2001/03/01 by R. Brian Ferguson · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Anthropological Studies and Insights #Japanese History and Culture #Chinese history and philosophy #Materialism #Epistemology #Perspective (graphical) #Ethnography #Sociology #Field (mathematics) #Anthropology #Environmental ethics #Philosophy
paper · doi:10.1177/14634990122228647
openalex publication_date 2001/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
For decades, there have been three primary anthropological perspectives on why people make war: materialist, cultural, and biological. Each has a long history of application to the Yanomami. This paper considers these three alternatives. First, it summarizes the author's materialist models and what they are purported to explain. Second, it discusses more cultural explanations offered by several field researchers, concluding that some might be synthesized with a materialist perspective, while others seem irreconcilable. Finally, a range of hypotheses invoking evolved predispositions are considered and found to be directly contradicted by Yanomami ethnography, even if limited to the works of Napoleon Chagnon.