Abstract
Functionalist anthropologists viewed culture as a well-integrated system with each part working together to maintain “the” equilibrium of the system. This conceptualization assumes that a culture or society either exists in equilibrium or collapses but does not allow room for cultural change or transformation.1 Since the 1960s, this static view of culture has been challenged and, to a great degree, discredited. In accordance with the shift to viewing culture as a dynamic process, many anthropologists have focused on examining the historical changes of society and culture, often emphasizing the inevitability of change brought by both internal conflicts and external impacts.2 One of the problems of this viewpoint is how to reconcile continual changes with overall coherence of a given sociocultural system within a period of time. In other words, how can society and culture achieve a relatively stable state that neither inhibits change nor causes the whole society or culture to collapse? This question is of special significance when examining how indigenous communities cope with profound changes forced upon them by the ongoing process of globalization. China is no exception.
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Notes
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© 2010 William Ascher and John M. Heffron
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Yongming, Z. (2010). How Our Village Becomes “Ecocultural”. In: Ascher, W., Heffron, J.M. (eds) Cultural Change and Persistence. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230117334_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230117334_7
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