Download Unit-2 Social anthropology

Unit-2 Social anthropology
1. Society :
• The society is defined based on the two different
views i.e. Functional and structural
• From the functional point of view, society is
defined “as a complex of groups in reciprocal
relationships, interacting up on one another,
enabling human organisms to carry on their
life activities helping each persons to fulfill his
wishes and accomplish his interests in
association with his fellows”.
Contd.
• Similarly from the structural point of view,
“Society is the total social heritage folkways,
mores and institutions; of habits, sentiments and
ideas”
• Moreover, the society is to be interpreted in a wide
sense. “ It is both structural and functional
organizations. It consists in the mutual inter- relations
of the individuals but it is also a structure formed by
these relations. It is a pattern, a system and not the
people.”
Contd.
• According to Maciver & Page “ Society is a
system of usages and procedures, authority
and mutual aid of many groupings and
divisions of controls of human behavior and
of liberties “
• According to Parsons “ Society may be
defined as the total complex of human
relationships in so far as they grow out of
action in terms of mean-end relationships,
intrinsic or symbolic”
2. Culture
• In common manner of speaking the word “culture”
is understood to mean beautiful, refined or
interesting .
• But this interpretation does not constitute its
scientific definition.
• Culture is precisely defined in sociology. According
to Tylor “ culture is that complex whole which
includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law custom
and any other capabilities acquired by man as a
member of society”
Contd.
• According to Arnold and W. Green “Culture is the
socially transmitted system of idealized ways in
knowledge, practice, and belief, along with the
artifacts that knowledge and practice produce and
maintain as they change in time.”
• According to Graham Wallas “Culture is an
accumulation of thoughts, values and objects, it is the
social heritage acquired by us from preceding
generations through learning, as distinguished from
the biological heritage which is passed on to us
automatically through the genes”
Sub division/Branches of Culture:
A. Material culture
• Concrete objects
Example: Pens, Radio, clothing, tools, paintings,
Idols
B. Non-Material culture
• Abstract creation
Example: Language, literature, law, arts, religion
etc.
Contd.
Nepal's culture is greatly influenced by its music,
architecture, religion and literature. The various
temples, churches, monasteries and other
religious buildings are on the every corner of
Nepal.
Contd.
Characteristic s of culture:
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Culture is obviously man made
Culture is an acquired quality
Culture is social , not individual heritage of man
Culture is an idealistic
Culture is total social heritage.
Culture fulfills some social and ethical needs.
Culture is an integrated system
Language is chief vehicle of culture
Culture evolves in to more complex forms through
division of labor which develops special skills and
increases the interdependence of society’s members.
Institutions:
• Normally people use the word institution to mean an
organization with some specific purpose, as a public
or charitable institution. Some times it is used to
denote any set of people in organized interaction as a
family or club or government.
• Every organization is dependent upon certain
recognized and established set of rules, traditions and
usages. These usages and rules may be given the
name of institutions. Thus marriage, education and
religion are the main institutions.
Contd.
• Institutions have been defined by Maciver as the
“established forms or conditions of procedure
characteristic of group activity.”
• According to Woodward and Maxwell “An institution
is a set or web of inter-related folkways, mores, and
laws which enter in some function or functions”
• According to Gillin & Gillin “ A social institution is
functional configuration of culture pattern
(including actions, ideas, attitudes and cultural
equipment ) which possess a certain permanence
and which is intended to satisfy felt social needs “
Characteristics of institutions:
• Institutions are the means of controlling individuals
• Institution depend upon the collective activities of
man
• The institutions has some proceedings which are
formed on the basis of customs
and dogmas
• Institution is more stable than other means of social
control
• Every institutions has some rules which must be
compulsorily obeyed by the individual
• Every institution has got a symbol which may be
material or non material
• Institutions are formed to satisfy the primary needs
of men, It has social recognition behind it.
Importance of institution
1. Institution transfers the cultural elements from one
generation to another
2. It introduces unity in human behaviour
3. It controls their conducts and guides man according
to circumstances
4. Provides definite role and status to individual
5. The parents learn their place and child learns his
duties towards the parents or elders in the society
through institution
6. Institution maintains unity and harmony in the
society
7. Provides a unified patterns of diverse ways of human
behavior and actions
Social Class
• A class is a social hierarchy of the status of the
individual in the society
• Each social class has its status in society in
accordance with which it receives prestige in the
society
• According to Ogburn and Nimkoff a social class is
"one or two or more broad groups of individuals who
are ranked by the members of the community in
socially superior and inferior positions"
Contd.
• According to Lapiere “ A social class is a culturally
defined group that is accorded a particular position or
status within the population as a whole “
• Generally three types of distinct behavior found in the
society regarding the class:
- A feeling of equality, in relation to members of
one's own class, Individuals belonging to the same social
class are expected to maintain similar standards of life,
and to choose their occupations within a limited range
Contd.
- There is feeling of inferiority in relation to
those who stand above in the social scale.
- There is the feeling of superiority to those
below in the social hierarchy.
The fundamental attribute of a social class its social
position of relative inferiority or superiority to other
social cases. It is the social position which determines
for its possessor the degree of respect, prestige and
influence
Types of Social Class
A. Burgeoise system /class
Burgeoise system /class is the system in which the
wage earners were contrasted with the owners of the
industry and capital. With the industrial revolution, the
class structure of medieval society underwent a change
in to two classes:
• Capitalist: - The capitalist owned the means of
production and wielded great political power enjoying
thereby high status.
• Proletariat: - The industrial workers dispossessed of
wealth, divorced from the management of all
enterprise and deprived from any saying on the
product to their labor. They could only sell their labor.
B. Middle Class:
The division of society into capitalists and
proletariat was not, however, the final division
of society. A new class, middle class, arose which
modified the classical capitalist proletarian
dualism of social structure.
The middle class signifies the stand below the capitalist
and above the proletariat class.
Contd.
Middle class can be divided into three sub
division in terms of income and standard of
living:
• Upper middle class
• Middle class
• Lower middle class
Basis of class formation
A. In general according to Cooley
I. Marked differences in the constituent part of the
population.
II. Little communication and enlightenment
III. A slow rate of social change
• B. In specific ways
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I. Property, wealth and income
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II. Family and kinship
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III. Location of residence
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IV. Duration of residence
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V. Nature of the profession
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VI. Education
Characteristics of Social Class
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Class is group of similar status
Social class is achieved status
The class system is universal
Class consciousness
Hierarchy of group
Social class is open group
Flexible
Restricted social relations
Common mode of life
Competitive and conflict System
Birth is not important
Caste
The word caste is the modified form of Spanish word
"Casta"
which means "breed", "race“
(breed- kind or variety with hereditary qualities,
Race-any of several sub-division of man kind sharing
certain physical characteristics especially color of
skin, hair, shape of the eyes and nose)
Contd.
• According to Anderson & Parker “Caste is that
extreme form of social class organization in which
the position of individuals in the status hierarchy is
determined by descent and birth
• According to Risley “ Caste is a collection of
families or group of families bearing a common
name, claiming a common descent from a mythical
ancestor, professing to follow the same heredity
calling and regarded by those who are competent to
give an opinion as forming a single homogenous
community”
Caste systems in Nepal
Nepal has been recognized as a Hindu country in
world in the past and based on the Hindu ideology,
the caste system in Nepal has been classified in to
four different categories:
1. Brahman
2. Kshetri/Chhetri
3. Baishya
4. Sudra
1. Bramin/Brahman
The Brahman has been classified based on two different
system i.e. Migration and marriage systems.
Based on the migration;
– Kumai Brahman- Migrated for east and settled in
Kumau area from the very beginning
– Purbia Brahman-Migrated for west and settled in
the west from the very beginning
Similarly based on the marriage systems:
• Upadhyaya Brahman- Those Brahman who
married Brahman girls by following the
prescribed cultural and religious methods
and process.
• Jaisi Brahman- Those Brahman who married
Brahman girls without observing any
prescribed cultural and religious practices.
Contd.
II. Chhetri/Kshetri- All types of Brahman
surname is common in Chhetri also, except
Karki,Khadka,Basnet,Raut,Thapa,Kunwar.
Racially both Brahman and Chhetri are IndoAryan.
III.Baisya- All other surname except Brahmin
and Chhetri in to so called touchable are in
the Baisya group
IV. Sudra- All surnames categorized as so called
untouchable fall under the caste of Sudra.
Characteristics/Feature of Caste
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Segmental Division of Society
Social and religious hierarchy
Restrictions on feeding and social intercourse
Endogamy
Lack of unrestricted choice of occupation
Civil and religious disabilities
Caste is a real, actual organized group:-
Merits of Caste System
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Trade union and orphanage
Spirit of cooperation
Defines economic pursuits ( carrying out/ perform)
Racial purity
Provides for various function
Cultural diffusion ( spread up/ sent out)
Influences intellectual make up
Demerits of Caste System
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Denies mobility of labour
Un-touchability
Solidarity retarted
Wrong man in occupation
Obstacle to national unity
Obstacle to social progress
Undemocratic
Promotes casteism
Caste
Difference between Caste and Class
Class
• Caste is constant
• Class is changeable
• Caste is Indian/Hindu origin
• Class is European origin/western
origin
• It regards the individual attributes,
ability
• It does not care of individual
attributes, ability
• The social relations are formal and
stable
• The caste system is conservative
• It is birth -ascribed status
• Caste system hinder the democracy
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Social relations are informal and
unstable
• The class system is progressive
• It is an achieved status
• Class system does not hinder the
democracy
Role and Status
• Roles
The social system is based on a division of a
labor in which every person is assigned a
specific task to perform.
The task performed by an individual makes up
the role he is expected to pay in the life of his
community.
Eg: Doctors, Engineers, etc.
Contd.
Ogburn and Nimkoff defined that;
a role is
"a set of socially expected and approved behavior
patterns, consisting of both duties and privileges,
associated with a particular position in a group.”
Status:
The term status used to designate the comparative amounts of
prestige, difference or respect accorded to persons who have been
assigned different roles in a group or community.
Contd.
• The status of a person is high if the role, he is
playing, is considered important by the group. If the
role is regarded less high, its performer may be
accorded lower status
• Thus the status of a person is based on social
evaluations.
• According to Bukman, "status is the worth of a
person as estimated by a group or a class of
persons".
Determinants of Status
According to Bukman; the determinants of
status are as follow;
• The capacity of a person for rewarding those
with whom he interacts;
• The extent to which he is receiving rewards;
• The type of costs he incurs, and his
investment.
Types of status
• Ascribed Status: Those assigned by culture
and society for individual based on sex, age,
race etc.
• Achieved Status: Those obtained through
competition and individual efforts, like
education, occupation, knowledge etc.
Family
The word family has been taken over from the
Roman word “Famulus” It has two different
meanings:
• Meaning a servant- In Roman law, the word denoted
the group of producers and slaves and other servants.
• The members connected by common descent or
marriage.
The term “Family” has been used here to denote the
second meaning i.e. The members connected by
common descent or marriage.
Contd.
• According to Maciver “Family is a group defined by
a sex relationship sufficiently precise and enduring to
provide for the procreation and upbringing of
children”
• As per the American Bureau of the Census
( ABC) “ Family is a group of two or more persons
related by blood, marriage or adoption and residing
together; all such persons are considered
as
members of one family”
Characteristics features of family
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Mating relationship
A form of marriage
A system of nomenclature( system of naming)
A common habitation
Universality-most universal group/ 1st institution in
the history of man
• Limited size
• Nuclear position- Nucleus of all the social groups
Forms/ types of family
A. On the basis of the authority
1. The patriarchal family
Male head of the family is possessed of inclusive power. He is
the owner and administrator of the family property and rights.
He is guardian of the family.
Characteristics :
– The wife after marriage comes to live in the home of the
husband
– The father is the supreme lord of the family property
– Descent is reckoned (reclaimed) through the father.
Children are known by the name of the family of their
father.
Contd.
– Children can inherit the property of their father
only. It means they have no rights over the
property of mother’s family.
2. Matriarchal family:
It is said to prevail among the primitive peoples who
led a wandering or hunting life. The father in the
hunting stage roamed for a wide and mother had to
be active and ruled the family.
Characters
• Descent is reckoned through the mother, not the
father.
• Marriage relations are transient (for short time only).
The husband is sometimes merely a casual visitor
• Children’s are brought up in the home of wife’s
relatives(matrilocal)
• Authority in the family rests in the hands of wife or
of her kin.
• Property is transferred through mother and only
female succeed to it.
B. On the basis of structure
I. Nuclear family:
II. Joint family:
C. On the basis of marriage system
• Polygamous family: In this kind of family one
man maries many women at one time.
• Polyandrous family: In this kind of family, one
woman marries many men and lives with all of
them.
Function of family:
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The regulation of sexual behavior and reproduction
Care and training of children
Cooperation and division of labour
Primary group satisfaction
Affectional
Protective
Race perpetuation
Socialization
Regulation and satisfaction of sex needs
Economic function
Importance of family
• The family is very important part of every day life of an
individual
• Family can provide encouragement during the life.
• Family helps to create a future of an individual.
• Family tend to push towards valued goals in life
• The first school or educator in child’s life is the family.
• How you behave, and what you become in a life is very much
dependent on your family life.
• The way your family members deal with you has a life long
effect on your personality
Kinship
• The bond of blood or marriage which binds people
together in group is called kinship
• According to anthropological understanding kinship
system includes socially recognized relationships
based on supposed as well as actual genealogical
ties.
• According to Radcliffe “ Kinship is genealogical
relationship recognized for social purposes and
made the basis of customary relation of social
relation”
Types of kinship
• Affinal kinship- The bond of marriage is called affinal kinship.
Marriage creates a host of relationships which are called
affinal kin. After marriage person becomes not only husband
but brother in law and vice versa
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Consanguineous kinship- The bond of blood is called
consanguineous kinship. The bond between parents and
children and that between siblings is consanguineous kinship.
Thus, son, brother, sister, uncle, nephew and cousin are
consanguineous kin
• Fictional kinship- In this type of kinship they have neither
marriage relationship nor blood relationship but have strong
relationship to each other which is socially accepted with the
name of “Mit “ Dharma Putra “ etc.
Significance of Kinship
• The affinal kinship or the marriage constructs alliances
between the families.
• It gives social strength and security to the families.
• The personal reputations of the individual depend on the
quality and number of their allied kin.
• One of the most important and essential things that every
one must have in order to live to great and joyful life is
family and associated kinship.
• Kinship has a power to make families unite and assist each
other.
• The kinship can support the family to keep the success
advancing towards the future.
Assimilation
• Assimilation is the process whereby persons and groups
acquire the culture of other group in which they come to live
by adopting its attitudes and values
• Assimilation implies complete merging of divergent cultural
groups within a society and has been defined as a process of
mutual cultural diffusion through which persons and groups
become culturally alive
• According to Horton and Hunt “ The process of mutual
cultural diffusion through which persons and groups come
to share a common culture is called assimilation”
The hindrance and aids to assimilation
I. The favoring factors or aids of assimilation
According to Gillin & Gillin;
• Toleration
• Equal economic opportunity
• Sympathetic attitude
• Exposure to the dominant culture
II. Hindrance or retardation of assimilation
• Isolating condition of life
• Attitudes of the superiority
• Excessive physiological, cultural and social differences
between the groups
• The background occupational skills of new comers
Socialization
This is obvious that when the human infant comes in to
the world as biological organism with animal needs, he
is gradually moulded in to a social being and he learns
social ways of acting and feeling. Without this process
of moulding:
• The society could not continue itself
• Culture could not exist
• Individual could not become a person
• Therefore, this process of moulding is called
socialization.
Contd.
According to Gillin and Gillin “ By the term ‘socialization’
we mean the process by which individual develops into a
functioning member of the group according to its standards
conforming to its modes, observing its traditions and
adjusting himself to the social situations”
Factors of process of socialization
Socialization is the process of learning group norms, habits and
ideas. There are four factors of the process of learning:
• Imitation- Imitation is copying by one of the action of
another
• Suggestions- Suggestions influence not only behavior of
other but himself
• Identification- Self exploration
• Language- Language is the means of social transmission.
Theories of socialization
As per the socialization theory, the heart of the
socialization is the development of self ( independent
,taught by oneself). What is meant by self?-I, me,
myself, hismself concept, sum total of his perceptions of
himself, his attitude towards himself.
1. Cooley’s Theory:
• Cooley’s concept of the self development has been
termed as “Looking-Glass Self” concept. According to
him, man develops the concept of the self with the help
of the others
There are three principle elements of the looking
glass concept:
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Our perception of how we look to others
• Our perception of their judgments of how
we look
• Our feelings about these judgments.
2. Mead’s Theory:
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According to the George H. Mead, the self develops
out of the child’s communicative contact with others.
• The new-born human infant has needs like those for
food and clothing that press for satisfaction.
•The mother satisfies these needs and the child comes
to depend up on her and identifies himself with her
emotionally
Contd.
• According to Mead, self can be both
subject and object itself.
• The self is not something that exists first
and then enters into relationship with others.
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It is something that develops out of social interaction
and is constantly changing, constantly adjusting as
new situation and conflict arise.
3. Freud’s Theory:
The
theories of Cooley and Mead presume a basic
harmony between the self and society.
According to Cooley, society and individual are not
separate phenomena but are simply collective and
distributive aspects of the same thing.
Sigmund Freud does not agree with the concept of self and
society. According to him, the self and society are not
identical.
He has explained the process of socialization in terms of
his concepts of ‘Id’ ‘Ego’ and ‘Super Ego’ which
constitutes the three system of mind:
Cont.
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The Id is the organ of untamed (not changed) passions
(very strong feeling) and represents instinctive desires.
• The Ego acts with reason
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The Super Ego acts with ideals and norms. There is
a conflict between Id and Ego.
The Freud has compared the Id with the horse and the Ego
with the rider. He says” the function of the Ego is that of the
rider guiding the horse, which is the Id.
But like the rider, the Ego sometimes is unable to guide the
horse as it wishes and perforce must guide the Id in the
direction it is determined to go or in a slightly different
direction.
Agencies of socialization
• The family
• School
• The playmates or friends
• The temple/ Church
• The state- Develop laws, rules and regulations.
Sanskritization :
All human societies from the simplest to the most complex
have same form of social inequalities.
Contd.
• In particular, power, prestige and wealth are
unequally distributed between the individuals and
group.
• Social stratification is particular form of social
inequalities.
•The movement from one stratum to another is
known as social mobility and the Sanskritization is
the means of social mobility.
•The concept of the Sanskritization has propounded by an
Indian sociologist M.N. Srinivas.
Contd.
According to him
“ Sanskritization is the process by which a low
Hindu caste or tribal or other group changes its
customs, rituals, ideology and ways of life in the
direction of a higher caste, cultures and families”
The non-dominating castes starts emulating (try to do as
well as or better than) the ways of life of the dominating
castes
Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism
Ethnocentrism:
Ethnocentrism is the tendency of man to consider his own
culture of high value and superior to all others, and to judge
other cultures in terms of standards and values that exists in
one's own culture.
Ethnocentrism is the view that one particular ethnic group is
somehow superior to all others
Ethnocentrism is the concept of viewing all cultures through
the lens of your own culture
Effects of Ethnocentrism:
• It promotes loyalty to groups
• It makes far greater conformity within the groups
• Creates pressure from the group on those who tend to
deviate
• It causes resistance to change and strengthens the status of
the groups.
Reason for Ethnocentrism
• We became ethnocentric because of our habits of food,
clothes/fashion, working style and enjoyment
• Individuals became ethnocentric because they lack
understanding
• We became ethnocentric because we have been taught accordingly.
• We are ethnocentric because of our personal inadequacies
Cultural Relativism
Cultural relativism is the view that individual beliefs and
values systems are culturally relative.
That is, no one ethnic group has the right to say that their
particular system of beliefs and values, their worldview, is
in any way superior to anyone else’s system of beliefs and
values.
What’s right for one culture might be wrong for another and
that’s alright. There is no absolute standard of right and
wrong by which to compare and contrast morally
contradictory cultural values.
Religion
 A collection of the
beliefs that help people understand
the world and the events that takes place in it
 This often ( but not always) involves worshiping a god or
gods.
 Religion as “ those institutionalized systems of beliefs,
symbols, values and practices that provide groups of
men with solutions to their questions of ultimate being”
 According to Arnold W. Green “Religion is a system of
beliefs and symbolic practices and objects governed by faith
rather than by knowledge, which relates man to an unseen
supernatural realm beyond the known and beyond the
controllable.”
Contd.
According to Anderson and parker, each religion consists of
four primary components or the common characteristics:
• Belief in super natural forces
• Man’s adjustments to super natural power.
• Acts defined as Sinful (Pap, Adharma in Nepali)
• Method of salvation (Moksha, Mukti in Nepali )
Forms of religion
1. Superstition ( Andha bishwas)
2. Animism ( Atma/ Aatmabad in Nepali
3. Magic
4. Ceremonialism
5. Fetishism
Importance of Religion
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Explains individual suffering
Enhances self importance
A source of social cohesion
Social welfare
Agency of social control
Religion controls and affects economic life also
Friendship function
Holism, System Approach
System- System is a set of interconnected variables, change in
any one of which will affect all the others.
Holism- The term Holism is derived from Greek word “Holos”
meaning all, whole, entire
The holism is the idea that all the properties of a given system
(physical ,biological, chemical , social and political) cannot be
determined or explained by its component parts alone.
With socio-anthropological views, holism is used to refer an
analysis of a society as a whole which refuges to break society
into component parts
System Approach
 The system approach integrates the analytic and synthetic
method, encompassing both holism and reductionism.
 It was first proposed under the name of “General System
Theory” by Von Bertalanffy.
 The general system theory is based on the assumptions that
there are universal principles of organization, which hold for
all systems be they physical, chemical, biological mental or
social etc.
 The general system theory involves the consideration of
such issues as the degree of wholeness, nature of sub
systems, mechanisms of feed-back, communication and
information processing, goal seeking, self-regulation,
structural integration, adaptation and pattern- maintenance.
Importance of the System Approach
• A common vocabulary unifying the several ‘behavioral’
disciplines.
• A technique for treating large, complex organizations.
• A synthetic approach where ‘piece-meal’ analysis is not
possible due to the intricate relationships of parts that cannot
be treated out of context of whole.
• A view point that gets at the heart of sociology because it
sees the socio-cultural systems in terms of information and
communication.
• The study of relations rather than ‘entities’ with an emphasis
on process and transition probabilities as the basis of a
flexible structure with many degrees of freedom in scientific
education
Gender and Feminism
Gender- When we talk about the term gender, then we should not
forget to understand the term sex also.
Sex refers to the biologically determined differences between all men
and women throughout the world.
It is biological, given (natural), cannot be changed and universal.
The term gender on the other hand is different. Simply the term gender
is way of talking about the men and women.
• Gender refers to the social differences between men and women
that are learned, changeable over time and have wide variations
within and between the cultures. It is culturally based, learned
behavior, changeable and different in different societies and culture.
Feminism
• Simply the feminism is the belief and aim that women
should have the same rights and opportunities as men.
• Feminism is a social theory and political movements
primarily informed and motivated by the experiences
generally providing a critiques of social relations, many
proponents of feminism also focus on analyzing and the
promotion of women’s rights, interest and issues.
• The basis of feminist ideology is that rights, privilege, status
and obligations should not be determined based on the sex
differences.
The feminist theory aims to understand the nature of inequality
and focuses on gender politics and power relations with the issues
on:
• Reproductive rights
• Domestic violence
• Maternity
• Sexual harassment
• Discrimination and
• Sexual violence
Feminism is a social movement that questions gender
inequalities and tries to change them