Introduction to General Anthropology Course Name: Fundamentals in Social-Cultural Anthropology Paper No.

: Paper-I
MODULE:

Its relationship with History, Sociology, Economics, Social Psychology and Political Science.
1. Introduction Sociology is a science of society that studies human behaviour in groups. Anthropology is a science of man and studies human behaviour in social surroundings. Thus it is clear that the subject matter of sociology and social anthropology is common to a great extent. 2. Relationship between Social Anthropology and Sociology Even though social anthropology and sociology share an interest in social relations, organisation and behaviour, there are important differences between these two disciplines. John Beattie (1964: 29) writes, sociology is by definition concerned with the investigation and understanding of social relations, and with other data only in so far as they further this understanding, social anthropologists, although as we have seen they share this concern with sociologists, are interested also in other matters, such as peoples beliefs and values, even where these cannot be shown to be directly connected with social behavior. In brief, social anthropologists are cultural anthropologists as well Initially, sociologists focus on industrial West; anthropologists, on non-industrial societies. It is true that a great deal of sociological

research has been done in small groups, but these have usually been small groups in larger societies and not groups which are more or less coterminous with the whole society. Interdisciplinary collaboration is a hallmark of academic life today with ready borrowing of ideas and methods between disciplines. Among contemporary societies which are neither primitive or industrially advanced, of which India may be taken as an example, distinction between the two disciplines has little meaning. Both carried out studies on caste system, village communities, industrialisation, globalisation, intercity life, etc. Again, anthropologists and sociologists share an interest in issues of race, ethnicity, social class, gender, and power relations in modern nations including the United States and Canada.

3. Relationship between Social Anthropology and History The historians are more interested in particular sequences of past events. Anthropologists on the other hand are centrally interested in understanding the present conditions of culture or community which they are studying. Both history and ethnography are concerned with societies. The historian or ethnographer enlarges a specific experience to the dimension of a more general one, which thereby becomes accessible as experience to men of another country or another epoch. And in order to succeed, both historian and ethnographer must have the same qualities: skill, precision, a sympathetic approach and objectivity. John Beattie (1964) mentions that history may be important to social anthropologists; not only as an account of past events leading up to and explaining the present, but also as a body of contemporary ideas which people have about these events. Peoples ideas about the past are an intrinsic part of the contemporary situation which is the anthropologist immediate concern, and often they have important implications for existing social relationships. Levi-Strauss writes about the fundamental difference between the two disciplines, that it is not on the subject of study or goal or method. Because, they share the same subject, which is social life; the same goal, which is a better understanding of man, in which only the proportion of research techniques varies. They differ, principally, in their choice of complementary

perspectives: history organizes its data in relation to conscious expressions of social life, while anthropology proceeds by examining its unconscious foundations. Although historians use documentary evidence infrequently available to anthropologists, and anthropologists employ first-hand observation rarely possible for historians, both are concerned with the description and understanding of rare human situations, and they use whatever methods are available and appropriate to this purpose.

4. Relationship between Social Anthropology and Political Science Political science developed to investigate particular domain of human behaviour. In small-scale societies where social anthropology grew up, politics generally do not stand out as distinct activities. Rather they are submerged or embedded in the general social order. There is no formal authority figure. People generally follow orders of their kin rather than formal leaders. Anthropologists find out of a wide range of various political and legal systems by studying political organisations cross-culturally. Political anthropology attempts to transcend particular political experiences and doctrines. It studies man as homo politicus and seeks properties common to all political organisations in all historical and geographical diversity. It studies various institutions and practices that constitute the government of men and the systems of thought and the symbols on which they are based. Thus, political anthropology is seen as a discipline concerned with archaic societies in which the state is not clearly constituted and societies in which the state exists and takes on a wide variety of forms. It confronts the problem of the states origin and earliest forms. 5. Relationship between Social Anthropology and Psychology Most psychologists do research in their own society. Anthropology again contributes by providing cross-cultural data. Statements about human psychology can not be based solely on observations made in one society or a single type of society. The area of social anthropology known as psychological anthropology studies cross-cultural variation in psychological traits.

Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and others attempted to find out different patterns and psychological traits among different cultures.

Both social anthropology and psychology deal with people in relation with other people. Psychology is mainly concerned with the nature and functioning of individual human minds. Social anthropology is more keenly interested in the study of various forms and structure of groups and organisations. Its unit of study is society. It tries to find out types of society, their function, structure, origin and development. But psychology is not basically interested in the society and their forms. Its basic interest is in the study of individuals behaviour. Broadly speaking social anthropology studies the culture and social system in which the individuals live rather than the individuals themselves. But the individual and society can not exist separately. Thus the subject matter is almost the same but with the difference in emphasis.

6. Relationship between Social Anthropology and Economy Economics is one of the oldest and theoretically most sophisticated disciplines in comparison to anthropology. Economics developed to investigate particular domains of human behaviour and work mainly in advanced societies. Small-scale societies may not have distinct economic transactions as found in the advanced societies. The subject matter of economics has been defined as economising the rational allocation of scarce means (resources) among alternative ends (uses). Studying cross-culturally, anthropologists find variation in the motivations. Anthropologists know motives other than the desire for personal gain for making economic decisions in different cultures. And, in recent decades, fewer social-cultural anthropologists have tried to borrow some general ideas from economics; others strongly feel that it would be irrelevant to explain economic behaviour of small-scale (pre-industrial) societies in terms of formal economics which were developed for the industrial societies.

Economic anthropology classifies the diversity of economic systems into different types at different technological levels. Anthropologists find such categories as hunter-gatherer or band economics, hoe and forest cultivators, sedentary cultivators and so on. Some of the economic systems of small-scale societies may be found strange. If the people happen to be hunters and gatherers, the notion of hard work is likely to be misinterpreted. To understand how the schedule of work or demands of a given society is balanced against the supply of goods and services available, it is necessary to introduce a non-economic variable the anthropological variable of culture. From this perspective social anthropologists differ from economists, for the economists study the economic behavior and institution in purely economic terms whereas the social anthropologists analyze this sphere of human society in relation to noneconomic considerations such as social, religion and polity.

7. Conclusion: So far we have discussed the place of social anthropology in relation to other social sciences. Social anthropology has close relationship to these social sciences. It shares its subjectmatter with many other disciplines, but it does not restrict itself to the problems of other disciplines. A distinction is that it studies mainly in small-sale societies and cross-culturally whereas the other specialized social sciences study mostly in advanced and complex societies. Social anthropologists, more than the social sciences need to have acquaintance with some of the concepts and methods of a number of other subjects because they have to study unfamiliar societies in a holistic way and investigate the several dimensions of their social and cultural life.

Objectives: ThemainobjectiveofthiseContentistomakethestudentsknowaboutthe importanceofsocialanthropologyamongothersocialsciences.Itwillhelpthestudents learnmoreabouttherelationshipofsocialanthropologyinregardtoothersocialsciences likesociology,psychology,politicalscienceandeconomics.Thecoursewillalsomakethe studentunderstandtheuniquenessofsocialanthropologicalapproachescomparedtothe otherconcernedspecialistsubjects.

Quiz: 1. Whowritessociologyasaspecialformofanthropology? (a) Hoebel(b)EvansPritchard(c)LeviStrauss

Answer:(c) 2. Whatisthepsychologicaltermuseforincestcomplexbetweenaboyandhismother? (a) Oedipuscomplex(b)Culturecomplex(c)Electracomplex Answer:(a) 3. Whichoneamongthemisfamousinpsychologicalanthropology? (a) GeorgeBalandier(b)RobinFox(c)MargaretMead Answer:(c) 4. WhousethetermComparativeSociologytodenotesocialanthropology? (a) JohnBeattie(b)RadcliffeBrown(c)WilliamHaviland Answer:(b) 5. WhopropoundedpsychologicaltheoryrelatedtoOedipuscomplex? (a) RuthBenedict(b)SigmundFreud(c)MargaretMead Answer:(b)

References:
1.Balandier,G.1964:PoliticalAnthropology,PenguinBooksLtd,Harmondsworth,Middlesex, England. 2.Beattie,J.1964:OtherCultures,London. 3.Haviland,W.A.1994:(7thedition)Anthropology,USA. 4.LeviStrauss,C.1963:StructuralAnthropology1,PenguinBooks,London. 5.RadcliffeBrown,A.R.1952:StructureandFunctioninPrimitiveSociety,London.