Richard J. Chacon

Conservation or Resource Maximization? Analyzing Subsistence Hunting Among the Achuar (Shiwiar) of Ecuador

This study tests the idea that indigenous hunters employ selective prey and patch choice to augment the sustainability of their long-term foraging returns. In other words, do Achuar (Shiwiar) hunting patterns maintain the group’s “harmony” or “balance with nature” behaving as conservationists, or do they act as resource maximizers acting in ways predicted by optimal foraging theory? Analysis of indigenous hunters’ prey choice in light of patch selection and optimal diet breadth models indicate that the Achuar (with few exceptions) are overharvesting local populations of various species of Neotropical wildlife. Significantly, this research documents differential species vulnerability to indigenous hunting pressure which, in turn, affects the sustainability of Amazonian wildlife harvests. Additionally, this research illustrates how a relatively isolated egalitarian and autonomous Amerindian group of subsistence hunter–horticulturalists, who maintain many of the traditional beliefs about wildlife population dynamics, are fully capable of overhunting several species of Neotropical wildlife. As such, the overharvesting of various types of wild game by the Achuar cannot be considered as being an artifact of Western contact. Lastly, this work examines some of the ethical issues raised by these findings.

Elementary Theory: 25 Years of Expanding Scope and Increasing Precision☆☆Authors are ordered first by number of sections contributed and then alphabetically. The first author is solely responsible for errors.

Abstract Purpose This exposition explains how Elementary Theory works and how it has been developed over the last two-and-a-half decades. Both increased scope and heightened precision are covered. Methodology/Approach Theoretic methodology is explained. Using that method formal models are constructed analogous to empirical events. Those models predict events, design experiments, and guide applications in the field. Findings There is a widely held belief in sociology that theory becomes more vague and imprecise as its scope broadens. Whereas broader generalizations are more vague than narrower ones, this exposition shows that abstract theory becomes more precise as its scope broadens. Research Limitations/Implications Here implications and limitations are closely connected. Regarding implications, this exposition shows that scientific explanations and predictions are viable today in sociology but only when exact theory is employed. Regarding limitations, the theory and research included in this exposition make clear why the empiricist search for regularities that dominates sociological research is so very limited in its results. Originality/Value of Chapter This exposition demonstrates that theory is the method of all the sciences and in particular the science of sociology.

How Chiefdom and Early State Social Structures Resolve Collective Action Problems

This paper explores how chiefdom and early state social structures resolve collective action problems. Solutions to problems of collective action are twofold; incentive systems discourage free-riding and encourage individuals to act and organization combines individuals’ acts. Broadly stated, we argue that influence and power, once organized into the hands of one or a small subgroup of individuals, can be used to administer incentive systems that motivate others in the community to act. Those incentive systems, in turn, shape collective activities such as warfare and defense. Drawing on experimentally grounded theory in sociology, we model forms of social organization and discuss the relation of each to collective action. In particular, we argue that simple chiefdoms solve problems of collective action through the well-ordered influence relations in their status-lineage structures, while coercive chiefdoms, to the same purpose, exercise power through threat of force. As in coercive chiefdoms, early states solve collective action problems through coercive relations but, where chiefs coerce only directly, heads of territorial states use bureaucratic systems of administration to exercise coercive power over vast geographic and social distances.

Rock Art, Secret Societies, Long-Distance Exchange, and Warfare in Bronze Age Scandinavia

This chapter explores the relationship between rock art, secret societies, long distance exchange, and warfare during the Scandinavian Bronze Age. Scandinavian Bronze Age rock art often depicts warriors brandishing metal weapons standing in or near war canoes. The appearance of this motif is concomitant with the participation of the local communities in long distance exchange for the procurement of metals. In this chapter, we argue that long-distance trading expeditions were made possible by the agency of Scandinavian secret societies, whose members would have also engaged in rock art carving practices. This inference is supported by archaeological considerations as well as comparisons with ethnographically documented secret societies from around the world.

Tibenuk and Chuji: Status Attainment and Collective Action in Egalitarian Settings

This research outlines the strategy by which a Western Dani individual seeks and obtains big man status . This work also documents how an Achuar (Shiwiar ) man uses his elevated social status to assertively and effectively coordinate collective action in a time of crisis. The findings of this investigation support the “Status Theory of Collective Action” (Willer in American Sociological Review 74(1):23–43, 2009) which contends that status allocation motivates individuals to solve collective action problems.

Patriots, Monarchists, and the Antichrist

This chapter shows how the Great Awakening provided critical ideological, moral, and theological justification for the American Revolution. Special emphasis is made on how many pro-independence colonials viewed Great Britain as being in league with the forces of Antichrist.

The Great Awakening

This chapter documents the arrival of the Great Awakening in colonial North America. Special emphasis is placed on the ministries of Jonathan Edwards, William Tennent, and George Whitefield. How and why this religious revival spread so rapidly among the marginalized populations of colonial North America is addressed.

Awakened Rebels and Holy War in the Southern Backcountry

This chapter documents how the Great Awakening supported the Revolutionary cause in the Southern Backcountry. Special emphasis is on how the pro-independence colonials of the Southern Backcountry felt that God supported their efforts at waging a holy war against their English oppressors.