ANTH 3690 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Transitional Fossil, Kula Ring, Zande People
4 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Radcliffe-Brown, Social Structure
Importance of social structure
•
Brown belongs to "Functional school of Anthro"
Sees social ANTH as a branch of natural science, there are no schools
○
•
Cooperation does not form schools but the fact they are working on similar
problems
•
Investigation of social phenomena by methods used in natural science
•
We do not observe culture but we observe acts of behaviours
•
Social Structure: humans connected through a complex network of social
relations
•
Social Structures do not equal social relations
•
Social relations fall under social structure, same with classes by social role
•
Study of the general, not the individual
•
Structure as dynamic, social life renews social structure
Birth, New members, death etc.
○
Can change gradually or suddenly
○
•
"Social personality"
Individuals as a complex of social relationships
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Changes throughout time
○
•
Create classification of types of structural systems
•
Social physiology
Every kind of social phenomenon
○
•
Common interest vs. social value
•
Malinowski, The Subject, Method and Scope of Inquiry
Kula Ring as the subject
•
How data collected in ethnography has not been supplied
•
Difference between raw data and observations
Possess scientific claims
○
Live with natives
○
Apply methods of collecting, manipulating and fixing evidence
○
•
Instead of asking broad questions, ask questions about the real world
•
Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft
Azande believe witches cannot exist
Natural philosophy to explain events
○
•
Everything is witchcraft unless there is an explanation •
Phenomena was not accounted through mystical causation alone •
Zande philosophy supplies missing link between 2 independently caused facts •
Zande expresses thought in terms of actual and particular situations •
Witchcraft explains why, not how •
Cannot use witchcraft to blame when you do something wrong •
Malinowski, Group and Individual in Functional Analysis
Individual, Group and mutual dependence run through all inquiries
What is individual, how are they related to group?
○
•
How do culturally determined individual come into being?•
Functionalism
Emotional and intellectual
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Environmental influences and cultural reactions
○
•
Taking man as a "biological entity"
Humans need to eat, reproduce and have maintenance of a certain
environment
○
Culture imposes more requirements on these
○
•
How these are modified by social influences •
Organization of economics
Determines factors in social structures
○
•
Week 4 Readings
Thursday, September 20, 2018
11:44 AM
Document Summary
Sees social anth as a branch of natural science, there are no schools. Cooperation does not form schools but the fact they are working on similar problems. Investigation of social phenomena by methods used in natural science. We do not observe culture but we observe acts of behaviours. Social structure: humans connected through a complex network of social relations. Social relations fall under social structure, same with classes by social role. Structure as dynamic, social life renews social structure. Malinowski, the subject, method and scope of inquiry. How data collected in ethnography has not been supplied. Apply methods of collecting, manipulating and fixing evidence. Instead of asking broad questions, ask questions about the real world. Everything is witchcraft unless there is an explanation. Phenomena was not accounted through mystical causation alone. Zande philosophy supplies missing link between 2 independently caused facts. Zande expresses thought in terms of actual and particular situations.
