Roy Rappaport
Encyclopedia
Roy A. Rappaport was a distinguished anthropologist known for his contributions to the anthropological study of ritual
and to ecological anthropology
.
and then held a position at the University of Michigan
. One of his publications, Pigs for the Ancestors: Ritual in the Ecology of a New Guinea People (1968), is an ecological account of ritual among the Tsembaga Maring
of New Guinea
. This book is often considered the most influential and most cited work in ecological anthropology (see McGee and Warms 2004). In that book, and elaborated elsewhere, Rappaport coined the distinction between a people's cognized environment
and their operational environment, that is between how a people interpret their ecological niche and how their reality actually exists.
Pigs for the Ancestors: Ritual in the Ecology of a New Guinea People was published in 1968 and again in 1984 It is a classic case study of human ecology in a tribal society and the roles of culture
and ritual
. The research comes from his fieldwork and time spent with the Tsembaga Maring
tibe of Papua New Guinea
, who were an egalitarian society without hereditary chiefs or officials. Instead of analyzing the cultures as units, he focused "on populations in the ecological sense, that is, as one of the components of a system of trophic exchanges taking place within a bounded area." (Beirsack,1999,5). Rappaport explained his reasoning behind using populations as opposed to cultures, "Cultures and ecosystems are not directly commensurable. An ecosystem is a system of matter and energy transactions among unlike populations or organisms and between them and the non-living substances by which they are surrounded. 'Culture' is the label for the category of phenomena distinguished from others by its contingency upon symbols." (Biersack,1999, 6). Throughout his work, he studied how an ecosystem maintains itself through a regulatory force. He aimed to show the adaptive value of different cultural forms in maintaining the pre-existing relationship with their environment. In this case, it was ritual acting as the regulator, when pigs were sacrificed during times of warfare. This was done by the tribal members to acquit themselves of debts to the supernatural. Herds of pigs were maintained and fattened until the required work load pushed the limits of the tribes carrying capacity, in which case the slaughter began.
This ritual showed to serve several important purposes, such as restoring the ratio of pigs to humans, supplying the local communities with pork, and the prevention of land degradation. Rappaport found that a shrub called rumbim, was used to mark the beginning and ends of periods of warfare, and the victorious Maring tribe would plant it on a designated area to mark the end of fighting, and the beginning of the slaughter. The shrub remained until the next slaughter was initiated, once the pig to human ratio became overwhelming due to competition for resources. His studies in Papua New Guinea allowed him to calculate the energy exchanges within the community, neighboring tribes, and their environment. In contrast to studying how culture and ritual could be adaptive, Rappaport also studied how the use of culture and ritual could be maladaptive or potentially harmful to ecological systems (Hoey, 590). Rappaport argued, culture sometimes serves their own components, such as economic or political institutions, at the expense of men and ecosystems [such that].... Cultural adaptations, like all adaptations, can perhaps and usually do become maladaptive" (Hoey, 590). Throughout his work, Rappaport tends to stress unity and try to avoid potential problems in the social system. He often said, "I've tried for unification with everything from weighing sweet potatoes to God Almighty.... That's what I'm interested in," (Hoey, 581).
Years of study on ritual and religion, along with the addition of interests in environmental issues led to later publications such as Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. In this book, Rappaport addresses the history of humans as part of the evolution of life as a whole. Ritual, which he defines as "the performance of more or less invariant sequences of formal acts and utterances not encoded by the performers," lays the framework for the creation and formulation of religion (Wolf,1999,21). He emphasizes the emergence of humanity to be synonymous with the creation of language, and as a result, religion. A paradox is created by language allowing humanity to evolve, while simultaneously allowing for the creation of deception and alternatives. The act of ritual, he explains, is the means by which humanity uses religion to cope with those threats. (Parmentier,2003, 162). While the linguistic ability has made humans the most adaptive species on earth, that it not to say it comes without potential consequences. The practice of ritual serves to alleviate some of the problems since a ritual is performed and not simply spoken.
Furthermore, when one takes part in a ritual, they are able to signal that they the authority of the ritual, thus reinforcing the social contract in place. He then goes on to what he explains as the hierarchical demision of liturgical orders, in which he breaks down four elements of ritual. "Ultimate sacred postulates," form the top of the hierarchy, which are the most fundamental elements of religion. They tend to acquire sanctity over time, since they are often vague and unable to be disproven. Next, he describes cosmological axioms which describe the basic nature of the universe. Following these axioms come the rules that govern interactions and conduct. The fourth point he makes is about the understandings of the external world, where changes occur as a response to the conditions. These points he provides show these adaptive changes help to preserve the system as a whole.
Rappaport continued to emerge as a well-respected contributor to the field and its subsequent discourse by the coinage and adaptation of new anthropological concepts. He is known for his distinction between "cognized models," and "operational models," in which the former looked at reality and adaptations in how a peoples culture understands nature. The cognized model according to Rappaport is the "model of the environment conceived by the people who act in it," (Wolf,1999, 19). The operational model on the other hand, is one "which the anthropologist constructs through observation and measurement of empirical entities, events and material relationships. He takes this model to represent for analytic purposes, the physical world of the group he is studying.... as far as actors are concerned, it has no function," Rappaport explains (Wolf,1999, 19).
In his article Risk and the Human Environment, he examines the studies of risk to the "human environment," which have been legally mandated by the government for environmental and resource planning, He emphasizes variables such as economic, social and physical properties all must be taken into account. He provides an example of a hypothetical oil spill which severely damaged marine life. For white fisherman, they would perhaps consider it an economic loss, however for a Native American tribe, it would be far more devastating to their subsistence lifestyle. This article in particular stresses the need to further explore the natures of the human environment, and not make a generalization when considering possible risks (Rappaport,1996, 65).
Rappaport served as Chair of the Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan
, and as a past president of the American Anthropological Association
. Rappaport died of cancer in 1997.
Ritual
A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....
and to ecological anthropology
Ecological anthropology
Ecological anthropology is a subfield of anthropology that deals with relationships between humans and their environment, or between nature and culture, over time and space. It investigates the ways that a population shapes its environment and may be shaped by it, and the subsequent manners in...
.
Biography
Rappaport received his Ph.D. at Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and then held a position at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
. One of his publications, Pigs for the Ancestors: Ritual in the Ecology of a New Guinea People (1968), is an ecological account of ritual among the Tsembaga Maring
Tsembaga Maring
Tsembaga Maring are a group of horticulturists who live in the highlands of New Guinea. They have been extensively studied by ethnographers, the foremost of which is Roy Rappaport.-Ethnographies:...
of New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
. This book is often considered the most influential and most cited work in ecological anthropology (see McGee and Warms 2004). In that book, and elaborated elsewhere, Rappaport coined the distinction between a people's cognized environment
Cognized environment
Cognized environment is a concept first introduced by the late anthropologist, Roy Rappaport , in contrast to what he called the operational environment . Rappaport was an ecological anthropologist, like Andrew P...
and their operational environment, that is between how a people interpret their ecological niche and how their reality actually exists.
Work
Rappaport was known for paying attention to small details during his fieldwork. Acknowledging the small rituals that were held by the culture he was studying proved to be complementary to his work. He was able to see things others had overlooked by simply paying attention to a culture's norm. With all that Rappaport contributed, his simplicity started the foundation for ethnography in the future. His work demonstrates the correlation between a culture and its economy, which shapes not only status relations but also a way of life.Pigs for the Ancestors: Ritual in the Ecology of a New Guinea People was published in 1968 and again in 1984 It is a classic case study of human ecology in a tribal society and the roles of culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
and ritual
Ritual
A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....
. The research comes from his fieldwork and time spent with the Tsembaga Maring
Tsembaga Maring
Tsembaga Maring are a group of horticulturists who live in the highlands of New Guinea. They have been extensively studied by ethnographers, the foremost of which is Roy Rappaport.-Ethnographies:...
tibe of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
, who were an egalitarian society without hereditary chiefs or officials. Instead of analyzing the cultures as units, he focused "on populations in the ecological sense, that is, as one of the components of a system of trophic exchanges taking place within a bounded area." (Beirsack,1999,5). Rappaport explained his reasoning behind using populations as opposed to cultures, "Cultures and ecosystems are not directly commensurable. An ecosystem is a system of matter and energy transactions among unlike populations or organisms and between them and the non-living substances by which they are surrounded. 'Culture' is the label for the category of phenomena distinguished from others by its contingency upon symbols." (Biersack,1999, 6). Throughout his work, he studied how an ecosystem maintains itself through a regulatory force. He aimed to show the adaptive value of different cultural forms in maintaining the pre-existing relationship with their environment. In this case, it was ritual acting as the regulator, when pigs were sacrificed during times of warfare. This was done by the tribal members to acquit themselves of debts to the supernatural. Herds of pigs were maintained and fattened until the required work load pushed the limits of the tribes carrying capacity, in which case the slaughter began.
This ritual showed to serve several important purposes, such as restoring the ratio of pigs to humans, supplying the local communities with pork, and the prevention of land degradation. Rappaport found that a shrub called rumbim, was used to mark the beginning and ends of periods of warfare, and the victorious Maring tribe would plant it on a designated area to mark the end of fighting, and the beginning of the slaughter. The shrub remained until the next slaughter was initiated, once the pig to human ratio became overwhelming due to competition for resources. His studies in Papua New Guinea allowed him to calculate the energy exchanges within the community, neighboring tribes, and their environment. In contrast to studying how culture and ritual could be adaptive, Rappaport also studied how the use of culture and ritual could be maladaptive or potentially harmful to ecological systems (Hoey, 590). Rappaport argued, culture sometimes serves their own components, such as economic or political institutions, at the expense of men and ecosystems [such that].... Cultural adaptations, like all adaptations, can perhaps and usually do become maladaptive" (Hoey, 590). Throughout his work, Rappaport tends to stress unity and try to avoid potential problems in the social system. He often said, "I've tried for unification with everything from weighing sweet potatoes to God Almighty.... That's what I'm interested in," (Hoey, 581).
Years of study on ritual and religion, along with the addition of interests in environmental issues led to later publications such as Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. In this book, Rappaport addresses the history of humans as part of the evolution of life as a whole. Ritual, which he defines as "the performance of more or less invariant sequences of formal acts and utterances not encoded by the performers," lays the framework for the creation and formulation of religion (Wolf,1999,21). He emphasizes the emergence of humanity to be synonymous with the creation of language, and as a result, religion. A paradox is created by language allowing humanity to evolve, while simultaneously allowing for the creation of deception and alternatives. The act of ritual, he explains, is the means by which humanity uses religion to cope with those threats. (Parmentier,2003, 162). While the linguistic ability has made humans the most adaptive species on earth, that it not to say it comes without potential consequences. The practice of ritual serves to alleviate some of the problems since a ritual is performed and not simply spoken.
Furthermore, when one takes part in a ritual, they are able to signal that they the authority of the ritual, thus reinforcing the social contract in place. He then goes on to what he explains as the hierarchical demision of liturgical orders, in which he breaks down four elements of ritual. "Ultimate sacred postulates," form the top of the hierarchy, which are the most fundamental elements of religion. They tend to acquire sanctity over time, since they are often vague and unable to be disproven. Next, he describes cosmological axioms which describe the basic nature of the universe. Following these axioms come the rules that govern interactions and conduct. The fourth point he makes is about the understandings of the external world, where changes occur as a response to the conditions. These points he provides show these adaptive changes help to preserve the system as a whole.
Rappaport continued to emerge as a well-respected contributor to the field and its subsequent discourse by the coinage and adaptation of new anthropological concepts. He is known for his distinction between "cognized models," and "operational models," in which the former looked at reality and adaptations in how a peoples culture understands nature. The cognized model according to Rappaport is the "model of the environment conceived by the people who act in it," (Wolf,1999, 19). The operational model on the other hand, is one "which the anthropologist constructs through observation and measurement of empirical entities, events and material relationships. He takes this model to represent for analytic purposes, the physical world of the group he is studying.... as far as actors are concerned, it has no function," Rappaport explains (Wolf,1999, 19).
In his article Risk and the Human Environment, he examines the studies of risk to the "human environment," which have been legally mandated by the government for environmental and resource planning, He emphasizes variables such as economic, social and physical properties all must be taken into account. He provides an example of a hypothetical oil spill which severely damaged marine life. For white fisherman, they would perhaps consider it an economic loss, however for a Native American tribe, it would be far more devastating to their subsistence lifestyle. This article in particular stresses the need to further explore the natures of the human environment, and not make a generalization when considering possible risks (Rappaport,1996, 65).
Rappaport served as Chair of the Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, and as a past president of the American Anthropological Association
American Anthropological Association
The American Anthropological Association is a professional organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 11,000 members, the Arlington, Virginia based association includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, biological anthropologists, linguistic...
. Rappaport died of cancer in 1997.
Works
- Biersack, Aletta. (1999) "Introduction: Froim the "New Ecology" to the New Ecologies." American Anthropologist 101.1; 5-18.
- Hart, Keith and Conrad Kottack. (1999) "Roy A. "Skip Rappaport." American Anthropologist 101.1; 159-161.
- Hoey, Brian, and Tom Fricke. "From Sweet Pototoes to God Almighty: Roy Rappaport on Being a Hedgehog." American Ethnologist 34.3 581-599.
- McGee, R. Jon and Richard L. Warms (2004) Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History. New York: McGraw Hill.
- Parmentier, Richard. (2003) "Untitled." Chicago Journals 43.2; 162-164.
- Rappaport, R.A. (1968) Pigs for the Ancestors. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Rappaport, R.A. (1979) Ecology, Meaning and Religion. Richmond: North Atlantic Books.
- Rappaport, R.A. (1984) Pigs for the Ancestors. 2nd edition. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Rappaport, R.A. (1996) "Risk and the Human Environment." The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
- Rappaport, R.A. (1999) Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Wolf, Eric. (1999) "Cognizing "Cognized Models.'" 101.1;19-22.
External links
- Biography by Julia Messerli
- Obituary, The University Record (University of Michigan), October 15, 1997.