Spooner, Brian
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Publication Ābyāri(1982) Spooner, BrianAlthough dry farming is important in Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, and Khorasan, as well as some other districts, a large proportion of Iran’s agriculture has always depended upon irrigation. Approximately half the annual grain crop, and an overwhelming proportion of other crops, are irrigated. With the exception of the Caspian littoral almost the whole of Iran is classified as semi-arid or arid. As is characteristic of lands under this classification, precipitation is generally not only scanty (most of the country has an average of less than 400 mm per year) and poorly distributed through the year, but irregular and unreliable. Irrigation affords not only the necessary soil moisture for productive agriculture, but the regularity and dependability of agricultural production that facilitates settled life and allows the development of large settled populations. Given the availability of refillable and accessible water sources, especially in combination with soil deposits of good quality, irrigation technologies can greatly increase the productivity and carrying capacity of the land. However, the use of these technologies imposes social and economic conditions on the populations that become dependent on them. Irrigation has played an important role in Iranian history and civilization. It involves factors that are significant in the development of settlement pattern and morphology, in the socioeconomic relations of agricultural activities, in the political processes and legal formulations that are based on these relations, and in the associated linguistic, symbolic, and ritual forms of activity that evolve in the cultural elaboration of them.Publication The Stray Dog(1979) Spooner, BrianPublication Politics, Kinship, and Ecology in Southeast Persia(1969-04-01) Spooner, BrianThe Iranian plateau is an ideal area for investigating the relationship be? tween ecological and sociological factors because of its stark aridity, on the one hand, and its historical role as a meeting place of ethnic and cultural movements on the other. The part of the plateau which forms the southeast corner of Persia is particularly interesting from this point of view. Over an area of some 200,000 square kilometers the great majority of the population, which numbers about half a million and includes both peasants and nomads, call themselves Baluch. Most, but not all of them, speak a dialect of Baluchi as their native tongue, and practically all adults speak it as a lingua franca. However, their political and social organization shows important variations, and there are striking geographical variations in the country they inhabit. It is unusual to find such wide variations among people who consider themselves one society. This paper shows how the variations in political and social organization in the area may be related to variations in human ecology. I wish to demonstrate that in this area of Persia, where political leadership relies on an income from settled agriculture, there is a definite social differentiation into classes and cognatic values are given to kin relationships, whereas leadership which relies primarily on nomadic pastoralism works through a structure of agnatic kin relationships without class differentiation.Publication Buried Alive(1979) Spooner, BrianPublication Arghiyān: The Area of Jājarm in Western Khurāsān(1965) Spooner, BrianPublication Towards a Generative Model of Nomadism(1971-07-01) Spooner, BrianThe anthropological study of nomadism should be approached via cultural ecology and by the generative method. A preliminary generative model is presented, consisting of a series of seven rules. The first five are derived from the literature and are concerned with group formation. The last two are proposed by the writer with a view to making the articulation between group formation, social ecology and social organisation.Publication Kirman and the Middle East: Paul Ward English's City and Village in Iran: Settlement and Economy in the Kirman Basin(1969) Spooner, Brian; Salzman, Philip CPublication The Function of Religion in Persian Society(1963) Spooner, BrianObservations on the religious aspect of rural life made during residence and travel in the north, east and south of Persia between 1959 and 1962.Publication The Significance of Desertification(1986) Spooner, BrianDesertification constitutes a serious potential threat to the future of world food production - but in a rather more complex way than is represented in most of the arguments and figures published so far. The circumstances of the discovery of desertification led to a particular structuring of the campaign to combat it. From the beginning the campaign held the seeds of conflict in the form of political imbalance. The data that were gathered to further the campaign have served to fuel the conflict. Not only is the conflict not yet resolved: it has received little open discussion. Meanwhile, the campaign languishes. This chapter seeks to disentangle some of the complexity in the desertification debate, in order to bring the problem into better perspective, so that its future significance can be realistically assessed. The presentation falls into four sections. The first reviews the background to the campaign. The second discusses the organisation of activities and of information, giving special attention to the inherent conflicts of interest that have (it is suggested) been responsible for the difficulties encountered in formulating and implementing practical measures to combat desertification. The third looks at the concept of desertification, as it has developed and continues to develop, as a rationalisation of the ideas generated in the campaign. The final section outlines the prospect for dealing with desertification insofar as it may affect food production at the global level, and formulates an approach to it that may be not only more acceptable politically but more comprehensive scientifically.Publication Ethnography(1998) Spooner, BrianETHNOGRAPHY, the basic field research method in anthropology. This article, which treats the corpus of ethnographic data, complements the article on anthropology (q.v.) which treats the history of ideas underlying the research. It is divided into four sections: (1) Introduction, which discusses the objectives and limitations of the ethnographic enterprise; (2) Guide to available material, which surveys the types of data that ethnography has produced in Iran; (3) Index of localities, communities, and topics described, and (4) Bibliography, which gives full references to available sources.