Ecology, Economy and Culture: An anthropological profile of the Meena, a Scheduled Tribe of

depict how the ecological setup of the Meena characterises their multi-occupational economic organisation. They also enumerate the inextricable links that exist in a state of symbolic and mutually reinforcing relationship between ‘way of life ’ and habitat. These are inferred from their observation and careful questioning. Finally they show how the change evidenced among the Meena is an outcome of the interplay of several factors, which include deforestation, increased cultural contacts, modern transport, communication and the developmental schemes introduced by the government. ECOLOGICAL STUDIES IN ANTHROPOLOGY through the ages have accorded differential importance and have held varying views, relating culture to the concept of external environment setting in which a particular group of people develop distinct life styles. Ecology plays an important role in shaping the life of people, particularly their mode of livelihood. In the fmt three decades of the twentieth century, Emile Durkheim (1858-19 17) and Franz Boas (1 858-1 942) vehemently and categorically denounced the environmental determinism and accorded to the environment for most part a peripheral and a non deterministic role. The British school considered the role of environment as setting only the outer limits to the ways in which humans might manipulate resources