Block - 1 Nature and Scope

BANC-102
Introduction to Social
and
Cultural Anthropology
School of Social Sciences

Indira Gandhi National Open University
EXPERT COMMITTEE
Professor Vinay Kumar Srivastava Professor R. Siva Prasad
Former Professor and Head, Department Former Professor and Head, Department of Prof. Rashmi Sinha
of Anthropology, University of Delhi. Anthropology, University of Hyderabad Faculty of Anthropology, SOSS,
Currently Director, Anthropological IGNOU, New Delhi
Survey of India. Professor Soumendra M. Patnaik Dr. Rukshana Zaman
Vice Chancellor Utkal University, Faculty of Anthropology, SOSS,
Professor Subhadra Mitra Channa Bhubaneswar, Odisha IGNOU, New Delhi
Former Professor, Department of
Anthropology, University of Delhi. Delhi Professor Mini Bhattacharya Dr. Palla Venkatramana
Department of Anthropology Faculty of Anthropology, SOSS,
Professor K.K. Misra Gauhati University, Guwahati IGNOU, New Delhi
Former Professor and Head, Department of Dr. K. Anil Kumar
Anthropology, University of Hyderabad Professor Nita Mathur
Faculty of Sociology, SOSS, Faculty of Anthropology, SOSS,
Former Vice Chancellor, Utkal University IGNOU, New Delhi
of Culture, Odisha IGNOU, New Delhi
COURSE PREPARATAION TEAM

Block 1 Nature And Scope
UNIT 1 Social and Cultural Anthropology: Prof. Subhadra Mitra Channa, Former Professor, Department of Anthropology
Meaning, Scope and Relevance University of Delhi
UNIT 2 History and Development of Prof. Subhadra Mitra Channa, Former Professor, Department of Anthropology,
Social and Cultural Anthropology University of Delhi
UNIT 3 Relationship of Social and Dr. Keya Pandey, Department of Anthropology, University of Lucknow, Lucknow
Cultural Anthropology: Other Unit 3 Edited by:
Branches of Anthropology Professor Vinay Kumar Srivastava, Former Professor and Head, Department of
and other Disciplines Anthropology, University of Delhi. Currently Director, Anthropological
Survey of India.
Block 2 Basic Concepts

UNIT 4 Society Prof. Vinay Kumar Srivastava, Former Head and Professor. Department of Anthropology,
Delhi, Currently Director, Anthropological Survey of India.
UNIT 5 Culture Dr. Rukshana Zaman, Faculty of Anthropology, SOSS, IGNOU
UNIT 6 Institutions I: Kinship, Family, Dr. Rukshana Zaman, Faculty of Anthropology, SOSS, IGNOU
Marriage
Unit 5 and 6 Edited by:
UNIT 7 Institutions II: Economic, Prof. Subhadra Mitra Channa, Former Professor, Department of Anthropology,
Political Religious University of Delhi.
Block 3 Theor etic al Per spec tiv es
UNIT 8 Classical Theories Prof. Subhadra Mitra Channa, Former Professor, Department of Anthropology
University of Delhi
UNIT 9 Theories of Structure Prof. Vinay Kumar Srivastava, Former Head and Professor, Department of Anthropology,
and Function University of Delhi, Currently Director, Anthropological Survey of India.
UNIT 10 Contemporary Theories Prof. Subhadra Mitra Channa, Former Professor, Department of Anthropology,
University of Delhi.
Block 4 Fie ld wo r k
UNIT 11 Fieldwork Traditions Prof. Vinay Kumar Srivastava, Former Professor and Head, Department of Anthropology,
in Anthropology University of Delhi, Currently Director, Anthropological Survey of India.
UNIT 12 Doing Fieldwork Dr. Rukshana Zaman, Faculty of Anthropology, SOSS, IGNOU
UNIT 13 Methods and Techniques Prof. Vinay Kumar Srivastava and Dr. Rukshana Zaman
Unit 12 and 13 Edited by:
Prof. Subhadra Mitra Channa, Former Professor, Department of Anthropology,
PRACTICAL MANUAL Dr. Rukshana Zaman, Faculty of Anthropology, SOSS, IGNOU
Practical Manual Edited by:
Prof. Subhadra Mitra Channa, Former Professor, Department of Anthropology,
Course Coordinator : Dr. Rukshana Zaman, Discipline of Anthropology, IGNOU

General Editors : Dr. Rukshana Zaman and Dr. Mitoo Das, Discipline of Anthropology, IGNOU
Academic Consultants Cover Design
Dr. Pankaj Upadhayay Dr. Avitoli Zhimo
Dr. Monika Saini Photo Credit, Hardik, Gaurav, Davangi, Visual Anthropology Lab,
Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi, Delhi
PRINT PRODUCTION Secretarial Assistant

Mr. Manjit Singh Mr. Rampal Singh
Section Officer (Pub.), SOSS, IGNOU, New Delhi Mr. Naresh Kumar
October, 2019
© Indira Gandhi National Open University, 2019
ISBN-
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Indira Gandhi National Open University.
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Course Contents
Block 1 NATUREAND SCOPE Pages

UNIT 1 Social and Cultural Anthropology: Meaning, Scope and Relevance 9
UNIT 2 History and Development of Social and Cultural Anthropology 21
UNIT 3 Relationship of Social and Cultural Anthropology: Other Branches of
Anthropology and Other Disciplines 36
Block 2 BASIC CONCEPTS

UNIT 4 Society 49
UNIT 5 Culture 64
UNIT 6 Institutions I: Kinship, Family and Marriage 77
UNIT 7 Institutions II: Economic, Political and Religious 92
Block 3 THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
UNIT 8 Classical Theories 107
UNIT 9 Theories of Structure and Function 121
UNIT 10 Contemporary Theories 133
Block 4 FIELDWORK
UNIT 11 Fieldwork Traditions in Anthropology 147
UNIT 12 Doing Fieldwork 157
UNIT 13 Methods and Techniques 168
PRACTICAL MANUAL 179

Suggested Reading 196
Nature and Scope
4
BANC 102 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL AND
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Course Introduction
Social and cultural anthropology under its rubric encompasses the study of society and culture.
The foremost contribution of the subject has been in the understanding of the various societies
and cultures across the globe both objectively and subjectively, doing away with biases and
prejudices, while presenting their relative importance. The main objective of the course is for the
learners to understand in a holistic manner the social institutions and the cultural attributes that
constructs human societies.
Learning Outcomes
After reading the course the learner would be able to:
i) explain the origin, historical background and foundation of social and cultural anthropology;
ii) identify the various institutions in a society and relate to the cultural aspects present in societies;
iii) discuss the theories and approaches to the social and cultural anthropology; and
iv) describe how fieldwork is to be conducted in the field of social and cultural anthropology.
Course Presentation
The course has been divided into four blocks and a practical manual. Each block has been
thematically arranged units. In total there are thirteen units. Now let us see what we have discussed
in each block.
Block 1: The first block will acquaint the learners with the basic understanding of the foundation
of social and cultural anthropology along with its emergence as a scientific discipline. This block
deals with the early developments that lead to the beginning of the discipline of social and cultural
anthropology. Herein, the development of the subject in Britain and America has been dealt that
presents the question of why the British anthropologists laid emphasis on society and the American
anthropologists on culture. The growth and development of social and cultural anthropology in
India is also reflected upon. The learners would also gain insight as to how the subject is different
yet have similarities with some of the other disciplines like sociology, psychology, history, political
science etc.
Block 2: The second block deals with the study of the forms and processes in the conceptulisation
of society and culture. This block takes into account the social institutions that are the pillars of
the society. Social groups; concepts of kinship, marriage and family; religious ideas and ritual
practices; the production, consumption and exchange of necessities. The learners while reading
this block would be able to comprehend how culture is entwined with the institutions forming
an integral part of society. Institutions are universal in societies however, it is cultural variations
that bring forth diversity.
Block 3: The third block presents the theories and approaches, some defunct some still in practice,
that make up the study of human society and culture. From this block the learners would gain
insight as to how the theories have changed with the perspectives that the anthropologists looked
at societies. In the initail stages of the subject the focus was on how evolution had taken place,
to diffusion, then the trend was to understand the functions and the structures within a society.
In the twenty first century how the focus has shifted to modern and post modern phases and
the inclusion of the female voice in anthropological writings.
5
Nature and Scope
Block 4: In the last block, the learner would be introduced to field traditions and fieldwork, the
hallmark of anthropology. The nuances of how to conduct a fieldwork, the tools and techniques that
are to be used during data collection in the field, compilation and analysing the data after returning
from the field to writing and presentation of the dissertation, thesis or project report has been discussed
in depth. This block would prepare the learner to take up anthropological fieldwork.
Practical Manual: The practical manual would assist the learners to prepare a synopsis. It is a
guide for the learners to acquaint themselves with the process of preparing a synopsis. The manual
would guide the learners to prepare a synopsis step by step right from the stage of conceptualising
a topic to the style citing references.
All the best, happy reading and wish you success. Hope the course material act as a guide for
you to achieve your goals.
6
BLOCK 1
NATURE AND SCOPE
7
UNIT 1
Social and Cultural Anthropology: Meaning, Scope and
Relevance
UNIT 2
History and Development of Social and Cultural
Anthropology
UNIT 3
Relationship of Social and Cultural Anthropology: Other
Branches of Anthropology and other Disciplines
8
UNIT 1 SOCIALAND CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY: MEANING,
SCOPE AND RELEVANCE
Contents
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Society and Culture
1.2 Social and CulturalAnthropology
1.3 Scope of Social and CulturalAnthropology
1.4 The Relevance of Social and CulturalAnthropology
1.5 Summary
1.6 References
1.7 Answers to Check your Progress
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this Unit the learners would be able to:
 explain the concept of social and cultural anthropology;
 comprehend the reasons for distinguishing between social and cultural
anthropology, the context in which it developed;
 figure out the application or scope of having learnt social and cultural
anthropology; and
 grasp as to whyit is important to be trained in socialand cultural anthropology.
1.0 INTRODUCTION
In order to know about social and cultural anthropology, the learner must first learn
about what society is and what culture is? How are they related and how are they
different? Most of us go through life taking these entities as given, we never reflect
on the fact that society and culture are not like the natural environment, theyare not
given and they are not created byany divine intervention, although for a long time,
people did believe that society was a creation of God and that culture was something
that was divinely ordained. Let us take for example the matter of food, or what we
eat. Many people, in fact a majorityof people across the globe eat what they consider
food, in other words not merely something edible or something that a human body
can digest, but something that they believe should be eaten, and similarly there are
foods that cannot be eaten, again not because they are not food in the biological
sense of the word, and there are people who do eat what some other people consider
non- food. Even more than that, for many people some things are forbidden by
religion or as they believe by their God; so that eating of forbidden foods may
actually be a sin.
Contributor: Professor Subhadra Mitra Channa, Former Professor, Department of

Anthropology, University of Delhi. 9
Nature and Scope But ifwe reflect upon all these taboos and examine them from an intellectual point of
view, it becomes clear that these are forbidden not bygod but by culture, and these
cultural taboos are often a product of history, of circumstances and may have their
hidden rationality (Harris 1985). Again, reflecting upon what is society and what is
culture, we come to the conclusion that these are human creations, may be not
conscious, but certainly by the operation of reasoning that evolves over historical
time and is situated within social, economic and political contexts. Neither society,
nor culture is static. They evolve and transform over time. What may have been
considered wrong at one point of time becomes right at another point of time. In this
unit we would examine these concepts in somewhat greater details.
1.1 SOCIETYAND CULTURE

A human child is born into a pre-existing set of social relationships. As soon as a
child is born, it has some relatives, that include its parents, its siblings, its grandparents
and so on. These relatives in turn are part of a larger set of relationships we call a
kinship network that may be part of an even larger group like a clan, or a caste, and
finally the set of relationships is closed and we have a society that has an identity like
a specific tribe, an ethnic group or a country, nation or linguistic community. The
sense of belonging to a group is called as social identity. This identity can have
several layers. Thus if one is an Indian, we can say that we belong to Indian society.
Within Indian society, we can say we belong to a religious community, like being a
Hindu or a Christian or we can be belonging to a tribe or to a caste group.
At each level, we can saythat society is a network of relationships and belonging to

a particular set of relationships gives us an identity. Some identities are the ones that
we are born with, these are known as ascribed and some we pick up later in life and
these are known as acquired. The identities that we are born with also make us into
a particular type of person. Like speaking a particular language or even languages,
eating a kind of food, following a particular way of life and worshipping particular
deities and believing in certain things as if they were the truth. This last aspect is
known as a world-view. Each one of us has a particular cognition about the world
we live in, and have prescribed ways to deal with our life situations.
We are thus born into a set of relationships we call society and by virtue of being
born in a specific time and place we acquire certain ways of doing and thinking that
we call as culture. A culture is a way of life, a pattern of doing things, and a set of
meanings that weimpose uponthe worldaround us. It is throughculturethat everything
around us becomes meaningful. It is culture that also makes human beings different
from each other for culture is an acquired and not a genetic trait.
As humans we are one species and as a species we have common traits. One of
these human traits is the capacity for symbolic behaviour or the capacity for abstract
thinking. Human beings can imagine, they can attribute meanings to objects that is
not an inherent property of that object. Thus sounds for humans can become
organised into language where sounds take on meanings that are arbitrarily assigned
to them. This is the reason whythere are so many, in fact numerous human languages,
each different from the other. We can call for example a frog in so many different
ways and this is possible because none of these sounds that mean a frog in different
languages are in any way connected with the frog as an object. In other words all
labels and names (sounds) are arbitrary. This is the reason why humans as one
species show the largest variety in what they eat, do or the way in which they live.
10
We do not live by our genetics or our instincts but by a self- acquired mechanism Social and Cultural
Anthropology: Meaning, Scope
called culture (Kaplan and Manners 1972). and Relevance
But to have culture one must be a part of a society for as alreadyindicated culture is
not an inherent trait, it is acquired. So how does a human acquire culture, it is by
being born in and being brought up in a society. We learn to live in society in a way
that society can reproduce itself. We learn to behave according to rules that we call
as social norms. These social norms and rules are acquired by transmission through
processes we call as socialisation or the way in which a human child is brought up by
its adult care givers. We also acquire or learn the ways of life and the meanings that
provide the blue print for behaviour, like what to eat and how to eat, what to wear
and how to wear, how to behave like a proper member of the society and how not
to live so as to not become a social drop out. These ways of moving, speaking, the
knowledge of collective meanings is called as culture and the process of acquiring
culture is called as enculturation.
These two processes go hand in hand. We learn there is something called a parent
child relationship, this is socialisation and we learn the appropriate behaviour that
goes with this relationship and this is called enculturation.
Check Your Progress 1
1. What is social identity?
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2. Explain the meaning of world- view.
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3. What do you understand by ascribed and achieved status?
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4. Is culture a genetically inherited trait?
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5. What is socialisation and enculturation?
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Nature and Scope
6. How is culture transmitted from one generation to the next?
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1.2 SOCIALAND CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY

Social anthropology deals primarily with the study of social relationships and the
study of what we call as social institutions like family, kinship, political institutions
and economic institutions. Theystudynorms and rules ofbehaviour and the structures
that constitute society.
Cultural anthropologists studysymbols and meaning systems, theystudy values and
beliefs and what are the underlying principles that guide action.Although related, the
two branches emphasize different aspects and approach their subject matter
differently. For example, if one is studying political institutions from a social
perspective, then one will study the institutional structure of the political system, like
if it is a Panchayat, thenthe structure of personnel, their rights and duties, the hierarchy
and norms and principles of interaction etc. If one is studying the political arena from
a cultural perspective then, one will not focus on the structural aspects but will focus
on the negotiations of power, the strategies and the tactics by which power is used
and manipulated. From a cultural perspective one may focus not on the positions
themselves but the processes bywhichthese are obtained. Theculturalanthropologists
would focus on the symbols by which power is manifested and the subtle use of
meanings in expressing and maintaining power.
Historically the social anthropological perspective was developed in Britain and the
European continent, following the French School of Mauss, Hubert and Durkheim.
The doyens of the social anthropological perspective were scholars like A.R.
Radcliffe-Brown, E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Bronislaw Malinowski, Raymond Firth and
others of the British school and they influenced Indian anthropologists like M.N.
Srinivas and others. Structures of hierarchy, co-operation and association, formal
rules of behaviour and norms of interaction forms the focus of social anthropological
analysis.
Cultural anthropology developed in the U.S.A for historical reasons. The founding
father of cultural anthropology inAmerica was Franz Boas. He was followed by his
students, such asAlfred Kroeber, Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, Ruth Bunzel and
other distinguished scholars like Darryl Forde, Melville Herskovits, Ralph Linton
and others. It deals more with the super-organic (cultural) aspects than with actual
existing social relationships as most of the indigenous people of America were
dispersed or eliminated in the process of colonisation. Culture also examines the
historical and environmental aspects as culture is supposed by definition to be
historically derived and environmentally contextualised. Thus in a cultural approach
we will examine how cultural traits develop, diffuse, adapt to the surroundings and
how they form part of a larger system of meanings.
While cultural aspects like meanings and values are also discussed ina social relational
approach, theyare subverted to the primaryfocus on structures. Similarlyin a cultural
approach the structures form onlya background against which meanings and symbols
are contextualised.
12
Check Your Progress 2 Social and Cultural
7. What do social anthropologists focus on when they study communities? and Relevance
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8. What aspects of society do cultural anthropologists emphasise?
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9. Name some ofthe early scholars who worked in the field of social anthropology
from Britain and Europe.
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10. Name some of the early scholars who worked in the field of cultural
anthropology from USA.
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1.3 SCOPE OF SOCIALAND CULTURAL

ANTHROPOLOGY
You must be wondering, as you learn this subject, as to what is the scope of being a
social or a cultural anthropologist? What are the areas of knowledge that this subject
touches upon?You will be happyto know that social/cultural anthropology has one
of the widest scope as compared to any other subject, for it deals directly with the
human situation. If we study ourselves as human beings, this is the subject that we
rely upon. In anthropology, humans are treated as a totalityand not simply as a body
(medical science) or a mind (psychology) or as an animal species (zoology). Of
course there are subjects like history and geography that come close to cultural
anthropology, but they too do not deal with all aspects of being human. Thus as a
cultural anthropologist, you will study history but it need not only be the written or
documented history that historians usually rely upon, but it will include what we call
as oralhistory and ethno-history.Anthropologists take people as their primarysubject
of study, for them it is more important to know the people’s version of history for it
is this version that motivates and triggers action. People act according to their beliefs
and ethno-history or the people’s version of their history is what is going to predict
how people will behave.Anthropologists are not concerned with what is documented
and followed by the academic community but what is believed in and followed by
the common people at large. It is the latter version that determines the course of
history and shapes collective human action. 13
Nature and Scope It must be noted that anthropology does not focus on the individual like the
psychologists, theyare only interested in the collective and the public domain. Both
society and culture are in the realm of the total society and although shared, do not
refer to individual characters or propensities. The relation of individuals to society, in
the sense that how the individual is shaped bysociety, and how the individuals through
their actions and behaviour reproduce society is a matter of concern for
anthropologists. For example humans do not mate they marry, in other words, who
they choose as their partner is largely determined by their cultural conditioning, even
when one assumes that there is a free choice. For example in the American society,
marriage is supposed to be determined byfree individual choice but actual study of
marriages indicate that majority of marriages rarely take place across the racial and
even the class divide. But at the same time, as society is changing the values with
respect to inter-racial marriage is also changing, thus social and cultural changes
often accompany each other. In the USA for example, the election of a black
president, the changes in perception due to urbanisation and education and the
generally liberal attitudes of some parts of the USA has led to a sea change in
patterns of marriage (Bialik 2017). Data from the few research centers indicates
that there has been a more than five- fold increase from 3% in 1967 to 17% among
all newlyweds towards inter-racial marriage pattern in 2015. Among all married
people in 2015, 10% show inter-racial marriage. Of course the occurrence of 10%
marriage shows that for a long time, people in USA did not marry across the race
divide that is onlypicking up in recent times. Yet the veryfigures indicate that cultural
prejudices do come in the way of a society being truly open, even when it is
ideologicallyso. Anthropologists are by training immensely suited to investigate the
occurrence of such inhibitions in an open society, where there exist no legal or social
barriers to inter-marriage. The facts also indicate that change is occurring.
Anthropologists would engage in studying both the initial existence of the prejudices
and also analysing the deeper causes of changes, when they occur.
Cultural anthropologists would look for the changing meanings of marriage, the
changing colour symbols and changes in values and ideology. The social
anthropologists would look for structural changes, the changing economic and power
equations and transforming hierarchies. The election of a black president in the US
indicates both changes in social hierarchies and power structures as well it indicates
cultural transformations of values. This is not to say that there is such a division of
labour between social and cultural anthropologists as most scholars would look for
allthese factors. Thus we prefer to use the combinedterm social/cultural anthropology
in recent times than emphasise upon one or the other.
Social anthropology focuses generally upon aspects of society such as social
stratification, studiesof social institutions suchas those pertaining to economy, politics,
religion and law.Amajor aspect of social anthropological studies is that pertaining to
kinship, family and marriage. The classical works of these kinds were the books;
African Systems of Kinship and Marriage, African Political Systems, Witchcraft
among the Azande, The Nuers, Nuer Religion and so on. Social anthropologists
also studiedchange and various types of socialtransformations. Withthe incorporation
of Marxism into anthropology, the aspect of history was also covered in
anthropological analysis.
Culturalanthropologistswere able to ventureinto manymore directions, theAmerican
school gave rise to ecological anthropology, psychological anthropology, medical
anthropology, linguistic anthropology, historicalanthropologyand now we have many
more branches ofanthropology, like enterprise anthropology, anthropology ofwomen,
anthropology of tourism, anthropology of disaster and risk management and any
14
other numbers of fields into which anthropologists now venture. In every case the Social and Cultural
anthropologists try to bring their methodologyof qualitative, in depth analysis and and Relevance
data collection into each of these aspects of human existence. Where we compete
with already existing disciplines like psychologyand history, the anthropologists justify
their existence by their method.
Psychological anthropologists differ from psychologists in that while psychologists
believe that the human brain and mind are similar inall human beings and that classical
psychological studies treated all human minds as alike, psychological anthropology
investigates the relationship between the individual mind and culture (Bourguignon
1979). According to the founders of the culture and personality school, that led to
the formation of psychological anthropology as a sub-discipline of social/cultural
anthropology, if we accept Freud’s theory of earlychildhood experiences affecting
adult personality, thensince different cultures practice different child rearing practices,
there is going to be a collective cultural influence on all children brought up in the
same culture, that will give rise to some collective personalitytraitsin persons subjected
to the similar process of enculturation. For example practices such as feeding,
weaning, toilet training and sleep patterns of infants are largelyconditioned bycultural
norms. For example in SouthAsia, most children sleep with their mothers and are
carried in the lap or back of parents and adult care givers. InAmerican society on
the other hand, even infants are put in a separate room and bed and are carried in
strollers and almost never in the lap. These fundamental differences in the handling
of the child are likely to produce differences in adult personality. Contemporary
psychologists too have begun to incorporate the concept of cross-cultural personality
traits in their work (see Schwartz, White and Lutz 1992).
Reflection
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) proposed the psychoanalytic theory
(psyche = the mind and analysis = looking at the parts of the mind individually
to see how they relate). It is the first theory that describes the stages of
development through childhood. The basic premise of the theory is that
the biological urges move an individual through a series of stages that is
responsible for shaping one’s personality.
Freud had given his theory of early childhood personality development based
on what he considered universal human traits largely biologically
determined. According to Freud three stages are involved particularly,
oral, anal and oedipal and get resolved by cultural means such as weaning,
toilet training and cultural interpretation of parenthood.
Eminent social anthropologists John Beattie has written that “Social anthropologists
in fact concern themselves with three different levels of data; (i) ‘what actually
happens’, (ii) ‘what people think happens’ and (iii) what theythink ought to happen,
their legal and moral values” (Beattie c.f. Moore and Sanders 2006: 149). Thus the
first is often established bystatistical analysis like the example of inter-racial marriage
that we have already talked about. Anthropologists will not be satisfied by such
mere statement of data. They now go into the details of social interaction between
the different ‘races’, their norms and values of interaction, even their history and
context. They would as cultural anthropologists examine the symbolic significance
of race and the moral aspects. Alot about these interactions would depend on how
people interpret and understand the institution of marriage. Thus anthropologists
engage in multi-faceted analysis taking various dimensions of a phenomenon into
account. 15
Nature and Scope Check Your Progress 3
11. State the subject matter of SocialAnthropology.
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12. State the subject matter of CulturalAnthropology.
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1.4 THE RELEVANCE OF SOCIALAND

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
It is also accepted in anthropological theory that the real social conditions do not
show up on the surface but are at deeper layers below the visible reality, and to look
for the realreasons, one mayhave to go deeper. This is the reasonthat anthropological
methods require long term and engaged studyof a particular situation or ‘field’. This
in-depth study is mostly qualitative in nature where one engages with real human
beings rather thanjust relyonsecondarydata or statistics. Thisis where anthropologists
differ significantly from economists, as to them concepts like poverty are not just
statistical figures but relate to real people, their lives and their real life conditions.
Anthropologists tend to put a face on the facts that they present.
The ethnographic method, as the anthropologicalmethod of doing a holistic study of
a specific area, is called, often uses as data, personal narratives, life histories and
face to face interviews with real people. It also involves the anthropologist going and
staying for long periods of time with the people who are being studied and whose
lives are then shared by them. This is known in anthropological language as ‘going
native’. Thus anthropological fieldwork involves the subjective interaction of the
anthropologist with the field that can no longer be viewed as an object. The
subjectivities of the informants and that of the anthropologist form an interaction
where the subjective self of the anthropologist cannot be ignored. In other words
the anthropologist is not the passive, objective, scientific observer of the laboratory
situation; he or she is a living human being in contact with other human beings and
thus his or her emotions and sentiments remain alive. The fieldwork situation is an
interaction of one human being with others and therefore there is a cognitive and
perceptualelement frombothsides. Theverypresence oftheanthropologist transforms
the field as others begin to interact with the scholar, who becomes situated in the
field, as a part of it (Clifford and Marcus 1990). This very subjectivity, the lack of
so-called scientific objectivityis the hall mark of the anthropological method.
Such close interactions with the human beings often bring out data that would never
be accessible by any superficial or short term methods. The scope of anthropology
thus extends to every dimension of human life but in a way that these areas are
accessed with humane concern and empathy. The anthropologists thus find themselves
as advocates for the people they study, representing them and fighting for them at
various forums. The anthropologists’ immersion inthe field, gives theman empathetic
16
relationship with them, so that they oftenend up thinking like them. Thus the scholar Social and Cultural
also becomes an activist or he or she applies the knowledge that they have gained and Relevance
for the good of the people who they begin to identify as their own. Most
anthropologists refer to their informants as ‘my people’; often forming a lifelong
relationship with them.
The most important contribution of anthropology as a discipline is to learn to move

beyond what is known as ‘ethno-centrism’. Since all human beings are enculturated
into a particular way of life, it is also very common for people to get into the mind-
set that their way of life is the best way. Even if people are not consciously thinking
in these terms we get used to accepting some things as ‘normal’ and it is verydifficult
for us to move beyond this comfort zone of what we consider the appropriate way
of living. Many kinds of culturalpractices and habits appear ‘disgusting’, ‘shocking’
or strange to some people while theymay be perfectly acceptable and ‘normal’ for
those who practice them. Thus eating dogs, men wearing skirts, women shaving
their heads, marriages of infants, female infanticide etc. are practices that may shock
or produce disgust in those who may not be used to them.
Anthropologists on the other hand are trained to stretch their power of acceptance
to stretched limits where, even if they may not bring themselves to practice these
customs, can at least try to justify them for people who do, for example read Felix
Padel’s (2011) work on human sacrifice among the Kondh tribes of Orissa, where
even if not exactly supporting the custom, he shows how the practice itself was
distorted and blown out of proportion by the British administrators who used this
data to project the Kondhs as ‘primitive’ and barbaric. He also demonstrates through
the use of archival and field data, how the British intervention in this matter and their
ruthless persecution of the tribals was far more savage and caused far more human
misery than was ever caused by the actual practice of human sacrifice.
Thus a primary work of anthropologists is to investigate the real data, to go beyond

stereotypes and prejudices to analyse with an open mind. To the anthropologists,
there are societies and there are cultures. They are also now strongly committed to
the value of not judging any cultural or social practice and to only understand things
in their own context. This movingbeyond ethnocentrismtowards auniversalhumanism
is now the hallmark of being an anthropologist. As students of anthropology you
must also learn to be non-judgmental, to appreciate diversity and to understand that
humans live according to their culture and cultures are not genetic, but acquired as
members of divergent societies. It is a human trait that we are diverse in our ways of
life and the relevance of anthropologywhich is a human as well as a humane science
is to understand this diversity and learn to respect it.Anthropologists are extremely
respectful of the ways of other people and they are also making all efforts to extend
this appreciation to others, so that more and more people are able to understand the
relevance and need of cultural diversityand tolerance for ways not their own.

13. Describe the term ‘going native’.
...........................................................................................................
...........................................................................................................
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........................................................................................................... 17
Nature and Scope 14. What is subjectivity?
...........................................................................................................
...........................................................................................................
...........................................................................................................
15. Suggest any two relevance of studying anthropology.
...........................................................................................................
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1.5 SUMMARY
In this unit you have learnt the basics about the discipline of social and cultural
anthropology. The student had been told the difference as well as the integral
relationship between society and culture and how both of these are a hall mark of
our existence as humans on this earth. Without culture there are no humans and
without society there can be no culture as it is behaviour, values and practices that
we learn only as members of society and society cannot be reproduced as a set of
enduring relationships if people did not behave according to the cultural norms.
Thus social groups such as caste, tribe and ethnic groups reproduce themselves
through the institutions of marriage. But people are culturallyconditioned to marry in
a way that they reproduce their societies.
We have learnt how anthropology as a discipline has got a wide scope as
anthropological methods and methodology, is capable of understanding almost any
phenomenonpertaining to humansocietyand humanbehaviour.Thus religion, politics,
philosophy, psychology and economics are all within the purview of anthropology,
except that anthropology approaches these dimensions of society in a manner quite
different from those adopted classically in the disciplines of say, psychology,
economics and political science. Todaymanyof themincluding historiansare adopting
what we understand as the ethnographic method. Fieldwork or the gathering of data
frompeople directlyis something that psychologists, culturalgeographers and historians
are also doing. Social and cultural anthropologists have the unique ability to
communicate across cultures and this does not just mean speaking the same language
but it means that they are able to break down the cognitive barrier that usually exists
between persons of different cultures or even class and communitybackground. In
the next unit we will explore the history and development of social and cultural
anthropology.
1.6 REFERENCES
Beattie, John. H. M. (2006). “Understanding and Explanationin SocialAnthropology”
In Henrietta Moore and Todd Sanders (ed) Anthropology in Theory. pp 148-159;
org Published in British Journal of Sociology 10(1) (1959) pp 45-57.
Bialik, Kristen. (2017). “Key facts about race and marriage, 50 years after Loving
v: Virginia” www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/12/key-facts-about-race-and-
marriage-50years-after-loving v-Virginia/;Accessed on 9th August 2017, at 11.00
a.m.
18
Bourguignon, Erika. (1979). Psychological Anthropology: An Introduction to Social and Cultural
Human Nature and Cultural Differences. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. and Relevance
Clifford, James. and George. E. Marcus. (eds) (1990). Writing Culture: The
Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Evans-Pritchard, E.E. (1940). The Nuer. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
Fortes, Meyer. (1969). Kinship and the Social Order. Chicago: Aldine Publishers.
Harris, Marvin. (1985). Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture. Illinois:
Waveland Press.
Kaplan, David. and Robert AManners. (1972). Culture Theory. Illinois: Waveland
Press.
Lewis, I.M. (1976). Social Anthropology in Perspective: The Relevance of Social
Anthropology. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Moore, Henrietta, and Todd Sanders. (eds) (2006). Anthropology in Theory:
Issues in Epistemology. USA: Blackwell Publishing.
Padel, Felix. (2011). (original publication: 1995 Oxford UniversityPress). Sacrificing
People: Invasions of a Tribal Landscape. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.
Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. (1952). Structure and Function in Primitive Society. New
York: The Free Press.
Schwartz, Theodor, Geoffrey M. White and Catherine ALutz (eds). (1992). New
Directions in Psychological Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Stocking, G. (1974). The Shaping of American Anthropology, 1883-1911: A
Franz Boas Reader. New York: Basic Books.
1.7 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

1. refer to section 1.1.
4. No.
5. refer to para 6 of section 1.1.
9. A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Bronislaw Malinowski, Raymond
Firth and others.
10. Franz Boas, Alfred Kroeber, Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, Ruth Bunzel,
Darryl Forde, Melville Herskovits, Ralph Linton and others.
11. refer to section 1.3 paragraph four.
19
Nature and Scope 12. refer to section 1.3 paragraph five.
13. refer to section 1.4 paragraph two.
20
UNIT 2 HISTORYAND DEVELOPMENT
OF SOCIALAND CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
Contents
2.0 Introduction
2.1 WhyAnthropology?
2.2 The Historical Background to the Development of Social and Cultural
Anthropology
2.3 Anthropology as a Discipline
2.4 The British and theAmerican Schools ofAnthropology
2.5 Development ofAnthropologyin India
2.6 Summary
2.7 References
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
In this unit the learners will be able to discuss the:
 genesis of the subject of social and cultural anthropology;
 historical time frame for their development including the political and economic
context;
 historical roots of the differentiation of the two branches in the colonial period;
and
 history of development of anthropology in India.
2.0 INTRODUCTION
Anthropology, defined as the study of (Hu)Man is paradoxically among the most
recent of all disciplines that was considered worthy of study. The reason was also
simple, that human communities across the world took their society and ways of life
as given, as a taken for granted truth for which no questions were asked. Questions
and doubts, that some people naturally have, were answered through existing
cosmologies and religious doctrines. In this unit you will learn about the fascinating
story of how and why after many centuries of learning to read and write and after
developing the astronomical, mathematical, biological and allother sciences, humans
finally turned the inquisitive gaze upon themselves.
2.1 WHYANTHROPOLOGY?
Around the 16th century, Europe underwent a paradigm shift in philosophical thinking
as it expanded its geopolitical boundaries across the world in terms of travel and
Contributor: Professor Subhadra Mitra Channa, Former Professor, Department of

Anthropology, University of Delhi.
21
Nature and Scope trade. There was growing disillusionment withthe Church and itsdictums. The French
Revolution as well as theAmericanRevolution brought about the realisation that the
social order was not based on divine origins but was an entity that could be shaken
at its roots by human action and agency. The exposure to the rest of the globe also
made the Europeans realise that societies and people could be found in varieties of
forms and shapes, not only in terms of physical differences but also in terms of
customs, ways of life and thinking. Even before Darwin andWallace had formulated
the theories ofbiologicalevolution, theFrench thinkers and theScottish Enlightenment
philosophers were formulating their hypotheses of human social evolution and the
possibility of society being a human rather than a divine creation. The exposure to
other cultures triggered ideas of social evolution as the European thinkers tried to
explain the diversity of cultures by connecting them with their own past. Auguste
Comte gave his theory of a stage by stage evolution of human societies that set the
stage for further speculative thinking onthese lines. Comte’s thesisthat human societies
evolved through the ages of Theology, Metaphysics and Reason, put Europeans at
the top of the evolutionary scale. When Europeans looked at other people, they
thought they were looking down as well as looking back (see Aaron 1965).
While Comte concentrated on the reflective faculties of humans and their capacity
for rational thought; another major contributor to theory of social evolution was
Herbert Spencer, who was also a contemporary of Charles Darwinand their theories
of social and biological evolutions overlapped to some extent. Spencer’s rather
controversial theorythat societies behave like natural systems where all those parts
(people) that are weak or lack survival potential get eliminated was established as
the popular conception of ‘survival of the fittest’ that also got mistakenly grafted to
Darwin’s theory of evolution. Spencer’s theory was also used by the emerging
industrial capitalism ofEurope to justify boththe spread of colonial rule and the onus
that capitalism put on the individual entrepreneur. Both Comte and Spencer along
with other European scholars were representing what is known as the Positivist
approach to the study of social phenomenon.
Reflection
The Positivist approach advocated that societies were capable of being
studied and analysed as objects like any other object of scientific
investigation. In other words the scholar of society was also a scientist
who could apply his analytical skills to objectively scrutinize society with
the same degree of objective detachment and methodological rigour that a
scientist brings to his examinations. Societies were compared to organisms
and like organisms they were subjects of evolution and predictable laws.
Two of the greatest 19th centurythinkers, Freud and Marx also followed this positivist
philosophy to put forward their ‘scientific’ theories of human bio-psychological and
social development respectively. Like Darwin both, had great influence on later
developments in social sciences and on the discipline of anthropology. Agreat deal
of theory building in the age of positivism was triggered by the great curiosity that
Europeans had about their ‘origins’ and ultimately it was this search for the origin
and evolution of human beings that gave rise formally to a discipline labeled
anthropology or the, ‘Science of Man’. This original definition of anthropology
indicates the two basic assumptions that informed the establishment ofthis discipline;
one, that humans were potential subjects for scientific analysis in all aspects of their
being and second, that to be really ‘human’ was to be a (Hu)Man.
22
This brings us to another philosophical paradigm of the Age of Reason or History and Development of
Social and Cultural
Enlightenment; the nature/culture dichotomy, and its superimposition on the female/ Anthropology
male duality, recognised and established byalmost all major thinkers of the European
Renaissance, such as Francis Bacon, Freud and even Darwin. Humans with their
faculty of reason were destined to dominate nature and this was also the manner of
defining civilisation. Women, whom both Freud and Darwin had characterised as
driven by instinct, were not guided by reason, as were men. They were more like
nature, biological creatures to be dominated and also protected by men. This was
the mindset that attributed all intellectual activityto the realm ofthe masculine while
the feminine domain was confined to the domestic domain. With the result that most
of the recognised theoreticians of the west were men.
1. Name some of the early thinkers who talked about evolution of human beings
and societies.
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2. Who postulated theconcept of ‘survivalofthe fittest’ intermsof social evolution?
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3. Give two reasons why anthropology is known as the ‘Science of (Hu)Man’.
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2.2 THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND TO THE

DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIALAND CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
No theory arises in a vacuum. It is well known that Galileo and Copernicus were
ahead of their times and suffered the consequences and Darwin came at the right
time to put forward a theory that completely shook what was written in the Bible
about Genesis, but was accepted with enthusiasm. The time of development of
anthropology was at the peak of the colonizing process of Europe over the rest of
the world. The relativelyequal relationship established through trade was being turned
into one of political domination and gross exploitation. Trautmann (1997) has
described how the British treated Indians with respect and almost awe as long as
they were trading, but as soon as the rule of queen Victoria was established Indians
and their culture was denigrated to the level of savagery and allnative customs were
disparagingly dismissed as ‘uncivilised’. The rising needs of capitalist economy were
pushing Europe to a relentless search for resources to feed its growing industries
both in terms of raw materials as well for markets for selling their goods. However
23
at the same time the Enlightenment period was the time of flowering of ideas of
Nature and Scope Equality, Humanism and Liberty; thoughts that originated from the French and
American revolutions. There was the strong beliefinthe Europeansas being ‘civilised’
and carriers of human values of justice and democracy. There was an obvious
contradiction between this faith and the genocidal activities that accompanied
colonisation.
It was the evolutionarytheories that justified and supported the spread of European
rule by creating the image of the ‘primitive other’. As put forward by an array of
scholars from Comte, Bachofen, Maine, McLennan and others; human societies
had gone through several stages that were also linearly progressive. The peak of
evolutionwasreached bythe Westernsocieties; whose dominance wasfurther justified
bySpencer’s dictum of ‘survival of the fittest’. Thus the Europeans were succeeding
because they were more ‘fit’ and also the people they were colonising were the
‘primitives’ who were compared to immature children byFreud and were considered
at lower stages of mental evolution by Darwin and as regressed in stages that had
not quite reached the patriarchal, male dominated civilisation of the west. Scholars
such as Bachofen and McLennan for instance considered female domination as a
sign of ‘backwardness’ putting matriliny/matriarchy as a lower stage of human
evolution. This was in compliance with the view of the nature /culture, women/men
dichotomy already established (Ortner 1974). Since western societies were strongly
patriarchal in both religion and law, they were superior. They were also self-
professed examplesofsuperior civilisation that justified their taking over and ‘civilising’
the primitives.
4. ‘The growth of anthropology was at its peak during the colonisation process of
the Europe over the rest of the world.’ State whether the following statement is
True or False.
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............................................................................................................
5. During the Enlightenment period state the ideas that flowered owing to the
French andAmerican revolutions.
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............................................................................................................
2.3 ANTHROPOLOGYASADISCIPLINE
The discipline of anthropology was finally established as a distinct discipline with
Edward B. Tylor assuming the chair of anthropology at the Oxford University. The
goals of the discipline were to formallystudy and research the origins and diversity
of human beings. Darwin had firmlyestablished that the human was a single species
biologically and the race theories that had attributed differences in human societies
to their racial differences were discarded at the scholarly level. If race was not the
criterion then one had to look for other reasons for both the physical as well as the
social differences between various human groups. The discipline of anthropology
24 then was to examine the biological as well as social evolution of humans and to
explain the observed differences of physical types and of social and cultural life. The History and Development of
Social and Cultural
biological evolution needed to look beyond the time when humans became humans Anthropology
so biologicalevolution was rooted inpaleoanthropologyor the studyof fossil remains
of humans and pre human hominids and also primatology or studyof behaviour and
physiology ofhigher primates. Social evolution on the other hand not onlyexamined
pre-historical remains and archaeological roots but also considered existing human
societies as remains of the past of the most evolved societies namely the western
European.
It was this last assumption that formed the basis of the theory of social evolution
where Tylor assumed that spatial differences could be translated into temporal
differences. While this theoryput some people on the lower rungs of the evolutionary
ladder, it also based itself on what was then recognised as the theory of ‘psychic
unity of mankind’. Since humans were one species, it was believed their mental
functioning would necessarily be the same.All humans were supposed to have one
Culture, what Ingold (1986) has called culture with a capital C. The observed
differences were then explained by saying that the different peoples had evolved to
different levels of culture, with the added proposition that all would ultimately attain
the same level of culture as had already been attained by western civilisation.
Anthropology was at times criticised for being a colonial discipline especially as the
theory of social evolution was both Eurocentric and directly or indirectly supported
colonisation by its definition of ‘civilisation’ as synonymous with the west.
Reflection
Ethnocentrism refers to the feeling of considering one’s own culture as
being superior as well as the ‘normal’ way of doing things. Eurocentric
perspective refers to the Europeans considering their own society and culture
as being at the height of social evolution and most civilised.
Anthropology diversified into four main branches, namely physical or biological

anthropology that dealt with human biological diversity; linguistics that dealt with
relationship between culture and language, archaeology that delved into the past of
human society and social/cultural anthropology. However these branches are not
totally exclusive of each other and the fact of humans evolving as cultured beings,
who live in society, underlies allaspects of anthropology. The initial Eurocentric bias
of anthropologywas later replaced bya far more relativistic and humanistic approach.
The historical transformations of the world had much to do with changes in
anthropological paradigms.
6. Who assumed the first chair of anthropologyin Oxford University?
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
7. Name the four major branches of anthropology.
............................................................................................................
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............................................................................................................ 25
Nature and Scope
2.4 THE BRITISHANDTHEAMERICAN SCHOOLS
OFANTHROPOLOGY
The intrinsic relationship of anthropology with colonisation is explicit in the further
development of the discipline in its British version and the development of what
came to be known as theAmericanCultural Tradition. The academic roots of British
structural –functional school was drawn from the functionalism of Durkheim (1950)
who belonged to the French school of sociology. The structural-functional school
critiqued the classicalevolutionists for their speculative theories. Moving away from
the deductive theories of evolution they moved to empiricism and developed the
field study method that has todaybecome the hall mark of anthropology.
The structural-functional school believed that each society has a structure in the
form ofsocial relationships and there is a functional logic of each part ofthis structure
that contributes to the whole. The basic premises of structural functionalism was
based on the axiom of cultural relativism, that cultures were not higher and lower
manifestation of stages of the same culture, but cultures in plural were each functional
wholes. Each society was bounded and could be compared to a living organism
whose parts contribute to the functioning of the entire body. Thus one could not
study parts ofcultures, like religion and kinship byusing the comparative method, as
was done in classical evolutionary theory, but a society needed to be studied in its
entirety and in depth, and the functional relationship between its parts established by
close and intimate interaction with the people concerned. The British anthropologists
mainly responsible for this approach used it to study those societies under the rule of
the Crown that needed to be governed to be in stable equilibrium. To some extent
the desire of the administrators was reflected in the academic presumptions.
Reflection
Cultural Relativism refers to the theoretical position where aspects of any

culture are seen as relevant, that is functional in their own context and not
comparable to other cultures. This was a criticism of evolutionary theory
and foundation of functional theory.
The fieldwork method was given its classical shape by Bronislaw Malinowski’s long
duration studyof the Trobriand islanders. That Malinowski became a fieldworker of
such dedication, not voluntarily but by the exigencies of the World War, did not
deter from him being declared the master fieldworker of all times and his book
Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922) a manual that all anthropology students
read like the Bible.
The functional studies were carried out by the British and French anthropologists in
most of the colonies and they were often engaged by the colonial governments to
help the administration byproviding information about the people so that they could
be better governed and managed. Often as in India, many administrators became
anthropologists of sorts when they carried out fieldwork among the people they
were required to govern. But the works of these administrators/ethnographers were
not free from bias (Channa 1992). However, although anthropologists were often
initially in the pay of the state, and were required to support the state agenda of
colonisation; as a result of long stayand intimate contact with the people they were
sent to study, they often turned up against the policies of the state. Sometimes their
influence changed the policies of the government, like for example the influence of
26 anthropologist Verrier Elwin were seen onthe policies made byNehru’s government
regarding the manner inwhich the people of North-East of India were to be governed. History and Development of
Social and Cultural
Anthropologists often advocated for retention of local customs and were against Anthropology
undue interference in the lives of the native. The anthropologists working in India
and Africa were mostly part of governments that worked from, ‘outside’. India and
large parts of Africa were external colonies of the British, French and Dutch
governments, that retained to a large extent their native societies and cultures; similar
conditions existed in Indonesia, Burma and other colonies not totallytaken over by
the white populations.
In America, the situation was quite different. Here the NativeAmericans had not
only been dispersed and their societies destroyed; many tribes and communities had
been depleted to almost the last survivors, when the anthropologists began to study
them. The father ofAmerican anthropology, Franz Boas also drew his roots from
German Diffusionism, that emphasised history, migration and a more particularistic
view of social transformation. Unlike the classical evolutionist and functional roots
of British social anthropology, the Americans, facing genocide and massive
dissemination of societies could not face up to a synchronic, functional view of
timeless harmony visualised by the structural-functionalists. First of all theyfocused,
by necessity on the concept of culture as against that of society because what they
did get to study were not functioning societies but left over bits of people’s lives like
myths, folklore, material culture and narratives of ways of lives that had disappeared
or were going to disappear soon. The people they studied, like the Navaho were a
people living in reservations, in abject poverty, mental and physicalmisery, practicing
witchcraft not to maintain a functioningsocietylike the studymade byEvans-Pritchard
on the Azande, but to survive conditions of extreme hardship.
Reflection
Diffusionism is the theory that emphasises on the spread of cultures from
centers of their origin and not on parallel evolution of similar traits. Unlike
evolution it is more inclined towards the decline of cultures over the passage
of time and their distance from the point of their origin. They believe that
original concepts occur rarely and similarities observed in cultural traits is
due to diffusion.
Kroeber, a direct student of Boas and a doyen ofAmerican anthropology, gave his
famous definition of culture as ‘super-organic, supra-individual’; in other words
something that could still be studied even if the culture bearers were gone. Boas’
Historical Particularism was not a theory of sweeping generalisations but looked
upon culture as a product of history, situated in specific environmental conditions
and carried by people who had particular mindsets that were conducive to the nature
of culture they were carrying. In other words Boas and his followers did not limit
themselves to the domain of the social exclusively like the structural-functionalists
but looked to history, psychology and environment to explain the nature of culture.
Boas’ book The Mind of the Primitive Man, was a study in cognition and he was
also influenced by Gestalt Psychology of the German school. The concept of ethos,
developed by Kroeber, where he talks of the whole as being something other than
the sumofits parts, was also influenced bythe Gestalt school. Other scholars emerging
from theAmericanSchool developed the link between culture and personalityfurther,
bringing in psychologicalconcepts to explain culturaldifferences, like RuthBenedict’s
(1934) work The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, based on the patterns of culture
also made use of the concept of cultural ethos. Boas transmitted his interest in
psychology to his students such as Margaret Mead, Linton and others who later laid
the foundations of the branch of psychological anthropology that developed out of 27
Nature and Scope the culture personality school. Freudian theoryof early formation of personality was
reformulated by anthropologists who pointed out that early childhood experiences
were embedded in culturally specific methods of child rearing and therefore culture
was a prime driver of personality formation. One off shoot of this theory was the
concept of national culture that found great popularity.
The American school not only branched off into psychological fields but also into
ecological anthropology, economic anthropology, medicalanthropologyand historical
anthropology from its roots of historical particularism. After the Fifties however the
separation of the two traditions almost disappeared as both structural functionalism
and historical particularism were replaced by more contemporary theories.
Reflection
Sigmund Freud founded the psychoanalytic school and was known for his
theories of human personality development that he identified as rooted in
early childhood experiences. He explained neurosis in terms of unresolved
contradictions of childhood such as the Oedipal Complex.

8. Which method of study is the hallmark of anthropology?
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
9. Who authored the book Argonauts of the Western Pacific?
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
10. Who is regarded as the father ofAmerican anthropology?
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
11. WhydidtheAmerican anthropologists whilestudying the people likethe Navaho
focused on the concept and study of cultures instead of society.
............................................................................................................
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12. Name some of the earlyAmerican anthropologists.
............................................................................................................
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28 ............................................................................................................
History and Development of
2.5 DEVELOPMENT OFANTHROPOLOGY IN Social and Cultural
Anthropology
INDIA
India was a British colony when anthropology was developing. The initial works
that may be regarded as ethnographies were done by the British administrators like
Hutton, with their racial bias and Eurocentrism (Channa 1992), yet they were
genuinely academically oriented and were a highly educated set of people with a
great deal ofcuriosityabout the people and cultures theywere trying to rule. Following
the lead given by their rulers, the early scholars who we now refer to as the fathers
of anthropologicalthinking in India, scholars like S.C. RoyandAnanthakrishna Iyer,
were influenced byEuropeanphilosophyofevolutionand also bya universalhumanism
as is evident in the writings of Roy about the central Indian tribes. They worked
closely with the British administration and created some very comprehensive
ethnologies combining what is now distinguished as social/cultural anthropology and
biological anthropology. These works like Roy’s work on the Mundas and the Oraons
and Iyer’s work on the Cochin tribes, included allaspects oflife, like history, migration,
settlements, physicalfeatures of the people, their material culture, language and social
institutions.
Calcutta was the first university to have a department of anthropology in 1921, and
had among its staff persons like B.S. Guha, Ananthakrishna Iyer, Panchanan Mitra,
N.K. Bose and others. Although social anthropology was first introduced as part of
sociology syllabus in Bombay University in 1919; initiallyanthropology was taught
as an integrated subject that was inclusive of the physical and social aspects. It was
more ethnology than anthropology as can be seen from the monographs of scholars
like S.C. Roy and even those like N.K. Bose, who included all aspects of a society
in their description.
The initial work on what was then known as anthropologywas largelythe collection
of data on the tribal or primitive (as they were then known) under the evolutionist
assumption that these ways of life were to disappear. This work of compilation was
begun by H.H. Risley, who, after the Census work in 1931 initiated an Ethnographic
Survey of India. Since not all parts of India were under British rule at that time, a
request had gone to the sovereign states to co-operate with this survey. The Cochin
Durbar was one entity that agreed to have an ethnographic survey and appointed
L.K. Ananthakrishna Iyer as Superintendent of Ethnography of the Cochin state
from 1902-1924; that resulted in the two volumes of the work; Tribes and Castes
of Cochin, published from 1908-1912. Iyer continued his study till 1920 and then
joined Calcutta University in 1921 from where he retired in 1932.
It is interesting to know that as a native anthropologist Iyer evoked huge amount of

interest among his European counterparts, who were eager to listen to him deliver
lectures on the ‘primitive’ people of India. He travelled and lectured extensively in
Europe and attended the very first Congress ofAnthropological and Ethnological
Sciences, held in London, in 1934; where he was given huge recognition.
When anthropology established itself as a field science and the writing of individual
ethnographies based on the holistic and functional study of single community was
initiated, a number of anthropologists from western countries visited and worked in
India. Prominent among them wereA.R. Radcliffe-Brown, thefather of anthropology
in Great Britain, who wrote his classic monograph on The Andaman Islanders,
29
Nature and Scope published byCambridge University Press in 1922. Before him W.H.R. Rivers, who
was on the border of evolutionism and functionalism; wrote his originalwork on The
Todas, in 1911, a year when the Seligmans’had also published their ethnography of
The Veddas of Ceylon.
S.C. Roy is well known for his scholarly compilations on the Central Indian tribes
such as the Mundas and the Oraons. His work is similar to the early ethnographers.
Another scholar in the same genre doing generalised comparative ethnology was
Iravati Karve. Karve did a region wise compilation of the various kinship systems in
India, including anappraisal of the ancient Indian kinship usages that she had retrieved
from her study of Indian mythology. However, her seminal contribution was to show
that caste and race were not linked in India; a hypothesis that had been generated
by H.H. Risley and supported by scholars such as G.S. Ghurye.
These general ethnographies were followed by more specific and focused works
like that of P.O. Bodding, whose work on Santal medicine (1925-1940) has by
now assumed the status of a classic in medical anthropology. Bodding, a Norwegian
scholar is also well known for his compilation of the Santal grammar (1922) and
other works on Santal folklore and Santal riddles and witchcraft.
A student of A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, M.N Srinivas, is renowned not only for his
excellent ethnographybut also for developing critical insights into the institution of
caste from an indigenous perspective. His use of the terms jati and varna and
introduction of concepts such as Sanskritisation and Dominant Caste, has shown
that an insider’s perspective can be very enriching.
A number of scholars of both Indian and western origin worked in India from the
1930s onwards using field study methods to develop analytical concepts and to
develop a more India oriented anthropology. From the year 1938 onwards, a large
number ofAmerican anthropologists also visited and worked in India that included
people like McKim Marriott, Oscar Lewis, Maurice Opler, Stanly and Ruth Freed,
Robert Redfield, Kathleen Gough, Joan P Mencher, Pauline Kolenda and many
others, who also worked in close collaboration with indigenous scholars and focused
on specifically Indian issues, like caste, ‘jajmani’, untouchability, village studies,
and tribes. There were many analytical terms and categories that developed during
this period, like Universalisation and Parochialisation, Little Tradition and Great
Tradition, Tribalisation, Hinduisation and so on. Amatter ofmuch theoretical debate
was the identification of ‘tribe’ as a category, given the Indian context; and the
notion of tribe-caste continuum was phrased by scholars such as N.K. Bose and
several others (Nathan 1997).
Some western anthropologists like Verrier Elwin and Christopher von Fürer-
Haimendorf, practically left their original countries to go native. Elwin, a born
Englishman and Christian missionary by profession and training had rejected both
identities to become an Indian citizen and also to accept a Hindu identity although
not a conservative upper caste one. Agreat admirer and follower of Gandhi, Elwin
happilymerged with the free and easylife of the tribes, where he married and fathered
his children. He proposed his philosophy for what is now Arunachal Pradesh in
terms of what he visualised as freedom of the people to choose their way of life
without being subject to any external pressure. His close association with the first
prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, led to the policy of Panch Sheel and a
tolerant attitude towards the tribes to continue with their wayof life.
30
History and Development of
Reflection Social and Cultural
Anthropology
Jajmani refers to a redistributive system based on agriculture found in the
caste based Indian villages. The landholding castes give share of produce
to specialist caste groups who provide them with services like hair cutting,
washing of clothes and agricultural labour. In many parts of India the
Brahmin is also a dependent caste providing ritual services in exchange for
food and other subsistence.
Universalisation and Parochialisation: Universalisation is the process
of cultural transmission where a trait from a simpler society gets absorbed
into the universal culture and Parochialisation is the opposite trend where a
trait from a complex civilisation is accepted into a local culture in a modified
form.
Little Tradition and Great Tradition: These terms were coined by Robert
Redfield and refer to the cultures of the simple society and complex society
respectively.
Tribalisation: The acceptance of cultural traits from a tribal society into
caste society so that they develop cultural traits similar to that of the tribe.
It may also mean giving up of some caste based traits and accepting rituals
and food that is found among the tribes.
Hinduisation: This refers mostly to acceptance of Brahmanical values
and caste system.
The Indian scholars were equally influenced in this analytical phase by theAmerican
school as they had earlier been exposed primarily to the British school and the
continent. Some of the early Indian scholars who made significant contribution to
the study of Indian society were S.C. Dube, Leela Dube, A Aiyappan, L.P
Vidyarthi and others. From the fifties onwards, as anthropology was taught as a
separate subject, the combined ethnological approach used earlier was replaced by
a well-developed curriculum which included in-depth study of social anthropology,
physical anthropologyand archaeology.
In more recent times, from the eighties onwards, Indian anthropology has matured
into a far more critical and post-colonial discipline. Works are now being focused
on specific issues, like ecology, gender, exploitation of caste and question of identities
in a complex and transforming world. More contemporary scholars like B.K. Roy
Burman, Virginius Xaxa, Felix Padel, B.D. Sharma have turned a critical gaze upon
the situation of tribes in India, in terms of their exploitation and loss of identity and
resources.
Some stalwarts of Indian anthropology like S.C. Dube and N.K. Bose have given
their own classification of the phases through which Indian anthropology has
developed. Theyidentifyan earlier phase of compilation and making of encyclopedias
and data base of the tribes, a second phase of empirical fieldwork and creation of
qualitatively constructed monographs on tribes, and third, the analytical work done
on them.According to D.N. Majumdar, the first phase can be called the Formulation
Phase (1774-1911), the second phase can be called the Constructive Phase, lasting
from 1912-1937, and the Critical phase that began from 1938. However there has
been considerable changefromthe nineties onwards when theoretical transformations
have led to reconsidering the concept of tribe itself. Following the decolonising
theoretical shifts, the earlier accepted terminologies and labels such as ‘primitive’,
‘tribe’, ‘wild’ etc., are being reformulated and considerable rethinking is being done
(Channa 2015). 31
Nature and Scope It is now realised that much of the classification and labelling was done, not in
deference to the reality but to fulfill the administrative needs of the power holders
(Xaxa 2008, Rycroft and Dasgupta, 2011). Asignificant development has been the
writings of the indigenous scholars; those that were the objects of study have now
agency and a voice to speak about themselves (Hümtsoe-Nienü, Pimomo and Tünyi
2012, Kamei 2004).
Contemporary Indian anthropologyis also engaged in advocacyand applied aspects
of bringing the voice of the marginal to the forefront and to also bring out the real
nature of tribal society, to show that they are not ‘primitive’ or less developed but
have had centuries of well adapted economies and are repository of knowledge
systems of great value, especially for a sustainable future.
13. Name the Universityin India where the first department ofAnthropology was
established in 1921.
.........................................................................................................
.........................................................................................................
.........................................................................................................
14. In which University social anthropology was first introduced as a part of the
Sociology syllabus in 1919 in India.
.........................................................................................................
.........................................................................................................
.........................................................................................................
15. Who is regarded as the father of anthropology in Great Britain? Name his
classic monograph.
.........................................................................................................
.........................................................................................................
.........................................................................................................
16. Who authored The Todas?
.........................................................................................................
.........................................................................................................
.........................................................................................................
2.6 SUMMARY
In this Unit the learners have been given a sweeping glance at the discipline of
anthropology, its foundations that are rooted inthe historyof Europe and its relevance
and spread during the earlyyears. Colonisationwas a major impetus to the foundation
of this subject formally as the British and other European and later American
administrators needed to know about the people they were ruling. Although
anthropology initially developed as the British, French andAmerican Schools, today
32 we have a more integrated global perspective.
The knowledge acquired by the anthropologists by their fieldwork methods were History and Development of
Social and Cultural
seen as assets for understanding and administering unfamiliar people. In the process Anthropology
the colonisers also justified colonisation based upon the evolutionary schema but
were later severely criticised by field based anthropologists who discovered that
most cultural traits have a relevance in their own context and cannot be graded as
high or low. This perspective knownas cultural relativism later made anthropologists
advocate for the rights of marginal people such as the indigenous people of the
world. In India too although anthropology began as a colonial subject it soon
developed into a critical discipline where anthropologists tried to defend the life
ways of tribal and non-urban people and also through their intervention, many laws
and policies were adopted by the Indian state to allow the tribal people to enjoy
their own ways of life. As these life ways are increasingly coming under threat from
the spread of neo-liberal and force of global capitalism, anthropologists are coming
to the defense of the marginal communities, their ways of life. They have in the
process also developed critiques of conventional economic theories and concepts
of development that only take economic growth as criteria. Social and cultural
anthropology is thus today a very relevant subject and especially necessary for
administrators and policy makers to study. In the next unit we will be looking at how
social and cultural anthropology is related to other disciplines like sociology,
psychology, history etc.
2.7 REFERENCES
Aron, Raymond. (1965). Main Currents in Sociological Thought (vol 2),
Harmondsworth: Transaction Publishers.
Beals, Alan and McKim Marriott (eds.) (1955). Village India: Studies in the Little
Community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bodding, P.O. (1986). (Org.1925-40) Studies in Santal Medicine and Connected
Folklore. Calcutta: The Asiatic Society.
Bose, Nirmal Kumar. (1992). (Org. 1975) The Structure of Hindu Society.
Hyderabad: Orient Longman.
Channa, Subhadra Mitra. (2015). “State Control, Political Manipulations, and the
Creation of Identities: The North-east of India”. NMML OCCASIONAL PAPER:
History and Society. New Series 72, New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Museum and
Library.
Elwin, Verrier. (1944). The Aboriginals. Bombay: Oxford University Press.
Elwin, Verrier. (1959). (rev. edition). A Philosophy for NEFA. Shillong: North-
East Frontier Agency.
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1981). A History of Anthropological Thought. London:
Basic books.
Ghurey, G.S. (1959). (Org. 1943) The Scheduled tribes of India. Bombay: Popular
Prakashan.
Hümtsoe-Nienü, Eyingbeni, Paul Pimomo andVenüsa Tünyi. (2012). Nagas: Essays
for Responsible Change. Nagaland: Heritage Publishing House.
Ingold, Tim. (1986). Evolution and Social Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. 33
Nature and Scope Kamei, Gangmumei. (2004). A History of the Zeliangrong Nagas: From Makhel
to Rani Gaidinliu. Guwahati: Spectrum Publications.
Leaf, Murray. J. (1979). Man, Mind and Science: A History of Anthropology.
New York: Columbia University Press.
Nathan, Dev. (ed.) (1997). From Tribe to Caste. Shimla: Institute of Advanced
Study.
Ortner, Sherry. (1974). “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?” In Woman,
Culture and Society. eds. Michelle Z Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere, 68-87,
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Roy, Sarat Chandra. (1912). The Mundas and their Country. Calcutta: The
Kuntaline Press.
Roy-Burman, B.K. (1994). Indigenous and Tribal Peoples: Gathering Mist and
New Horizons. New Delhi: Mittal Publications.
Rycroft, Daniel J and Sangeeta Dasgupta. (eds.) (2011). The Politics of Belonging
in India: Becoming Adivasi. U.K.: Routledge.
Sharma, B.D. (2001). Tribal Affairs in India: The Crucial Transition. New Delhi:
Sahyog Pustak Kuteer.
Srinivas, M.N. (1966). Social Change in Modern India. Bombay:Allied Publishers.
Trautmann, Thomas. (1992). (reprint) Aryans and the British in India. New Delhi:
Yoda Press
Ulin, Robert C. (2001). Understanding Cultures: Perspectives in Anthropology
and Social Theory. USA: Blackwell.
Vidyarthi, L.P. (1963). The Maler: A Study in Nature-Man-Spirit Complex of a
Hill Tribe. Calcutta: Bookland Pvt. Ltd.
Xaxa, Virginius. (2008). State, Society and Tribes: Issues in Post- Colonial India.
Pearson-Longman.

Check Your Progress
1. Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Wallace and Charles Darwin were some of
the earlythinkers who talked about evolution of human beings and societies.
2. Herbert Spencer
3. refer to section 2.1
4. True
6. Edward B. Tylor
7. (a) physical or biological anthropology(b) social and cultural anthropology; (c)
archaeological anthropology(d) linguistics anthropology.
34 8. Fieldwork
9. Bronislaw Malinowski History and Development of
Social and Cultural
10. Franz Boas Anthropology

12. Franz Boas, A.L. Kroeber, E.Evans Pritchard, Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict
and many more.
13. Calcutta University
14. Bombay University
15. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown is regarded as the father of anthropologyinGreat Britain.
The Andaman Islanders is his classic monograph.
16. W.H.R. Rivers authored The Todas.
35
Nature and Scope
UNIT 3 RELATIONSHIP OF SOCIAL AND
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY:
OTHER BRANCHES OF
ANTHROPOLOGY AND OTHER
DISCIPLINES
Contents
3.0 Introduction
3.1 Relationship with Sociology
3.2 Relationship with Psychology
3.3 Relationship with History
3.4 Relationship with Economics
3.5 Relationship withPolitical Science
3.6 Relationship with Management Science
3.7 Relationship with Biological Science
3.8 Relationship with Linguistics
3.9 Relationship with Demography
3.10 Relationship with Philosophy
3.11 Relationship with Cultural Studies
3.12 Summary
3.13 References
Learning Objectives
After reading this unit the learners would be able to comprehend:
 how anthropology is related with other social sciences;
 in what ways anthropological knowledge is useful in other social sciences;
and the
 major shift in the domain of anthropology.
3.0 INTRODUCTION
The meaning and purpose of anthropology is the scientific study of humanity.
Anthropology studies who (Hu)Man is, how they have evolved, whythey look like
the waythey are, how theytalk, why they act in a particular manner. Viewed from a
macro perspective mankind all over the world shows some similarities and differences
in appearance, language and behaviour. Human beings have been the object of
36 Contributor: Dr. Keya Pandey, Department of Anthropology, University of Lucknow, Lucknow

study for many other subjects too. Biological sciences, manifests, social sciences, all Relationship of Social and
Cultural Anthropology: Other
are concerned with the (hu)man and their works. Branches of Anthropology and
other Disciplines
The domain ofanthropology has no fixed boundaries. It does not restrict its study to
any one group of people alone but extends it to the whole of the human population.
Modern civilisations, contemporaryemergent nations, the process ofindustrialisation,
urbanisation and similar such areas also engage the attention of anthropologists.
Anthropology in its microscopic outlook focuses onwhat is unique to each group of
people and in its macroscopic outlook it comprehends the features of each culture in
relation to those of others. In the previous unit we have discussed the history and
development ofsocial and culturalanthropology.This unit will helpyou to comprehend
how anthropology is related to other social sciences.
3.1 REALTIONSHIPWITH SOCIOLOGY

The social science that is closest to social anthropology is sociology. Yet there are
strong and divided views on the relationbetween them. Each claims to study society
not just a single aspect of it such as economics and politics but all of it. Sociology is
much older than social anthropology and began withAuguste Comte in France and
Herbert Spencer in England. The two men who are regarded as the founders of the
British tradition inanthropology, Malinowski andA.R. Radcliffe-Brown, the latter in
particular drew on the ideas of the French sociologists of the late nineteenth century
and A.R. Radcliffe-Brown in a presidential address to the Royal Anthropological
Institute said he was quite willing to call the subject comparative sociologyif anyone
so wishes. Many of the newer British universities have combined departments in
sociology and anthropology. However, Universities give separate degrees in the
two subjects so there must be a reason for this. The reason is a simple one but it is
a matter of practice rather than theory, they deal with different subject matter and to
a large extent by different methods. It might be noted that they are the branches of
the study of society as botany and zoology are branches of biology.
Anthropology and sociologyprovide a comparative framework for interpreting and
explaining human social behaviour. Although each discipline arose in response to
different historical circumstances which have resulted insomewhat different traditions
of emphasis and approach, the two fields draw from a common bodyof theory and,
increasingly, a common toolkit of research methods. With the studyof anthropology
and sociology one will become familiar with a wide range of human societies in all
regions of the world. They will gain an appreciation for the cultural complexity,
historical context, and global connections that link societies and socialinstitutions to
one another. Theywill also learnabout keysocial structures and dynamics embedded
in contemporary societies, including the forms of social power and privilege that
exist in any society, and how these often unequal power relations are organised,
sustained, reproduced, and transformed.
Anthropology is the comparative study of human kind, its aims are to describe,
analyse and explain both the similarities and differences among human groups.
Anthropologists are interested incharacteristics that are typicalor shared ina particular
human population, rather than what is abnormal and individually unique. In their
study of human variation anthropologists tries to focus on the differences among the
different groups rather than the differences among the individuals withinthose groups.
In their attempts to explain human variation anthropologists combine the study of
both human biology and the learned and shared patterns of human behaviour which
we call culture. Because anthropologists have this holistic approach to the study of
human experience they are interested in the total range of human activity. 37
Nature and Scope
1. Who suggested the term comparative sociology for the subject social
anthropology?
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
2. What is the subject matter of sociology?
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
3.2 RELATIONSHIPWITH PSYCHOLOGY

The concept of personality is the basis of psychological studies. Anthropologists
approach this domain from defining personalityin terms of culture. Several important
approaches to the study of structure ofpersonalityhave arisen over the years. Within
the socio-cultural milieu, the process of personality formation is studied. The key
concepts of socialisation and enculturation are utilised in this study. Various types of
child rearing practices in different societies are investigated in order to assess their
implications for the development of personality.
In short, culture is reflected in personalities and personalities reflect culture.
Psychological anthropologists divide the cultural institutions of a society into primary
or basic and secondary or projective. The former compromises the geographical
environment, the economy, family, socialisation practices, the polity while the latter
comprises of myth, folklore, religion, magic, art etc. While the basic institutions
condition personalities, personalities construct the secondary institutions. The
relationship between culture and personality in each society of the world is studied
by the psychological anthropologists.
Efficient studies by psychological anthropologists were not taken up till 1920s. The
earlier work of some of these scholars lacked scientific vitality. The fundamental
human conflict which is in between human and personal needs is multiple and must
be thoroughly investigated at individual as well as social level concurrently. This
aspect was realised but neither psychologists nor anthropologists alone could
adequatelymanage allthe spheres of theprobleminthe support ofone single discipline.
This understanding gave rise to the need for a two-way endeavour between
psychologists and anthropologists.
3. What is the basis of psychological studies?
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
38 ............................................................................................................
4. What is the focus of psychological anthropologists? Relationship of Social and
............................................................................................................ Branches of Anthropology and
other Disciplines
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
3.3 RELATIONSHIPWITH HISTORY

Anthropology and history both attempt to trace the origin, expansion and
advancement of culture in the past. Here we mean the age when human beings had
not attained the competence of using the language as speech and also to write.
Archaeologists are labelled as the historians of anthropology because they attempt
to reconstruct the events of human’s past. However, unlike the discipline of history
which is concerned only with the past 5000 years during which human beings has
left behind writtenmaterials of their accomplishments, the archaeologist is concerned
with the millions of years inwhichhuman beings developed culture without the benefit
of the written word and has left behind only unwritten materials or artefacts.
In this sense anthropologist studies past cultures and tell us about the technology of
past peoples by analysing the tools those people use in the past. Making it a basis
this can throw light on the economic endeavours of the people who really have
utilised that technology. This artistic potential of people become visible by seeing the
remains of wall engravings on different materials like on pottery, jewellery etc. The
settlement evidences ofthe houses canalso focus onvarious spheresofsocial structure.
Some facets of religious beliefs can also be determined by the burial sites and also
by the materials kept inside or with the burials.
The main methods of archaeological anthropologists are therefore, excavation to
find out artefacts followed by dating to dispense a rough time period and witty
speculations to form the cultural history of one’s past. In all these efforts the
anthropologists focuses on the studies related to reconstruction of the past cultures
by different methods of exploration which is a method known to infer the unknown
from those materials that are very well known.
5. What is the common study area of the anthropologists and the historians?
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
6. Which period of human past is studied by historians?
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................ 39
Nature and Scope 7. What is the main method used by the archaeological anthropologists?
............................................................................................................
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3.4 RELATIONSHIPWITH ECONOMICS

Economic anthropology is the cross cultural comparative studyof economic systems.
The nature of economic transaction and economic process covers production,
consumption, distribution and exchange of products.
Anthropologists concentrate onthese activities mainly in tribal and peasant societies.
Theyfocus on the different ways of exchanges including ceremonial exchanges. The
theory of reciprocity and redistribution are vital here. The environment of trade and
market systems is also a very vital part of their study. The progression of economy
and its development in societies is finally studied. What is crucial to note here is that
the economic works of man are not studied in segregation but in their socio-cultural
environment withthe focus onthosesocio-culturalfactors that manipulateand establish
economic activities in each society. The effort in this wayhas boosted hot discussions
between the formalists and substantivists i.e. those who agree that the concepts
formulated in this direction of Economics are likewise ample inclearing up economic
processes in simple societies, and those who contradict by disagreeing that the
economy of each society is rooted in the bed of culture and so the economic theories
that have been formulated with the current monetised systems in mind do not find a
realistic position in the anthropology of simple societies.
8. What is economic anthropology?
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
3.5 RELATIONSHIPWITH POLITICALSCIENCE

The focus ofpolitical anthropologyis onthe following aspects: Theubiquityof political
process and the functions of legitimate authority; law, justice and sanctions in the
simple societies; political organisation in egalitarian and stratified societies; locus of
power and leadership; the anthropological points of view in the formulation of the
typology of political structures based on differences and similarities observed among
the societies of the world; the political process among emerging nations and complex
societies; political culture and the nation-building processes. In the study of all these
aspects of the political systems of the world is perceptible the undercurrent of the
socio-cultural mains.
A part of wider observable fact of social organisation means to the association of
human to human relations which are planned for the continuation of inner order in
the society and external harmony. The former is attained by the law and order
40 apparatus, decision of disputes and some system of implementation of justice. The
latter is attained by conclusions of peacekeeping and war. Anthropologists those Relationship of Social and
who study all these facts and systems related to authority among simple societies Branches of Anthropology and
and other societies were called by the term political anthropologists. Political other Disciplines
anthropology has emerged as a offshoot of socialculturalanthropologywhich mainly
concentrates on political institutions in context to and other spheres of culture. It is
known as cross cultural and comparative studyof political organisations.
9. What is the political anthropology?
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
3.6 RELATIONSHIPWITH MANAGEMENT

SCIENCE
It has recently been the trend among editors and scholars to deplore the changes
brought about in human relations byscience and technologyand to vow that salvation
can only be attained if we turn back to the humanities and have less rather than more
science. We all see that changes in technologyproduce their results by disturbing the
equilibrium of individuals and groups. If we are to keep technology from running
away with us this can only be done by using anthropological methods that is, by
utilising the science of human relations. This has prompted administrators and other
working in this field to use anthropology not merely in accomplishing a desired
objective but to also learn to formulate their objectives in terms of known principles
of anthropology that concerns human behaviour and relations.
Moreover, the use of anthropological method and principles enables the administrator
to estimate the state of equilibrium in the system of human relations in the institution
for which s/heis responsible and make such adjustments as arenecessary. Byinstituting
methods of control through periodic assessment of human relations and thus
determining the precise nature of the adjustments at any given time, theywill be able
to perfect the organisation and bring about a more satisfactory adjustment for all the
individuals who compose it. Management sciences have recently developed this
field and the intake of students from anthropology background has increased. Both
the disciplines apart from the interpersonal relationship and human relations focus
on the applicabilityof research on society. Travel management, rural management,
wildlife management, environment management are fewofthe examples inthis context.
10. How is management sciences using anthropological knowledge?
............................................................................................................
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41
Nature and Scope
3.7 RELATIONSHIPWITH BIOLOGICALSCIENCE
Biological anthropology is the study of human as an organism. The species Homo
sapiens sapiens are the object of investigation in this branch of anthropology. There
are three important aspects concerning the study of human beings. They are human
biology, human evolution and human variation. The biological aspect includes the
anatomical, physiological, and morphological features. The studyof human genetics
and human types are two crucial domains that contribute to the understanding of
human biology, evolution and variation. However, all these different angles of vision
are brought together to throw light on the bio-physical nature of human.
One mayask how this branch ofanthropology is different fromthe biological sciences
that also study human beings as an organism. It is the recognition of the pervasive
influence and impact of culture on biology of human beings that makes physical
anthropology distinctive. One of the most popular issues for debate and discussion
among anthropologists is that of missing link. The fossil remains of the creature that
would serve to pinpoint the actualpoint of departure and differentiation between the
apes like ancestors of human is yet to be discovered and established conclusively by
consensus.
The theories of organic evolution developed by biologists have their impact in
anthropological studies. Lamarckism, Darwinism and synthetic theory which are
based on the evidences derived from the other biological forms are useful in
comprehending theevolutionaryprocesses ofhumanwho is also abiologicalorganism.
Based onthe information derived fromthe biological sciences the cultural dimensions
of biological evolution of human beings are investigated.
11. What is the focus of biological anthropology?
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
12. Name the threeimportant aspects ofhumanbeingsthat biologicalanthropologists
studies?
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
3.8 RELATIONSHIPWITH LINGUISTICS

One of the most distinctive features of human being is the ability to communicate
through speech. The branch of socio-cultural anthropology that studies languages is
called Linguistic anthropology. Linguistic anthropologists account for the diversity of
languages in two ways:
1) It can be shown that culture influences the structure and content of language,
and by implication, linguistic diversity arises at least partially from cultural
42 diversity.
2) It can also be shown that linguistic features affect the other aspects of culture. Relationship of Social and
In order to reveal the relationships between language and culture, anthropologists Branches of Anthropology and
other Disciplines
have taken either paths of the mentioned two ways, which has resulted in debate
and discourse on the matter. The linguistic anthropologist borrows from the socio-
cultural anthropologist. The meaning and content of words and phrases in each
language have unique nuances that are intelligible only to the people who speak that
particular language which is a product oftheir culture. The language of some people
may not have referential terms for certain features of the world around them. These
give the clues to those features which do not hold any cultural significance to that
people.
The major difference between the linguists and linguistics anthropologists is that the
former are mainly concerned with the study of how languages particularly written
ones are constructed and structured but the linguistic anthropologists studyunwritten
languages as also written languages. Another crucial difference between linguists
and linguistic anthropologists is that those features which the former take for granted
are taken into consideration by the latter. These features relate to the systems of
knowledge, belief, assumptions and conventions that produce particular ideas at
particular times in the minds of people.
13. How does the linguistic anthropologists account for the diversity of languages?
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
14. State the major difference between a linguist and linguistic anthropologist.
............................................................................................................
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............................................................................................................
3.9 RELATIONSHIPWITH DEMOGRAPHY

Demography is statistically inclined and is mainly concerned with the vibrant forces
defining population size and their structure and also on their variation across time
and space. On the other hand the anthropologists are interpretive and put an eye on
the social organisation and how it shapes the production and reproduction of human
populations. Anthropological demography is a part and parcel of the demography
subject which gathers information from anthropological theory and methods to give
us a better improved understanding of demographic issues in present and past
populations. Its beginning and growth rests at the junction between social-cultural
anthropology and demography and with main focus on migration, population
processes speciallyfertilityand mortality. Some verygood demographers have turned
towards culture through the use of different anthropological methods as means of
enhancing their data. Both the disciplines have started taking help of each other.
These two disciplines share together some of the common interests while dealing
with population studies.
43
Nature and Scope The foremost theoretical concepts which are dealt in anthropological demography
are gender culture, and political economy. Fieldwork andempirical approach includes
a blend of quantitative and qualitative methodologies applied to the research studies.
Ethnographic fieldwork and participant observation are essential to this approach.
Demography is the statisticalstudy of varied human population. It can be considered
as a very general science that can be functionally applied to any kind of dynamic
living population.
15. What is demography?
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
3.10 RELATIONSHIPWITH PHILOSOPHY

Anthropology and philosophy, both the disciplines are related to each other as both
have logical foundations. The boundaries between the two strong disciplines have
always been porous. The subject matter of anthropology as discussed in the earlier
units deal with the varied cultures across globe. The religious foundations of all the
cultures are dealt by both the disciplines. Anthropologists have many times
concentrated and borrowed the subject matter of philosophy; similarly the other
discipline has always relied on the findings of anthropology. Anthropologists have
always tried to relate the philosophical foundations of the culture with the present
culture and the real present life of the people by their own traditional method of
ethnography. Further, ifwe talk about anthropologyin combination with philosophy
or philosophy with anthropology they have helped us to explain the present path of
thought of being unbiased on fields and also a non-ethnocentric approach which
were uncared bymany contemporary social scientists.
16. State whether the following statement is true or false: “Anthropology and
philosophy as disciplines are related to each other as both have logical
foundations.”
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
3.11 RELATIONSHIPWITH CULTURALSTUDIES

Socio-cultural anthropology is the study of people and their ways of life. Within this
branch of anthropology, there are two sub-branches viz., social anthropology and
cultural anthropology, which are however inter linked and intertwined. Social
anthropology is concerned with the manner in which people associate and group
themselves, while cultural anthropology is concerned with the habits and customs of
the people. The concept of societyis uppermost in the minds of social anthropologist,
44 and the concept of culture is crucial to the cultural anthropologist. ‘Society’ denotes
the collection of individuals who live together in the same place, and lead the same Relationship of Social and
kind of living styles. ‘Culture’refers to the learned behaviour, knowledge, belief, Branches of Anthropology and
morals, values, art, and all other customs acquired by human beings as a member of other Disciplines
society which is passed on from one generation to the next through the process of
socialisation and enculturation (Tylor 1871).
The job ofthe anthropologist is to studysocieties and culture, inorder to scientifically
abstract and generalise about humanity. This work comprises of two important
dimensions: (i) to determine people’s notion of how they ought to be, and (ii) to
describe how the people actuallyare. The socio-cultural anthropologist is particular
about not losing sight of any feature of the social and cultural domains of people.
Thus, in thelife ofanindividualwithin society, right frompregnancy, childbirth, puberty,
marriage to death, all the features that are culture-specific including the rituals and
ceremonies associated witheach event in thelife-cycle ofan individualare allobserved
and studied carefullyunder cultural studies.
The information regarding all the spheres of life in human society and culture that
socio-cultural anthropologists gather, are classified, organised and analysed to
formulate theories regarding mankind. The history ofanthropological theoryreveals
the various attempts to account for the origin, spread, growth, structure and function
of human cultures.
17. What is the focus of cultural studies?
............................................................................................................
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3.12 SUMMARY
The meaning and purpose ofanthropologyis scientific studyofhumanity. The inherent
curiosity of humanabout them was the prime factor influencing the emergence of the
discipline that systematicallystudied mankind. In an attempt to answer the questions
regarding human beings anthropology studies who human is, how s/he evolved, why
s/he acts in a particular manner. The ultimate aim of studying human beings is not in
merely acquiring knowledge regarding them, their societyand culture, but in applying
the knowledge so gained in solving the practical problems faced bymankind all over
the world. In this effort, the anthropologists often work closelywith the administrators
of the government. Anthropology is interested in comprehending humanity in its
totality. It is concerned with all the varieties of human population, however small or
big, in any and every part of the world, both past and present.
3.13 REFERENCES
Beals, R.L. Hoijer, H. and Beals, A.R. (1959). An Introduction to Anthropology.
New York: Macmillan Pub. Co., Inc.
Geertz, C. (1995). After the Fact: Two Countries, Four Decades, One
Anthropologist. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hoebel, E.A. (1958). Anthropology: The Study of Man. New York: McGraw-
45
Hill Pub.
Nature and Scope Lasswell, Harold D. (1950). Contemporary Political Science: A Survey of
Methods, Research, and Teaching. UNESCO Publication.
Mair, Lucy. (1972). An Introduction to Social Anthropology. Oxford University
Press, Delhi.
Tylor, E.B. (1871). Primitive Culture. Volume 1. London: John Murray.

1. A.R. Radcliffe-Brown suggested that social anthropology maybe termed as
comparative sociology.
5. refer to section 3. 3
16. True
46
SUGGESTED READING
Barnard, Alan. (2007). Social Anthropology: Investigating Human Social Life.
New Delhi: Viva Books Private Limited.
Clifford, James and George. E. Marcus. (eds) (1990). Writing Culture: The Poetics
and Politics of Ethnography. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. (2015). Small Places, Large Issues: An Introduction
to Social and Cultural Anthropology (Fourth Edition). Pluto Press.
Engelke, M. (2018). How to Think Like an Anthropologist. Princeton, Oxford:
Princeton University Press.
Evans-Pritchard, E.E. (1940). The Nuer. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
(1981). A History of Anthropological Thought. London: Basic books.
Fortes, Meyer. (1969). Kinship and the Social Order. Chicago: Aldine Publishers.
Geertz, Clifford (1973). The Interpretation of Culture. New York: Basic Books.
Gennep, Arnold van (1909). The Rites of Passage (trans by Monika B Vizedom
and Gabriella L Caffee.) London: Routledge and Kegan Paul
Hall, Edward. T. (1976). Beyond Culture. Garden City, N.Y.: AnchorPress/

Doubleday.
Haviland, W.A. (2003). Anthropology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Ingold, Tim. (1986). Evolution and Social Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
(2018). Anthropology: Why it Matters. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Kaplan, David and Robert AManners. (1972). Culture Theory. Illinois: Waveland
Press.
Lewis, I.M. (1976). Social Anthropology in Perspective: The Relevance of Social
Anthropology. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Monaghan, John and Peter Just. (2000). Social and Cultural Anthropology: A
Very Short Introduction.ISBN: 9780192853462
Moore, Henrietta, and Todd Sanders. (eds) (2006). Anthropology in Theory:

Issues in Epistemology. USA: Blackwell Publishing.
Stocking, G. (1974). The Shaping of American Anthropology, 1883-1911: A

Franz Boas Reader. New York: Basic Books.
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BANC-102

School of Social Sciences

COURSE PREPARATAION TEAM

Block 2 Basic Concepts

Course Coordinator : Dr. Rukshana Zaman, Discipline of Anthropology, IGNOU

PRINT PRODUCTION Secretarial Assistant

Block 1 NATUREAND SCOPE Pages

Block 2 BASIC CONCEPTS

PRACTICAL MANUAL 179

Contributor: Professor Subhadra Mitra Channa, Former Professor, Department of

1.1 SOCIETYAND CULTURE

At each level, we can saythat society is a network of relationships and belonging to

1.2 SOCIALAND CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY

1.3 SCOPE OF SOCIALAND CULTURAL

1.4 THE RELEVANCE OF SOCIALAND

The most important contribution of anthropology as a discipline is to learn to move

Thus a primary work of anthropologists is to investigate the real data, to go beyond

Check Your Progress 4

1.7 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Contributor: Professor Subhadra Mitra Channa, Former Professor, Department of

2.2 THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND TO THE

Anthropology diversified into four main branches, namely physical or biological

Cultural Relativism refers to the theoretical position where aspects of any

Check Your Progress 4

It is interesting to know that as a native anthropologist Iyer evoked huge amount of

2.8 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

11. refer to section 2.4.

36 Contributor: Dr. Keya Pandey, Department of Anthropology, University of Lucknow, Lucknow

3.1 REALTIONSHIPWITH SOCIOLOGY

2. What is the subject matter of sociology?

3.2 RELATIONSHIPWITH PSYCHOLOGY

3.3 RELATIONSHIPWITH HISTORY

3.4 RELATIONSHIPWITH ECONOMICS

3.5 RELATIONSHIPWITH POLITICALSCIENCE

3.6 RELATIONSHIPWITH MANAGEMENT

3.8 RELATIONSHIPWITH LINGUISTICS

3.9 RELATIONSHIPWITH DEMOGRAPHY

3.10 RELATIONSHIPWITH PHILOSOPHY

3.11 RELATIONSHIPWITH CULTURALSTUDIES

3.14 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

(1981). A History of Anthropological Thought. London: Basic books.

Hall, Edward. T. (1976). Beyond Culture. Garden City, N.Y.: AnchorPress/

Haviland, W.A. (2003). Anthropology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

(2018). Anthropology: Why it Matters. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Moore, Henrietta, and Todd Sanders. (eds) (2006). Anthropology in Theory:

Stocking, G. (1974). The Shaping of American Anthropology, 1883-1911: A

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