Area of inquiry—Classifying the world

CLASSIFYING THE WORLD

The language of classifying the world
Key concepts Inquiry-specific concepts
This area of inquiry is The following concepts are of
particularly strong in particular relevance in this area
exploring the following key of inquiry and must be explored
concepts. regardless of the topics chosen.
• Belief and knowledge • Boundaries
• Culture • Classification
• Identity • Commodification
• Materiality • Cosmology
• Power • Hegemony
• Social relations • Morality
• Symbolism • Nature/culture
• Sacred/profane
• Socialization/enculturation/
acculturation
Suggested topics
The inquiry-specific concepts can be explored through the following topics of study.
Systems of stratification: class, caste, age, ethnicity, race, gender, sexualities
Liminality: rites of passage, ritual processes, ritual practices and personhood
Purity and pollution: food, the body, nation-state, health/illness
Insider/outsider: self/other, migrants and refugees, human/non-human, oppositional categories,
sectarianism, communalism, sexualities, personhood
Marginality: criminality, social pariahs, outcasts, subaltern groups
Knowledge systems: knowledge as power, advocacy, experts/lay-persons, hegemonic groups,
indigenous knowledge, science and positivism, cognitive anthropology, systems of education (formal
and informal)
Ritual and religion: knowledge of the transcendent, shamanism, witchcraft, spirit worlds
Health and illness: purity, pollution, healthiness/unhealthiness, wellness/illness, different ways of
healing
Embodiment of social inequalities: race, class, gender, ableism, disability, ageism
Language: evolution of language, language categories (such as colour systems), definitions,
relations between categories/definitions, media and propaganda
Perspectives on the environment: human/non-human, relations to place
Kinship: affinal/consanguineal, descent/alliance, family/fictive kin, social organization
Anthropology of the senses: osmologies, acoustemologies

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Big anthropological
questions
Doing anthropology: The
ethnographic method
Anthropological
thinking: Theories
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LINKS TO ENGAGING WITH ANTHROPOLOGY
The study of classifying the world allows for the exploration of some of the “big” anthropological questions identified in part one of the
syllabus, engaging with anthropology. There are clear opportunities to discuss the following questions in particular.
• What does it mean to be a person?
• How are we the same or different from each other?
• To what extent is knowing others possible?
Teachers and students should address some of the particular methodological issues that might arise when anthropologists study
classifying the world. These could be general or specific to the ethnographic material used. It is important that these should include
the particular ethical issues raised by this area of inquiry and the ethnographic material studied.
For this area of inquiry it is important to give a historical context to the development of ideas. Classic ethnographies need to be
examined in relation to more contemporary ones. A comparison between classic and contemporary ethnographies in terms of method
and approaches would also be useful.
Questions you may wish to consider include:
• How do the methods of anthropologists today compare to those of the past?
• What are the effects of the categorization of “self” and “Other”?
• How do the social categories of ethnographer’s own culture affect his or her ability to understand the categories of the culture
under study?
• How do the ways in which anthropologists classify other cultures raise issues of representation and power?
As with all areas of anthropological research, discussions on how we classify the world have changed focus over the years and this is
reflected in and by changes in anthropological ways of thinking about classifying the world. In order to make sense of these
developments and how the concept of classifying the world has been explored by anthropologists in different social, cultural and
historical contexts, it is important for students to be able to make connections between theories and ethnographic material. The
following suggestions are an indication of some of the more prevalent theories likely to be represented in anthropological research on
classification systems.
• Structural functionalism
• Interpretivism
• Neo-Marxism
• Perspectivism
• Phenomenology
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 LINKS TO ENGAGING WITH ANTHROPOLOGY
• Structuralism
• Symbolic theories
• Any other relevant theories discussed in the ethnographic material explored
Differentiating between SL and HL
SL students are expected to be able to:
• identify and explain the theories relevant to the ethnographic material studied
• demonstrate an understanding of how theory influences ethnographic data
• apply a simple theoretical lens to ethnographic data.
HL students are expected to be able to:
• identify and explain the theories relevant to the ethnographic material studied
• demonstrate an understanding of how theory influences ethnographic data
• apply a theoretical lens to analyse ethnographic data
• compare and contrast the application of theory in different ethnographies
• critically evaluate theories in relation to ethnographic material studied and in relation to each other.
TOK and classifying the The following questions can be used as discussion points to make links between this area of inquiry and TOK. (This is not an exhaustive
world list.)
• Which ways of knowing are used to determine different classifications?
• How can we know our classifications are “accurate”? Is this even possible? Who decides?
• Is there a relationship between knowledge and morality?
• How does a shared classification of knowledge create social cohesion?
• Can you understand cultural categorisation without language?
• To what extent are Lévi-Strauss’ binary categories still relevant in the construction of knowledge today?
• To what extent are systems of stratification justified by knowledge systems?
• Does the language we use to create categories affect our sense perception?

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References
Classen, C, Howes, D and Synnott, A. 1994. Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell. London, UK and New York, NY, USA. Routledge.

Douglas, M. 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London, UK. Routledge.

Durkheim, E and Mauss, M. 1963. Primitive Classification. Chicago, IL, USA. University of Chicago Press. (Originally published in French in 1903.)

Evans-Pritchard, EE. 1983 [1937]. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Eva Gillies (ed). Oxford, UK. Oxford University Press.

Geertz, C. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York, NY, USA. Basic Books.

van Gennep, A. 1960. The rites of Passage. Chicago, IL, USA. University of Chicago Press. (Originally published in French in 1909.)

Malkki, L. 1995. Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania. Chicago, IL, USA. Chicago University Press.

Morgan, L. 1877. Ancient Society; or, Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization. London, UK. MacMillan & Company.

Thomassen, B. 2014. Liminality and the Modern: Living through the In-Between. Farnham, UK. Ashgate.

Turner, V. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago, IL, USA. Aldine Publishing Company.

Tylor, E. 1871. Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, and Custom. London, UK. John Murray.

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