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reproductionandculturalprocesseswithinpar-
ticular social formations. Emerging from North
American anthropology in the mid-twentieth
century, cultural ecology has mostly concerned
itself with non-industrial societies, typically
pastoralists, hunter–gathers, fishing cultures
and small-scale cultivators, with an emphasis
on ethnographic field methods. Cultural ecol-
ogy in this sense is most closely associated with
the work of Julian Steward and the Chicago
school, particularly after the publication of
Steward’s Theory of culture change (1955).
Work done or influenced by Steward in this
tradition emphasized a close relationship
between symbolic culture (values, religious
beliefs and traditions) on the one hand, and
the material, ecological basis of a society on
the other. Steward in particular developed the
notion of a ‘cultural core’shaped in a possibilist
sense by the ways in which critical environmen-
talresources(crops,animals, energy sources
etc.) were used by a culture. It would be fair to
say that Steward’s primary interest was cultural
formation and change, but cultural ecology
more generally was at the forefront of scholarly
attention to questions about the social bases of
environmental change, how cultures respond
or adapt to environmental change and also
how cultures influence the management of crit-
ical environmental resources. Moreover, con-
siderable theoretical and methodological
diversity characterizes self-described cultural
ecologists (Netting, 1986).
As the name would suggest, cultural ecology
was heavily influenced by the rise of ecology.
This is true not only in terms of a focus on the
relationship between environmental condi-
tions and cultural processes, but also in some
of the conceptual emphasis on systems,adap-
tation, homeostasis, resilience, stability and
so on, all hallmarks of an earlier phase of
ecology (seeecology). It would be unfair to
attribute the kind of telos so evident in
Clementsian ecology to cultural ecology. But
some work in cultural ecology took on
a cybernetic character, conveying a sense that
all the pieces of a culture meshed into a coher-
ent, smooth-running, well-adapted and stable
machine-like whole, withculturefunction-
ally linked to environmental conditions and
resource availability. This is apparent, for
example, in Roy Rappaport’s (1968) work on
wild pigs, and the spiritual beliefs and rituals
surrounding these resources in New Guinea.
At the same time, strict adherence to tradi-
tional ethnographyin cultural ecology at
times meant that particular social forma-
tionswere conceptualized rigidly as such,independent and isolated from the rest of the
world, with little or no consideration of or
facility for the ways in which these ostensibly
remote cultures articulate with social pro-
cesses at broaderscalesof analysis. This, in
turn, meant that cultural ecology provided lit-
tle capacity for understanding power, the
appropriation of surplus and valuation in the
context of a global political economy, even
when important linkages along these lines
were recognized by cultural ecologists them-
selves (Robbins, 2004). This is a theme articu-
lated well by one of Steward’s students, Eric
Wolf (1982), in his argument for the relevance
ofpolitical economy, and of the need for
attention to the articulation of local social for-
mations with broader social processes.
Cultural ecology’s influence goes far beyond
localized studies of non-industrial societies,
however. As among the first fields to reverse
academic specialization, and to seriously con-
sider environmental change within a social
science framework, and with an emphasis on
careful, empirical observation and analysis,
cultural ecology had an important influence in
translating and reinforcingenvironmentalism
in the Anglo-American academy. Cultural
ecologists in numerous instances have docu-
mented the high levels of sophistication and
sustainability in many ‘traditional’ settings,
questioning the apparent ‘advancement’ of
market-guided and/or state-managed resource
appropriation (e.g. Geertz, 1963). And some
cultural ecologists, before even talk of a first
world political ecology, began to apply their
approaches in more industrialized settings,
with important results (see, e.g., Bayliss-
Smith, 1982). spcultural economy In mainstream econom-
ics,cultureandeconomyare kept largely
apart, in the belief that economic activity
follows its own rules and rationality. In con-
trast, heterodox approaches, tapping deep into
the history of classical economics, have long
argued that the economy draws on cultural
inputs or is culturally embedded. Thus, atten-
tion has been drawn, inter alia, to such
phenomena as the rise of the cultural indus-
tries, the role ofspectacle, advertising and
desire in sustainingconsumption, the lubrica-
tion of economic relationships bytrustand
reciprocity, varieties ofcapitalismexplained
by differences in national institutional and
business cultures, and the role of culturally
inflected routines and habits in influencing
economic evolution. These various approaches
acknowledge the existence of a tight linkGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_C Final Proof page 128 31.3.2009 9:45pmCULTURAL ECONOMY