Marvin Harris argued that the Hindu taboo on killing cattle is best explained as:

An ecological adaptation, since cattle supply traction, milk, dung and fuel

An irrational religious survival

An ecological adaptation, since cattle supply traction, milk, dung and fuel

A form of conspicuous consumption

Assertion (A): Bina Agarwal criticised the ecofeminist view that women are inherently closer to nature. Reason (R): Agarwal argued that women's relationship with the environment is shaped by the gender division of labour and property rights, and so varies by class and caste. Choose the correct option.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

The Forest Rights Act, 2006 is significant because it:

Recognised individual and community forest rights of forest dwellers, with a central role for the gram sabha

Transferred forests to private companies

Banned all human presence in protected areas

Created reserved forests under exclusive state control

Roy Rappaport's Pigs for the Ancestors is a study of how:

A ritual cycle regulates the relationship between a New Guinea people and their environment

Pig farming industrialised in Europe

Pastoralists migrate in the Himalaya

A ritual cycle regulates the relationship between a New Guinea people and their environment

Colonial officials collected taxes

Which of the following is NOT correctly matched?

Ecology and Equity — Marvin Harris

The Unquiet Woods — Ramachandra Guha

Staying Alive — Vandana Shiva

Theory of Culture Change — Julian Steward

Why do many scholars now prefer 'environmental migrants' to 'environmental refugees'?

Because most such movement is internal, gradual and mixed with economic motives, and 'refugee' has a specific legal meaning

Because the UN abolished the term

Because only international migration counts

Because environmental change never causes movement

Because most such movement is internal, gradual and mixed with economic motives, and 'refugee' has a specific legal meaning

Environment and Society I: Social and Cultural Ecology, Agriculture and Biodiversity, Indigenous Knowledge, Gender, Forests and Adivasis, Degradation and Migration

Unit 7, Environment and Society, lists twelve items with no sub-blocks. This chapter takes the first six: social and cultural ecology in its diverse forms; technological change, agriculture and biodiversity; indigenous knowledge systems and ethno-medicine; gender and environment; forest policies, Adivasis and exclusion; and ecological degradation and migration. The next chapter takes displacement, water, disasters, pollution, climate change and environmental movements. The thread through both is environmental sociology's central claim: that nature is always used, known and fought over through social relations of class, caste, gender and power.

1. Social and cultural ecology: diverse forms

Approach	Key work	Argument
Cultural ecology	Julian Steward, Theory of Culture Change (1955)	The 'culture core' — features tied to subsistence — adapts to environment and technology; similar environments produce parallel, multilinear evolution
Ecological anthropology	Roy Rappaport, Pigs for the Ancestors (1968)	Among the Tsembaga Maring of New Guinea, a ritual cycle regulates pig numbers, warfare and land use — ritual as an ecological regulator
Cultural materialism	Marvin Harris, 'The Cultural Ecology of India's Sacred Cattle' (1966)	The taboo on killing cattle is adaptive: bullocks supply traction, cows milk, and dung fuel and manure
Social ecology of India	Radhakamal Mukerjee; Madhav Gadgil and Ramachandra Guha, This Fissured Land (1992) and Ecology and Equity (1995)	Caste once worked partly as a system of resource partitioning; today India divides into omnivores (who draw on resources from everywhere), ecosystem people (who depend on local resources) and ecological refugees (displaced by degradation)

⚠️ Omnivores are not a diet

In Gadgil and Guha, 'omnivores' are the urban-industrial and rural elites whose consumption draws on resources from across the country and the world, while 'ecosystem people' — peasants, pastoralists, fishers, tribal communities — live from their immediate environment. The terms describe ecological class positions, not food habits.

2. Technological change, agriculture and biodiversity; indigenous knowledge and ethno-medicine

The Green Revolution of the mid-1960s — high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice, irrigation, chemical fertilisers and pesticides — ended food shortages but narrowed the genetic base of agriculture, replaced thousands of local varieties with a few, depleted groundwater and increased dependence on purchased inputs. Vandana Shiva's The Violence of the Green Revolution (1991) and Monocultures of the Mind (1993) argued that it displaced diverse, knowledge-rich farming with uniform monocultures serving industrial interests. Genetically modified Bt cotton, approved in India in 2002, renewed debates over seed ownership, farmer debt and biosafety. Internationally, the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992) recognised national sovereignty over genetic resources and the value of traditional knowledge; India followed with the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act (2001) and the Biological Diversity Act (2002).

Indigenous knowledge systems are the locally developed understandings of soils, plants, animals, seasons and healing that communities build over generations. They are threatened both by neglect and by biopiracy — the patenting of such knowledge by outside firms. India's challenges to patents on turmeric's wound-healing use (revoked in the United States in 1997) and on neem-based fungicide (revoked by the European Patent Office) led to the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (2001), which documents traditional knowledge as prior art. Ethno-medicine studies healing in its cultural context — vaidyas, hakims, bone-setters, traditional birth attendants (dais), ritual healers and shrine cures. Charles Leslie's Asian Medical Systems (1976) described medical pluralism, in which patients move between biomedicine, Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, homoeopathy and folk healing according to illness, cost and belief; the Ministry of AYUSH (2014) institutionalises the codified traditions.

3. Gender and environment

Ecofeminism — a term coined by Françoise d'Eaubonne in 1974 — links the domination of women and the domination of nature as products of the same patriarchal, instrumental worldview. In India, Vandana Shiva's Staying Alive (1988) argued that rural women, as bearers of the 'feminine principle' (prakriti), have a special closeness to nature, and that colonial and development 'maldevelopment' destroyed both. Bina Agarwal ('The Gender and Environment Debate: Lessons from India', 1992) criticised this as essentialist and ahistorical, proposing feminist environmentalism: women's relationship with the environment arises from their material reality — the gender division of labour that makes them collect fuel, fodder and water, and their lack of property rights — so it varies by class and caste and must be changed through struggles over resources and knowledge. The women of Reni village, led by Gaura Devi, who in 1974 prevented contractors from felling trees, are the emblematic case both sides cite.

🎯 Why the Shiva-Agarwal debate matters

If women's closeness to nature is essential, policy can simply 'use' women as environmental caretakers, adding to their unpaid labour. If it is rooted in the division of labour and property, the remedy is to change those — for instance by securing women's rights over land and forests and their voice in resource institutions.

4. Forest policies, Adivasis and exclusion; ecological degradation and migration

Measure	Effect on forest-dwelling communities
Indian Forest Acts (1865, 1878, 1927)	Created reserved and protected forests under state control; customary use became 'privilege' or offence
National Forest Policies (1894, 1952, 1988)	Revenue and national needs came first until 1988, which prioritised ecological balance and the needs of local people, with a goal of one-third forest cover
Wildlife (Protection) Act (1972); Forest (Conservation) Act (1980)	Protected areas displaced or restricted resident communities; central approval required for diversion of forest land
Joint Forest Management (1990)	Shared management and benefits with village committees, though often dominated by the forest department
Forest Rights Act (2006)	Recognised individual and community forest rights of Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers, to correct a 'historical injustice', with the gram sabha at the centre

Ramachandra Guha's The Unquiet Woods (1989) traced peasant resistance in the Himalaya from colonial forest reservation to Chipko, showing that forest conflicts are struggles over subsistence and rights, not just conservation. The exclusion of Adivasis from forests they had long used — first by colonial forestry, then by protected areas and industrial projects — lies behind much tribal poverty and unrest. Ecological degradation — deforestation, soil erosion, desertification, falling water tables and, increasingly, climate change — pushes people to migrate. Essam El-Hinnawi's UNEP report (1985) popularised the term 'environmental refugees', and scholars now prefer 'environmental migrants' because most such movement is internal, gradual and mixed with economic motives. In India, drought-hit and flood-prone regions are major sources of seasonal and distress migration, linking this item to de-peasantization in Unit 4.

Key takeaways

Steward's culture core and multilinear evolution, Rappaport's ritual regulation, Harris's sacred-cattle argument and Gadgil and Guha's omnivores, ecosystem people and ecological refugees are the diverse forms of social and cultural ecology.
The Green Revolution raised yields but narrowed biodiversity and raised input dependence; Shiva criticised its monocultures, and the CBD, TKDL and India's biodiversity and plant-variety laws respond to biopiracy.
Ethno-medicine studies healing in cultural context, and medical pluralism describes patients moving between biomedicine and traditional systems.
Shiva's ecofeminism sees women as bearers of the feminine principle; Agarwal's feminist environmentalism grounds women's environmental relations in the division of labour and property.
Colonial Forest Acts excluded Adivasis; the Forest Rights Act (2006) sought to correct a historical injustice; ecological degradation drives environmental migration.

Practice questions (10)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

The concept of the 'culture core' and multilinear evolution belongs to:
1. Julian Steward
2. Roy Rappaport
3. Lewis Henry Morgan
4. Marvin Harris
Show answer
Answer: A — Julian Steward
Steward's Theory of Culture Change (1955) founded cultural ecology: the culture core of subsistence-related features adapts to environment, producing parallel lines of development rather than a single unilinear sequence like Morgan's.
Marvin Harris argued that the Hindu taboo on killing cattle is best explained as:
1. An irrational religious survival
2. An ecological adaptation, since cattle supply traction, milk, dung and fuel
3. A form of conspicuous consumption
4. A result of colonial law
Show answer
Answer: B — An ecological adaptation, since cattle supply traction, milk, dung and fuel
Harris's cultural materialism explained the taboo by its material benefits in an agrarian ecology: keeping cattle alive yields more energy and resources than eating them.
Which of the following categories did Gadgil and Guha use to describe the ecological divisions of Indian society? Select all that apply.
1. Environmental entrepreneurs
2. Omnivores
3. Ecosystem people
4. Ecological refugees
Show answer
Answer: B — Omnivores; C — Ecosystem people; D — Ecological refugees
Ecology and Equity (1995) divides Indians into omnivores, ecosystem people and ecological refugees; 'environmental entrepreneurs' is not one of their categories.
Assertion (A): Bina Agarwal criticised the ecofeminist view that women are inherently closer to nature. Reason (R): Agarwal argued that women's relationship with the environment is shaped by the gender division of labour and property rights, and so varies by class and caste. Choose the correct option.
1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
3. A is true, but R is false
4. A is false, but R is true
Show answer
Answer: A — Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
Agarwal's materialist grounding of women's environmental relations (R) is precisely the basis of her critique of essentialism (A); her alternative is feminist environmentalism.
The Forest Rights Act, 2006 is significant because it:
1. Recognised individual and community forest rights of forest dwellers, with a central role for the gram sabha
2. Transferred forests to private companies
3. Banned all human presence in protected areas
4. Created reserved forests under exclusive state control
Show answer
Answer: A — Recognised individual and community forest rights of forest dwellers, with a central role for the gram sabha
The Act's preamble speaks of undoing a historical injustice to forest-dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers, recognising their rights to land, use and community management.
Roy Rappaport's Pigs for the Ancestors is a study of how:
1. Pig farming industrialised in Europe
2. Pastoralists migrate in the Himalaya
3. A ritual cycle regulates the relationship between a New Guinea people and their environment
4. Colonial officials collected taxes
Show answer
Answer: C — A ritual cycle regulates the relationship between a New Guinea people and their environment
Among the Tsembaga Maring, the kaiko ritual cycle of pig slaughter regulated pig populations, the timing of warfare and the use of land — a classic of ecological anthropology.
Which term is used for the patenting or commercial appropriation of indigenous biological knowledge by outside firms without consent or benefit-sharing?
Numerical answer — type the value.
Show answer
Answer: biopiracy
Biopiracy describes cases such as the turmeric and neem patents, which India successfully challenged, and which led to the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library to document such knowledge as prior art.
The situation in which patients move between biomedicine, Ayurveda, Unani and folk healers depending on illness, cost and belief is described as:
1. Medical pluralism
2. The sick role
3. Biopower
4. Medicalisation
Show answer
Answer: A — Medical pluralism
Medical pluralism, developed in Charles Leslie's Asian Medical Systems (1976), is the coexistence and combined use of several healing systems. Medicalisation is the extension of medical authority over new areas of life.
Which of the following is NOT correctly matched?
1. Ecology and Equity — Marvin Harris
2. The Unquiet Woods — Ramachandra Guha
3. Staying Alive — Vandana Shiva
4. Theory of Culture Change — Julian Steward
Show answer
Answer: A — Ecology and Equity — Marvin Harris
Ecology and Equity (1995) is by Madhav Gadgil and Ramachandra Guha. Harris's relevant work is his essay on India's sacred cattle and his cultural materialism.
Why do many scholars now prefer 'environmental migrants' to 'environmental refugees'?
1. Because the UN abolished the term
2. Because only international migration counts
3. Because environmental change never causes movement
4. Because most such movement is internal, gradual and mixed with economic motives, and 'refugee' has a specific legal meaning
Show answer
Answer: D — Because most such movement is internal, gradual and mixed with economic motives, and 'refugee' has a specific legal meaning
Under the 1951 Refugee Convention a refugee flees persecution across a border; most environment-related movement is within countries and entangled with livelihood, so 'migrant' describes it more accurately.