A New Ecosystems Ecology for Anthropology

Abstract

Conversation between anthropology and ecosystems ecology was interrupted in the early 1980s, due to several well-reasoned critiques (Vayda and McCay 1975, Ellen 1982, Smith 1984, Winterhalder 1984, Moran 1990) of then-popular applications of ecosystems theory in anthropology (Rappaport 1968, Kemp 1969, Thomas 1973, 1976) and due, especially perhaps, to the appearance of promising alternative ecological (Vayda 1983, Winterhalder 1984) and evolutionary (Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981, Boyd and Richerson 1985, Rindos 1986, Durham 1991) paradigms and programs. Since then, ecosystems ecology has been both refined and transformed by the study of complex systems, with its radical critique of science (Odum 1983, Prigogine and Stengers 1984; Salthe 1985; Holling 1986, Wicken 1987). The resulting “new ecology” answers most of the early criticisms of ecosystems (Scoones 1999: 481–483), and proposes theory and methods to address the dynamics of ecosystems as complex systems.

Keywords

Affiliated Institutions

• University of Florida US
• National Taipei University TW

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