowen, Murray, 1974. Cultural Myths and Realities of Problem-Solving. Ekistics, Vol 220, p. 173-197.
Bowen, Joanne, 2020. Anthropological Contributions the Study of Human Family. In M. Keller and R Noone (eds), Handbook of Bowen Family Systems Theory and Research Methods, 2020, pp 301-319,
Murphy, RF, 1f. Murphy 1977. Introduction: The anthropological theories of Julian H. Steward. In J.C. Steward & R.F. Murphy (Eds). Evolution and Ecology: Essays on Social Transformation. 1-40. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Terrell, John Edward, et.al. 2003. Domesticated Landscapes: The Subsistence Ecology of Plant and Animal Domestication. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. Vol 10. No. 4. Pp 323-368.
HTTPS://RADIOLAB.ORG/PODCAST/HOW-WIN-FRIENDS-AND-INFLUENCE-BABOONS How to Win Friends and Influence Baboons
Radiolab Podcast
Oct. 31, 2020
This episode was reported and produced by Annie McEwen.
I think I need to make the case for how food production in our society is threatened by widespread soil degradation– desertification–from industrial ag practices and increasing centralization of food distribution and other irrationalities in the globalization of food commodities from the nature point of view.
A strength of this essay is the clear description of Steward’s broad theoretical lens to start. Then Bowen is introduced on that stage. Then we move to present times. It would be enriched by examples from nature and human history. The positive trends were informative. If working toward publication I would recommend running it through a natural language processor for clarity and simplicity of phrasing. Happy to share how I do this sometimes. I don’t always keep the ChatGPT suggestions they are often helpful.
Thanks for your feedback Erik.
Do you just put the piece in and ask Chat GPT to edit for clarity and simplicity?
yes. it is a good tool for writers. Well beyond spell and grammar checks. I play with it, and keep some suggestions and discard others. I usually ask it to edit for clarity. But it can also add citations and do a lot of other things. I haven’t yet figured out how to get it to track changes?
Thanks…
Laura,
Thank you for this thoughtful and well thought out article. I like the way you begin with some general statements that connect Steward and ecology with Bowen’s thinking about human and nature–and end with the specifc of regenerative farming. I would be interested in more here about the living nature of soil and new technologies that support it. I also started thinking about reproduction and how forms of mating and child-raising change in relationship to harmony or disharmony with nature. I will be interested in how you move forward with your project.
Laurie
Thanks for the feedback Laurie.Interesting question – how forms of mating and child-raising change in relationship to harmony or disharmony with nature.
From the title to the ending, this essay is an excellent summary of Stewards and Bowen’s thinking on the human relationship with the land. It gives me a better understanding of how the human-ecology relationship shapes human social organization. I see congruence between Steward’s ideas and Johnson and Earle’s proposal that there are “three interlocked evolutionary processes of subsistence intensification, political integration, and social stratification seen again and again in historically unrelated cases.” (Evolution of Human Societies, p. 2)
Regarding Murray Bowen’s point that outmoded cultural beliefs and those based on inaccurate cause and effect thinking can continue to hold significant influence, I am reminded of the hierarchical view of evolution that puts the human as the pinnacle of creation and the natural world as ours to dominate and exploit. Darwin to the contrary, this view seems still to be part of our culture, guiding important decisions by those who hold power.
Ethnographies like The Irish Countryman, the case studies of societies at different levels of complexity in Johnson and Earle and many others are wonderful ways of learning the many ways that humans came to know the land and ecology and live for long periods of time in harmony with nature.
Your last paragraph is an important reminder that human innovation has solved many problems throughout history and is working for us now in response to increasing knowledge of our reciprocal relationship with the land.
Thanks Laurie for this solid piece of work and thinking. In studying with Joanne and reading anthropological studies, it is clearer as to how the human family connects to the land and each other. As we have become more divorced from the land, we have also become more disconnected with each other. The relationship between the interdependency to the land and with each other is something we humans have tended to deny at a significant cost.