| It is generally held within contemporary anthropology that functional theory is politically conservative and cultural ecology is politically progressive. However, upon closer examination, the functional theory of human society was constructed to respond to the racism of colonial Europe. Specifically, a social evolutionist model was used to justify, in colonial legal settings such as the Privy Council decision in Southern Rhodesia, that the aboriginal claimants were not socially evolved enough in order to be recognized under English law. In response to this political situation, A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and Bronislaw Malinowski developed a theory that assumed all societies were equally functional and legitimate.;On the other hand, important features of the cultural ecology theory emerged from a racist colonial political situation where American Indians were represented as inferior. To illustrate, at the U.S. Indian Claims Commission proceedings, cultural ecology theory was used to demonstrate that the Shoshonean Indians were not developed to a level of social organization that would make them eligible for possession of original Indian title. Instead, culture ecology alleged on a scientific basis that the Shoshonean Indians were only at a family level of sociocultural integration and that they could not possess rights recognizable in Anglo-American law. Key to this finding, was the development of the concept of a 'family level of sociocultural integration' which first emerged as Julian Steward prepared evidence for the claims cases, and, which later framed his explanation about human evolution and his theoretical anthropology in general. Consequently, this thesis concentrates on a discussion of the political contextualization of theory within anthropology. |
