THE YAKHA: CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT IN ...

position which is too broad to be useful, For Geertz (1963:2>, both
determinism and possibilism are "inadequate for precise analysis".
According to Ellen (1979), possibilism is not a true alternative to
determinism at all, since if we accept that the goals and priorities of
different societies are limited by the environment, then the environment
is also in a sense determining final outcomes (cf, Hallpike 1986).
In my view, the possibilist approach has been misrepresented in
several ways. For a start, if precision is lost in analyses based on
the concept of 'possibilisml, at least reality is better served, Rather
than concentrating on the 'restrictive' role of the environment, as
Ellen seems to do, it is worth taking up Forde's 'permissive' argument
that environment is part of ' the raw material of cultural elaboration1.
Clearly each culture is going to take from and use this raw material in
different amounts and in different ways, Hallpike (1986:287,n15) sees
the essential point of possibil ism as not the notion of ' limiting
factor' at all, "but rather, as the very name of 'possibilisrn' implies,
the creative use of the various possibilities of nature, and of man as
the active agent and chooser", According to him, "we should therefore
regard the environment not so much as a set of obstacles or
determinants, but as a set of opportunities to be exploited, the kinds
of exploitation themselves depending on social organization and
ideology" (1986:287), This may be the only theoretical view which is
realistic about the indeterminacy of the human-environmental
relationship, However, others have attempted to develop more precise
theoretical models, and it is to these which I shall now turn,