Content & Script of the Programme

Introduction:
The major objective of anthropology is to provide
explanations of human society and behaviour.
Anthropologists cannot predict the outcome of
interactions between two individuals or among small
groups, let alone among large groups at the societal level.
Consequently anthropology as a discipline does not have
any specific theories and laws for anthropologists restrict
their efforts to testing hypothesis and improving their
explanations of human society and behaviour.
In the second half of the
nineteenth century, many
contributions to
anthropological theory were
made by men who cannot
be called true professional
anthropologists. Most of
them were in fact, lawyers with extensive education in
classical Greek and Roman languages and literature. They
were anthropological dilettantes. They were interested in
the customs of other people and read widely about tribal
peoples of the world. Around the turn of the nineteenth
century, anthropologists began to realize that their
dependence upon ethnographic data from nonprofessional
sources severely limited their research. Gradually a
number of men trained in the natural sciences, entered
the discipline of anthropology and recognized the
importance of making their own systematic collection of
data in the field. Thereafter followed various field
expeditions amassing data which showed clearly the value
of doing ones own research from an anthropological point
of view. Though in every age anthropologists have been
attempting to understand humanity as a whole, yet in
reality they had only partial understandings. Yet each of
these types of explanations has provided some limited
perspectives on human behaviour and culture. Eventually,
the knowledge accumulated from these partial
perspectives has been probed and evaluated by
anthropologists to offer a far more comprehensive picture
of humanity in the present century. In this unit we will be
discussing some of the main theories of social and cultural
anthropology.

Theory of evolution:
Modern anthropology emerged
from the intellectual atmosphere of
the Enlightenment, an eighteenth-
century philosophical movement that
stressed social progress based on
human reason, and Darwins theory
of evolution. Two men of the late nineteenth century
stand out above the others. Lewis Henry Morgan, the
American, and Edward Burnett Tylor, the Englishman,
may be considered true professionals, and each has been
called at one time or another, the father of anthropology.
Each took an evolutionary theoretical approach in keeping
with the general emphasis on evolution and developed a
scheme of cultural evolution that described states of
human history from distant beginnings to the
achievements of the Victorian age. Both of them were
influenced by ideas of human progress and perfectability
of the Enlightenment philosophers and social evolutionary
schemes of earlier thinkers like Comte and Spencer.
They used their own data collected in their travels, as
well as information from many other sources and fleshed
out their schemes of human development employing
living tribal people as examples of prehistoric societies.
This practice came to be called the comparative method.
They were also known as unilineal evolutionists. Unilineal
evolution is the view that societies evolve in a single
direction towards complexity, progress and civilization.
Although these nineteenth-century thinkers shared the
view that humanity was progressing through various
stages of development, their views were ethnocentric,
contradictory, and speculative and their evidence
secondhand, based on the accounts of biased Europeans.
Nevertheless, despite their inadequacies and speculations
regarding the evolution of society, these early
anthropologists provided the first systematic methods for
thinking and explaining the similarities and diversity of
human societies.

Theory of diffusionism:
Another school of thought that
used the comparative method to
explain why different societies
are at different levels of development was diffusionism.
According to this school, societal change occurs when
societies borrow cultural traits from one another. This
theory was developed in the early part of the twentieth
century. There were three major schools of diffusionism:
the British version associated with G. Elliot Smith and
William J. Perry, and the German version associated with
Father Wilhelm Schmidt. The American school is
associated with Franz Boas.
The British school derived its theory from research on
ancient Egypt as they concluded that all aspects of
civilizations, from technology to religion, originated in
Egypt and diffused to other cultural areas. To explain that
some cultures no longer had cultural traits from Egypt,
they resorted to an ethnocentric view, maintaining that
some cultures had simply become degenerate.
The German school differed somewhat from that of the
British. They argued that several early centers of
civilization had existed, and that from these early centers
cultural traits diffused outward in circles to other regions
and peoples. In German this view is referred to as the
Kulturekreise (culture circles) school of thought. In
explaining why some primitive societies did not have the
characteristics of civilization, the German school, like the
British diffusionists, argued that these peoples had simply
degenerated.

Unilineal evolution:
An early twentieth-century movement
that developed in response to the
unilineal evolutionary theory was led by
the U.S. anthropologist Franz Boas. The
American version is historical in its
approach, stressing field research and restricted
reconstructions of history rather than the comparative
studies, on a world-wide basis, that characterize the two
preceding points of view.
Boas became a vigorous opponent of the unilineal
evolutionists. Boass fieldwork experience and his
intellectual training in Germany led him to conclude that
each society has its own unique historical development.
This theory is known as historical particularism. It
maintains that each society must be understood as a
product of its own history. This view led Boas to adopt
the notion of cultural relativism, the belief that each
society should be understood in terms of its own cultural
practices and values. One aspect of this view is that no
society evolved higher or lower than another. Thus, no
particular society can be ranked above another in terms
of degree of savagery, barbarity or civility.

Culture-and-personality theory:
A direct outgrowth of the Boasian approach was the
emergence of culture-and-personality theory in
American anthropology. Boas
trained two particular
noteworthy students, Ruth
Benedict and Margaret Mead.
Both Mead and Benedict
maintained that each society
and culture has a unique
history. After studying processes such as child rearing
and enculturation, they proposed that every culture is
characterized by a dominant personality type. One classic
example of the application of culture and personality
theory is Benedicts analysis of the Plains and Pueblo
Native American Societies. In her
classic book, Patterns of Culture
(1934), Benedict classified Pueblo
societies as having an Apollonian
(Greek god Apollo) culture. The
Pueblo cultural ethos stressed
gentleness, cooperation, harmony,
tranquility, and peacefulness.
According to Benedict, these values explain why
members of Pueblo societies were moderate. In sharp
contrast, Benedict characterized the Plains societies as
Dionysian (Greek god Dionysius). According to her, the
values and ethos of the Plain groups were almost the
direct opposite of those of the Pueblo. The Plain Indians
were involved in warfare and violence, and their ritual
behaviour included the use of drugs, alcohol, fasting, and
bodily self-tortures to induce religious ecstasy. Benedict
indicated that the culture of a particular society can be
studied by studying the personality of its bearers.
Margaret Mead, other influential
contributors to this theory, went to
the Pacific Islands of Samoa to
study adolescent development.
Mead came to the conclusion that in
contrast to U.S. society,
adolescence in Samoa was not
characterized by problems between
the young and the old. In her book, Coming of Age in
Samoa (1928), she argued that Samoan society
emphasized group harmony and cooperation, as the
children were raised in family units. Samoan children
were not exposed to conflicting values and political and
religious beliefs, as were U.S. adolescents. Therefore,
Mead summarized that Samoan children experienced a
much easier transition from adolescence into adulthood
than did their counterparts in the United States. Though
this theory was criticized for the practice of characterizing
an entire society in terms of one dominant personality, or
for focusing entirely on the non-material aspects of
culture or for attributing human behaviour entirely to
cultural factors, yet it has a positive side also. This school
led by Mead and Benedict led to the development of more
careful research regarding personality and culture. Now
there is better understanding of enculturation and
personality formation in human societies. Boass efforts
set the stage for a sound scientific approach in
anthropology that led to definite progress in our
comprehension of race and other issues in explaining
human behaviour and culture.
The term acculturation refers to the
processes of accommodation and change
in culture contact. During the 1930s, the
American anthropologists had begun
working in Oceania and Africa and
Herskovits established the first African
Studies Program in the U.S. at
Northwestern University. But the Boasians were
interested in change and cultural dynamics, whether in
one area of the world or another. The concept of
acculturation was first developed by Redfield, Linton and
Herskovits in their joint paper entitled, Memorandum on
The Study of Acculturation, in J ournal of American
Anthropologist, (Vol. XXXVIII, 1936:149). According to
them, acculturation comprehends those phenomena,
which result when groups of individuals having different
cultures come into first hand contact, with subsequent
changes in the original cultural patterns of either or both
groups. Acculturation studies attempted to be studies of
change in process. Methodologically, they required a
base-line condition from which change was measured.
The base-line situation could be reconstructed through
techniques of ethnohistory, using any written materials,
folklore, and interviews, followed by description and
analysis of change. Though theoretically the studies could
be made on contact situations between two non-Western
societies, in fact, virtually all were between a native
group and an industrial, Western group and only rarely
did they actually deal with the two-way nature of change,
usually examining change only as it affected the non-
European society.

Some important points of research were:
The means of introducing change
The degree of resistance to change
The mechanisms of selection
Changes in roles and statuses and
Final products of change like assimilation,
reinterpretation, syncretism and revitalization.
All this interest in cultural processes gave a new
impulse among Boasians to generalize about cause and
effect and to make cross-cultural comparisons about the
mechanisms or common properties of changing cultural
systems.

Functionalism:
At about the same time, functionalism developed in
British anthropology. Functionalism is the view that
society consists of institutions that serve vital purposes
for people. The school of functionalism is divided into two
camps, each associated with a prominent figure in British
anthropology. They were A.R. Radcliffe-Brown and
Bronislaw Malinowski.
Structural Functionalism: Radcliffe-Brown
The type of functionalism
associated with Radcliffe-Brown is
referred to as structural
functionalism. He focused on the
structure of society as reflected in
the differing institutions that
function to perpetuate the survival
of society. According to Radcliffe-
Brown, a societys economic, social,
political, and religious institutions
serve to integrate the society as a whole. He studied
small-scale societies and found how the social institutions
function to enhance group solidarity. In some of his
studies he emphasized how males had to marry outside
their particular group and once they marry, they establish
an important relationship with the wifes kin. According to
Radcliffe-Brown, all norms for specific behaviors and
obligations among different people in kinship
relationships promote order and stability. Thus, Radcliffe-
Brown believes that these social institutions serve
societys needs.
Psychological Functionalism: Malinowski
Malinowskis functionalism
focused on how society functions to
serve the individuals interests or
needs. This view is known as
psychological functionalism.
Malinowskis analysis of magic
among the Trobriand Islanders (off
the coast of Papua New Guinea)
illustrates his psychological
functionalism. According to him,
the islanders depended on their technical knowledge and
skills only when they went for fishing in enclosed lagoons
where fishing was reliable and safe. But they employed
extensive magical beliefs and techniques when they went
for fishing on the open sea, as it was believed to be more
dangerous and highly unpredictable. So, Malinowski
proved that the use of magic arises in situations in which
human beings have no control over circumstances. In
addition to magic, the Trobrianders have an elaborate
system of beliefs concerning death, the afterlife, sickness,
and health. These beliefs help to serve the needs of
individuals as they adapt to the circumstances and
exigencies of life.
The functionalists were not concerned with the
historical development of differing institutions but rather
focused exclusively on how these institutions serve
society and the individual. So they fail to explain why
societies are different or similar. As they tended to view
societies as static and unchanging, they were also unable
to explain social and cultural change very well. But
functionalism as a school of thought has influenced a
great deal of research in anthropology and encouraged
the collection of valuable ethnographic data.

Structuralism:
French structuralism is another approach and is
pioneered by Claude Levi-Strauss. According to Levi-
Strauss, structuralism is not confined to anthropology
alone but there are examples of
scholars from other disciplines
who are classified as
structuralists. Among them,
smention may be made of
Freud, Marx, and Piaget.
According to Levi-Strauss,
structuralism is a search for
deep, unapparent, innate structures of a psycho-
biological nature universal to all human beings. The
primary goal of structuralism is to investigate the thought
processes of the human mind in a universal context.
Structuralists are interested in the unconscious and
conscious patterns of human thinking. In his book, The
Savage Mind (1966) he discussed how people living in
small-scale societies use the same unconscious thinking
and reasoning processes that people in large-scale,
complex societies do. According to him, there is a
universal logical form in human thought and cognition
around the world. Levi-Strauss, drawing on the field of
linguistics, argued that thinking is based on binary
oppositions. That means, humans classify the natural and
social world into polar types (binary oppositions) as a
stage of reasoning. For example, day, night; black, white;
life, death; spirit, body and so on. Moreover, Levi Strauss
suggests that the fundamental binary structural
distinctions between nature and culture are found in
all societies. He demonstrated how religious mythologies
universally invoke symbols that have a dualistic aspect
between that of nature and culture. He focused on such
diverse phenomena as kinship, mythology, cuisine, and
table manners to discover the hidden structural logic
underlying these diverse cultural ideas and practices.
Within all of these practices and beliefs, Levi-Strauss
asserts that there are important logical and deep
structural distinctions between nature and culture. Levi-
Strauss believed that even though the rules and norms
that structure these ideas and practices may appear
arbitrary, this deep universal structure underlies these
cultural phenomena. Thus, this universal structure of the
mind produces similar thinking and cognition throughout
the world.
But his work also faced criticisms. Many scholars
questioned whether he has discovered universal
structures or invented them. Another criticism leveled
against him is that he has created a closed, mentally
deterministic model but this is not substantially true. He
is not attempting to explain diversity, though he
recognizes its existence.

Neo-evolutionism:
Some anthropologists renewed their interest in
evolutionary explanations of social and cultural
phenomena after World War II. Most of them earlier were
busy criticizing the unilineal evolutionists. Anthropologists
like Leslie White, University of Michigan, suggested a new
20
th
century perspective on the
evolution of society, which is referred
to as neoevolutionism. According to
White, culture evolves as the amount
of energy harnessed per capita per
year is increased, or as the efficiency
of the instrumental means of putting
energy to work is increased. White
perceived three cultural subsystems:
technological, sociological and ideological. The way
society uses its technology to sustain life influences the
sociological and ideological systems. Technology and
therefore culture evolve as more energy is harnessed.
However, in his search for regularities and causation,
White was not alone in mid 20
th
century America but he
was also joined by Julian Steward. Steward focused on
how specific socio-cultural systems adapt to
environmental conditions. According to Steward, human
societies must react to
environment and in the course of
adapting to environment, humans
introduce a superorganic element.
Steward proposed the study of
cultural ecologythe relationships
among environment, the human
organisms present, and the
superorganic elementculture. In
the early 60s, Marshall Sahlins,
Elman Service, and other followers of White and Steward,
tried to reconcile the two viewpoints. They suggested that
evolution has two facets. One is general evolution, a
grand movement from simple to complex, and the other,
specific evolution, change as an adaptive response to an
ecological niche. Stewards multilinear evolution is
specific. White was talking about general evolution which
can be evaluated or measured by the amount of energy
harnessed. Though both Steward and White used
concepts of evolution, the idea of evolution is less
important than their turn to some type of techno-
environmental causation where priority is given to the
material basis of social life. The materialist approach tries
to see why things happen and what causes them and
conflicts over the issues of evolutionism are simply not
their concern.

Cultural Materialism:
As an outgrowth of neoevolutionism, a school of
thought known as cultural materialism developed through
the writings of Marvin Harris. It is a research strategy
that focuses on technology, environment and economic
factors as key determinants in socio-cultural evolution.
Cultural materialists divide all socio-cultural systems into
infrastructure, structure and superstructure. The
infrastructure includes the
technology and practices used for
expanding or limiting the production
of basic resources such as food,
clothing, and shelter. The structure
consists of the domestic economy
(family structure, domestic division
of labour, age and gender roles) and
the political economy (political
organization, class, castes and police, military). The
superstructure includes philosophy, art, music, religion,
ideas, literature, advertising, sports, games, science and
values. The cultural materialists stress the point that
technology, energy and environmental factors are crucial
to the development of all aspects of society. This
theoretical approach is an extension of the foundations
laid down by White and Steward.
However, Harris was criticized for focusing too much
on environmental factors and neglecting social, political,
and religious values and beliefs. In addition, cultural
materialism tends to emphasize the infrastructural
mechanisms that determine the structure and
superstructure of the society. This leads to a form of
technological determinism which is too mechanistic to
analyze the socio-cultural conditions in a society.

Conclusion:
After World War II, American anthropological research
expanded into new regions geographically, into Oceania
and Africa, and theoretically into psychological,
acculturation studies, and peasant studies. At about the
same time, the British anthropologists developed an
interest in environment and economics. Most
anthropologists would agree today that no one theoretical
stance holds all the answers. British, American, and
French anthropologists have enriched one anothers
thinking. Until after World War II, most anthropologists
were Europeans investigating non-Western societies. But
today many non-Europeans with new, fresh ideas are
entering the profession. Among the other notable
anthropologists who contributed towards the theories of
social and cultural anthropology mention may be made of
Redfield, Marx, Leach, Durkheim, Kroeber, Mauss, van
Gennep and others. Here, only the major anthropological
explanations have been sketched. However, after more
than a century of anthropological research, there exist an
improved and more comprehensive understanding of
culture, society and the role of individual behaviour than
it was in the nineteenth century.