Reductionism in Cultural Ecology: The Amazon Case [and Comments and Reply]

Abstract

Cultural ecologists attempting to trace the influence of ecological scarcities on cultural development are often criticized for reductionism. In the Amazon case, critics of ecological theories have argued that resource scarcity is of minor importance as a determinant of cultural features because native communities appear to enjoy abundant land and fully nutritious diets. This paper presents data and arguments suggesting that much of this "resource abundance" is the anthropologist's artifact and does not accurately reflect native perceptions of their environment and of competition from their neighbors. Furthermore, "reductionism" is a universal feature of scientific explanation and is even to be found in antiecological eclectic and structural explanations. Although cultural ecologists can improve their explanations by combining theoretical approaches and developing multivariate models, some degree of reductionism is unavoidable wherever explanation is a goal.