DAVID J. WILSON'S THEORETICAL APPROACH & PARADIGM*

Chapter 2. Theoretical Approach

[The central pivotal issue here--- mind over matter, or mentalist versus materialist approaches in cultural anthropology--- and Wilson aims in the direction of integration and even synthesis] pp. 10-11.

One's theoretical approach is important because it determines what is important or relevant, and what is not! 10

I. Historical Background (see helpful diagrams)

A. Steward's Cultural Ecology
1. Basic thesis - correspondence between environment and cultural
type (band, tribe, chiefdom, state) [Wilson uses village instead of tribe]
2. Cultural core
3. Superstructure ignored

B. Harris' Cultural Materialism
1. System components (infrastructure, structure, superstructure)
2. Causal primacy and research priority for infrastructure
3. Superstructure totally dependent variable

C. Sullivan's Critique!
1. Three approaches - mind, history, material (and ecological)
2. Reichel-Dolmatoff comes closest to integrating these three!

D. Rappaport's Ecological Anthropology
1. Focuses on ritual as principal regulatory institution governing the entire adaptive system (ultimate sacred postulates- 18)
2. Allows for complex feedback relationships [circular instead of linear cause-effect relationships]
3. Five underlying assumptions 19-20

E. Flannery's General Systems Model
1. Each level in the system has causal importance in determining the nature and functioning of the others [eclectic for Harris]
2. Problem- where to begin research- which levels and variables?

II. Perspective of This Book

A. The Systems-Hierarchical Model
1. Both ideological and behavioral phenomena can be centrally important in regulation and control of a social system 23
2. Environment important at all levels of sociocultural integration including state
3. External systems can be important influences

B. The Principal Variables of the Model
1. Ten variables include:
Ideology
Ritual and leadership
Domestic economy
Social organization
Political economy
Mode of production
Settlement pattern
Mode of reproduction
Physical environment
Other social systems
2. Subvariables total 51! (see Fig. 2.6 on p. 29)

C. Levels of Sociopolitical Integration
1. Asserts that hierarchy or scale necessary
2. Uses village instead of tribe because latter term problematic
3. See Fig. 2.7, p. 31

D. The Role of Population
1. The Older Model - population or food production prime mover?
2. The Newer Model - allows for carrying capacity as variable with natural causes and human influence which may increase or decrease it

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[some problems:

1. Why is hierarchy necessary - maybe just reflection of Western thinking 30, also see Homo hierarchus 32
2. Why is religion at top and infrastructure or environment at bottom? Why not opposite? Or, like Mbuti, religion and environment coincide - superstructure, structure, infrastructure all isomorphic. [Also see Donald Hughes' American Indian Ecology]. 24
3. Why is superstructure more abstract and infrastructure more concrete? 30]
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Ch. 10. Toward a Scientific Paradigm in South Americanist Studies

1. Nature of causality - reiterates that: "cause really lies everywhere, since causation is truly a complex circular process." 432, 433
2. Asserts nine intellectual benefits of paradigm 434-435
3. Adds human biogram regarding reproductive drive increasing population
4. Compares competitors and finds deficiencies
a. Johnson-Earle - omit too much, including superstructure
b. Bahn-Flenley - particular case not generalizable, uncertain where to start
c. Fagan-Redman - omits superstructure

*David J. Wilson, 1999, Indigenous South Americans of the Past and Present: An Ecological Perspective, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.