Ecotypes

An important perspective for understanding the variations that may exist at the local level is the concept of ecotype developed by such family historians as David Gaunt and Michael Mitterauer. Orvar Löfgren has defined ecotype as "a pattern of resource exploitation within a given macroeconomic framework" (Löfgren 1976:100). An ecotype encompasses:

It is especially in this last point, which examines how local resource exploitation is linked to outside areas, that the ecotype approach differs from the ecosystem orientation borrowed from biological studies and utilized by researchers such as Robert McC. Netting (1981) and Pier Paolo Viazzo (1989). Unlike the ecosystem, the ecotype does not require a closed system for analysis. While the two types of studies are very similar in many respects, the ecosystem analysis tends to emphasize stability through such factors as environmental equilibrium in resource extraction, and carrying capacity of the environment in terms of human demographics. The ecotype approach is more easily focused on issues of change (e.g. new resources are extracted from the environment, new technology is introduced, or new market relations created, etc.).

Ecotype analysis concentrates more on variation in household structure (as the primary unit of labor in resource extraction) than on demographic fluctuations and population trends. The ecotype approach is thus a particularly good perspective for tracing the interrelationships between land tenure (size and manner of holding), type of land exploitation (and thus the size and composition of labor force required), marriage patterns (the establishment of a new labor unit), inheritance systems (how land and wealth are handed down to succeeding generations), and household structure (the make-up of the group responsible for subsistence production and family reproduction). From this ecotype perspective it is very clear that the two key interrelated factors governing rural household structure were land (amount of land, type of tenure, and types of exploitation), and “family strategies,” the interwoven package of marriage strategies, fertility strategies and inheritance strategies.

Last updated 7/8/2007.