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 AJAY-9971313179

ASSIGNMENT SOLUTIONS GUIDE (2020-2021)

BANC-133: ANTHROPOLOGY AND RESEARCH METHODS
Disclaimer/Special Note: These are just the sample of the Answers/Solutions to some of the Questions
given in the Assignments. These Sample Answers/Solutions are prepared by Private
Teacher/Tutors/Authors for the help and guidance of the student to get an idea of how he/she can
answer the Questions given the Assignments. We do not claim 100% accuracy of these sample
answers as these are based on the knowledge and capability of Private Teacher/Tutor. Sample
answers may be seen as the Guide/Help for the reference to prepare the answers of the Questions

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given in the assignment. As these solutions and answers are prepared by the private teacher/tutor so
the chances of error or mistake cannot be denied. Any Omission or Error is highly regretted though

17
every care has been taken while preparing these Sample Answers/Solutions. Please consult your own
Teacher/Tutor before you prepare a Particular Answer and for up-to-date and exact information, data
and solution. Student should must read and refer the official study material provided by the
university.

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Assignment – A
Answer the following in about 500 words each.
(a) Discuss the history and growth of social and cultural anthropology.
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Ans. 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 colonising process of Europe over
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the rest of theworld.Therelativelyequalrelationshipestablishedthroughtradewasbeingturned 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 savager yand
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all native customs were disparagingly dismissed as‘uncivilised’.Therising 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 at the same time the
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Enlightenment period was the time of flowering of ideas of Equality, Humanism and Liberty;
thoughts that originated from the French and American revolutions. There was the strong belief in
the Europeans as 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.
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It was the evolutionary theories 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 evolution was reached by the Western societies; whose dominance
was further justified by Spencer’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 by Freud 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 matrilineal/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

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religion and law, they were superior. They were also self-professed examples of superior civilisation
that justified their taking over and ‘civilising’ the primitives.
India was a British colony when anthropology was developing. The initial works that maybe
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 of curiosity about the people and cultures they were trying to
rule. Following the lead given by their rulers, the early scholars who we now refer to as the fathers of
anthropological thinking in India, scholars like S.C. Roy and Ananthakrishna Iyer, were influenced by
European philosophy of evolution and also by a universal humanism 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 associal/cultural
anthropology and biological anthropology. These works like Roy’s work on the Mundasand the

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Oraons and Iyer’s work on the Cochin tribes, included all aspects of life, like history, migration,
settlements, physical features of the people, their material culture, language and social institutions.

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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;
initially anthropology 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

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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 anthropology was largely the 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
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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
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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’
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people of India. He travelled and lectured extensively in Europe and attended the very first Congress
of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, held in London, in 1934; where he was given huge
recognition.
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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 were
A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, the father of anthropology in Great Britain, who wrote his classic monograph
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on The Andaman Islanders, published by Cambridge University Press in 1922. Before him W.H.R.
Rivers, who was on the border of evolutionism and functionalism; wrote his original work on The
Todas, in 1911, a year when the Seligmans’ had also published their ethnography of The Veddas of
Ceylon.
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.
Contemporary Indian anthropology is also engaged in advocacy and 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

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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 or a sustainable future.
(b) Discuss why culture is regarded as “uniquely human”.
Ans. “You have no culture”, “You are uncultured” are terms which many of us must have come
across. In layman’s term culture is attributed to refined behaviour, and a good taste in the finer
qualities of life like classical music, dance, theatre etc. When we look at a person we try to gauge,
one’s behaviour towards another human being, one’s manners and etiquettes like how one sits at a
dining table and uses the cutlery etc., which we attribute to polished behaviour or a suggestion that
the person possesses culture. However, in anthropological terms the meaning of culture encompasses
all behaviour; it basically represents the way of life of the people. Culture in anthropological parlance
is not concerned only with finer refinement but ascribed as a part of everyday life which every society
possesses. The anthropological emphasis on culture is to understand people’s way of life, without

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giving relevance to terms like ‘uncultured’, as every society has a culture which might be simple or
complex and differ from other cultures. Every culture is unique in itself. In this unit, we will take into

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account how anthropology looks at culture. We will begin with the definitions of culture that has
been given by anthropologists through the ages to understand the meaning of culture as a way of life.
The word ‘culture’ is derived from the Latin word ‘cultura’, a derivative of the verb colo that means
‘to tend’, ‘to cultivate ’or ‘to till’ among other things (Tucker 1931). Culture is the way of life of the
people.

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Malinowski defined culture as an “instrumental reality, and apparatus for the satisfaction of the
biological and derived need”. It is the integral whole consisting of implements in consumers’ goods,
of constitutional characters for the various social groupings, of human ideas and crafts, beliefs and
customs” (Malinowski 1944:1)
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“…Culture in general as a descriptive concept means the accumulated treasury of human creation:
books, paintings, buildings, and the like; the knowledge of ways of adjusting to our surroundings,
both human and physical; language, customs, and systems of etiquette, ethics, religion and morals
that have been built up through the ages” (Kluckhohn and Kelly 1945:78)
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Culture consists of patterned ways of thinking, feeling and reacting, acquired and transmitted mainly
by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiments
in artifacts; essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e. historically derived and selected) ideas
and especially their attached values(Kluckhohn 1951:86.)
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‘Culture is unique to human society’, we have come across this statement many times. Let’s explore
why culture is unique to human society. Apes and monkeys can replicate behaviour, if you pick up a
stone and throw it at a monkey, the monkey will replicate your behaviour, however, it would
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replicate the behaviour without understanding the moral attributes to it and once he learns the
behaviour it would be difficult for him to undo it. The amount of force to be applied while throwing
the stone so that it does not cause serious injury to anyone, or what the size of the stone ought to be,
these judgments between right and wrong is something which apes and monkeys cannot understand
and correlate. However, if we teach a human baby to act in a particular way, the child will learn the
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behaviour and later s/he can also do away with that behaviour. Since culture is learned behaviour it
can be unlearnt also. So, the answer is yes, culture is unique to human society alone.
So what are the attributes that make a culture unique to human society? The attributes that have
allowed human beings the leverage to create culture is rooted in our biological evolution- the
opposable thumb, increase in our cranial capacity, bipedal locomotion and the development of
unique cognitive capacities and ability for creative and abstract thinking. Humans alone seem to be
capable of symbolic creative behaviour. Once we started our journey with our bipedal gait, our hands
became free we were able to use our opposable thumb for grasping and creating products for our use.
The use of the opposable thumb allowed human beings to create tools as they could now
graspandholdthingswiththeirfingers,thusmakinghumanbeings‘toolusinganimal’ as stated by E. B.
Tylor (Herskovits 1958). Our bipedal locomotion is also responsible for our spinal structure by which
we are able to hold our head, freeing our larynx and thus, allowing us the power of speech. This is the

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beginning of our cultural journey. Language has been called as the vehicle of transmitting human
culture, as it has made communication between two human beings comprehensible.
One of the earliest concepts of anthropological sciences is that the ends achieved by all human ways
of life, or cultures, are basically similar (Herskovits 1958). This universality of culture was postulated
in the theories of evolution by the early anthropologists like Herbert Spencer and E.B. Tylor who had
stated it as ‘the psychic unity of mankind’. This view regarded the similarities in different cultures a
sowing to the similar capacities of human beings. For example in almost all cultures be it a preliterate
or developed society the institutions of family, marriage and kinship are seen, though the patterns
may vary.
Assignment – B
Answer the following in about 250 words each.
(a) Family, marriage and kinship.

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Ans. Every human being belongs to a society. They become the members of a society by virtue of
their birth. It is the norms and values of a society that shapes the life of a human being. In this unit we

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will look into the relationships that constitute our core groups; kinship, family and marriage. How
each relationship is intertwined and shapes our lives.
FAMILY
When we use the term family our own family comes to mind. So let us start this section by listing out
the members in our own family to understand the meaning of family. You can use the genealogical

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method that was described in the section 6.1 on kinship to create your family tree. Now if we are to
check the family tree we would basically see that each one of us have included our parents and
siblings with whom we live. Some of us might have also added grandparents either from the
maternal or paternal side if they are living with us. Basically we list everyone living together in the
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same house as family. This composition of members living in a family will differ from society to
society. Family comprises of people living together who are related either by blood (cognate) or
marriage (agnate). Family can be divided into two broad categories- family of orientation and family
of procreation. A child is born into the family of orientation where the process of socialisation and
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enculturation takes place.

After marriage a family is created by husband and wife known as family of procreation where they
can beget or adopt children. Let us understand the different types of families as described by Barnard
(2007:94-95).
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Nuclear family- comprises of one married couple with their children, own or adopted λ one parent
family- family with only one parent either father or mother living with the children, own or adopted.
It can be formed through separation, divorce or death of one of the spouse/widowhood.
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Compound family-a central figure (typically a man), his or her spouses, sometimes concubines, and
all their children. Such families are seen where polygamous marriages are prevalent.
Joint family- brothers and their wives and children all live together along with their parents. Usually,
the authority lies with the father. In countries where agriculture is the main occupation such families
are common like in India and China.
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Extended family- today with changing times this word extended has lot of ambiguities, on the one
hand it means a group of closely-related nuclear families that live together, while in urban and
industrial societies it means a group which do not live together but keep in touch.
KINSHIP
Let us attend a wedding to understand the core concepts of kinship, family and marriage as an
example. Herein, taking a bride and groom as our example we would first try to identify the kin
groups and relations one acquires by birth and by marriage. The understanding of kin groups is
important as kinship is the basic principle which decides whom a person can marry and who is out of
bounds. Kinship also determines the pattern of descent, lineage, inheritance, power and authority in a
family.
With the example of the wedding let us understand what kinship is. In a wedding we see two
families- the groom’s family and the bride’s family. The people who attend the marriage are usually

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attached to either of the two families by birth or by marriage. These relations are known as kinship
relations. So how do we acquire kinship relations? There are basically two ways of acquiring kinship
relations
a. by birth and b. by marriage.
MARRIAGE
Marriage is found in almost all human societies though the pattern, rituals and customs may vary.
The debate still continues as to when marriage came into being and became an integral part of society.
Early social thinkers had speculated that in the initial stages of human existence human beings lived
in a state of promiscuity where marriage to an individual did not exist. There were no rules and
regulations. All men had access to all women and thus, the children born were the responsibility of
the society at large. This slowly gave way to group marriage and finally to single marriages. So in this
section we would first try to define marriage and then understand the different types of marriages

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prevalent in different societies.
“Marriage is a union between a man and a woman such that the children born to the woman are

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recognised as legitimate offspring of both partners”. So basically marriage is a sanction which is
accepted by the society for a man and a woman to have a relationship and gives them the social
sanctity to beget or adopt children. However, let us now explore if in the present world this definition
holds true and also try to understand the various types of marriages prevalent in societies.
(b) Structuralism.

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Ans. The term ‘structuralism’ refers to an approach in anthropology concerned with the study of the
structures underlying the social and cultural facts that are collected during the course of a fieldwork
study or from the already available information in archives, museums, and libraries. In other words,
if the functional approach regards fieldwork, the first hand study of a society, as the main method of
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data collection, structuralism submits that the data for analysis can come from other sources. The
approach can be used on what is properly called the ‘secondary data’.
Structuralism had its origin in the study of languages, particularly in the work of a French linguist,
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). One of the observations the linguists (those who study the
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language, its structure and function) have made is that people are able to speak a language correctly,
according to its norms, even when they do not know its grammar. It was an exemplary work of the
colonial scholars and missionaries who unravelled the grammar of these unwritten languages. They
also prepared their dictionaries, and also helped in developing their scripts, although they were
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invariably from the scripts in which the colonial scholars wrote. Thus, for example, the script in which
the Naga dialects were written up was Roman, as the scholars who worked on them were English-
speaking.
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In other words, the people had created their respective languages, having a hidden grammar, of
which they did not have any knowledge. It was left to the scholars working on these languages to
discover their grammars. As a language has a grammar, of which the people are unaware, in a similar
way, the institutions of society have their underlying aspects, which we may call ‘structures’. Those
who bear these institutions, customs and beliefs, and live through them, do not know what these
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underlying structures are. It is left to the anthropologists to discover them. So, those anthropologists
who devoted their skill to discovering the underlying structures (or ‘unconscious structure’, because
people are not aware of them) called themselves ‘structuralists’, having been influenced by the French
linguistic structuralism. If for functionalism, the analogy taken for understanding and explanation
was of organism (thus, ‘organic analogy’), for structuralism, it was of language. If functionalism was
influenced by biological science, structuralism was by linguistics.
Structuralism did not conflict with the earlier approaches that were popular in anthropology. It
believed that there were other, equally important, ways of understanding society. Societies have
undoubtedly evolved over time. It is mandatory on our part to know their origin and the stages
through which they have passed. So is the fact that each society has to work for the survival of its
members. The question that functionalism investigated about the actual working of society and how
its parts hang together is equally important. In a similar way is the fact that human beings in their

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long history of survival on this planet have migrated from one geographical space to another,
carrying with them their culture, depositing it at another place, and also, learning from their hosts.
The approach called diffusionism is as significant for understanding human life as are the other.
Thus, there are different ways of studying human society and culture. One such way is to take up an
institution for study, find out its components, examine the way in which they make up the whole, and
the design or pattern that thus results. By doing this, we have moved to an understanding of its
structure. Thus, social structure is not given; it is not an empirical entity as said by Radcliffe-Brown.
Social structure is an abstraction from the observable reality, but it cannot be reduced to that. It is a
model that the anthropologists create from their field study, primarily for the purpose of study. Social
structure thus is a methodological devise.
To take an example: each kinship system has its own rules of regulating blood ties, sex and marriage.
Besides the basic kin terms – for the mother or the father – that may have across-cultural similarity–

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each society has its own host of terms. Sometimes different relatives are called by the same terms, and
sometimes, by different terms. Rules of marriage differ from one society to another; so do the types.

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The point is that as the societies are enormously diverse, so are their institutions. But structuralism
would submit that regardless of their diversity they would all have the same structure, built on
certain universal principles. In his first major work, on kinship, titled The Elementary Structures of
Kinship, Lévi-Strauss showed that it is the principle of the ‘exchange of women’ which is universal,
irrespective of the descent system that is followed, which results in two models.

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The first is when women are exchanged between two groups, over generations. It is the practice of
‘sister exchange’, where those who give their women to the other group are the same who receive
women from the group to which they give. Thus, in Lévi-Strauss’s terms, the wife-givers and wife-
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takers are the same people. Thus, a symmetry is established. The other model is based on the
principle of asymmetry. Here, a group (say, A) receives women as spouses from group B, but
transfers its women (sisters) to group C. In this case, wife-givers to a group are different from the
wife-takers. Lévi- Strauss called the first, the system of sister-exchange, ‘balanced reciprocity’, which
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is an exchange between two groups (A to B, B to A).The second is where endless groups are annexed
to the system of exchange (A to B, B to C, C to D, D to n…, from n to A) and the system closes when
the women from the final group return to the first group (from n to A). This model is called the
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‘generalised exchange.’ If the British anthropology stressed the descent relations (from father to son,
from mother to daughter) for understanding kinship, Lévi-Strauss became a proponent of the idea
that marriage established relationship between groups. In French, the word ‘alliance’ means
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‘marriage’, so Lévi-Strauss came to be known as an ‘alliance theorist’.

(c) Fieldwork traditions in anthropology

Ans. Social anthropology is an observational, comparative and generalising science. The meaning of
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the statement is given below: (1) data are collected by making use of the techniques of observation on
a smaller unit (saya society ,community, neighborhood, group, or an institution); (2) from this study,
propositions about the entire society are abstracted; social anthropology is understood as an inductive
science of society, where we move from the particular to the general; (3) in addition, data from
different societies are meticulously subjected to comparison to find out the commonalities and
differences among different societies, or the units on which the study is being conducted; and (4) an
attempt is made to arrive at a set of generalisations about the unit of study.
At one time, these generalisations attempted from a comparative study were called ‘laws’(that is, the
‘laws of the working of society’).Today, the word ‘law’ has been dropped, mainly because it is
realised that the kind of laws that we are able to derive at in natural and biological sciences are not
possible for social sciences. Human behaviour has a great deal of variability than what one finds in

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natural and biological phenomena. However, the idea of arriving at ‘what is common to all the units
under study’ continues.
The best way to know people and their reality, which has become central to social anthropological
work, is fieldwork. Incidentally, one of the main contributions of social anthropology to the other
fields of knowledge, not only in social but also in natural and biological sciences, is in terms of the
methodology of fieldwork. Today, the other disciplines have introduced courses on fieldwork in their
curricula and are learning the art, lore and science of fieldwork from anthropologists.
In this connection we may quote Henri Bergson, who said, ‘there are two ways of knowing a
phenomenon, one by going round it, and the other by going inside it.’ The methodology of fieldwork
argues in favour of going inside a phenomenon and understanding it from within, what is known as
the “insider’s view”. Fieldwork is a method of data collection in which the investigator lives with the
people in t We have also realised the difference that exists between ‘what people think’, ‘what people

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say’, ‘what people do’, and ‘what they think they ought to have done’. If we are just asking them
questions and noting down their replies, as happens in the method called ‘survey’, we are largely

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collecting information on ‘what people say they do’. It is highly likely that they may not be doing
what they are saying. They maybe giving the normatively correct and socially desirable replies. In
other words, what they are saying may not be the truth. We have on record many cases of this type.

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For instance, a respondent, a pharmacist by profession, may be boasting of his adherence to the value
of honesty, but the anthropologist living in his house finds out that the same man is in fact stealing
medicines from the hospital where he is working and selling them to his clients whom he is treating
illegally. This is what John Beattie found out in his study of the Bunyoro.
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Assignment – C
Answer the following in about 150 words each.
(a) Ethnocentrism
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Ans. While studying and understanding other people’s culture two important concepts have
emerged, a. Ethnocentrism and b. Cultural Relativism.
In the earlier studies during the emergence of anthropology as a discipline the works on culture,
which basically involved European authors the general tendency was to judge the culture that was
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being studied with the author’s own culture. This attitude has been reflected in works on tribal,
aboriginal societies, where such societies were conjured as ‘strange’ or ‘exotic’ which were presented
more in the lines of deviations from what is ‘normal’ in one’s own society. Such concepts and ideas
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helped in postulating the evolutionary theory that was much in use during that time. This aspect has
been termed as ethnocentrism and was coined by sociologist William Graham Sumner in his book
‘Folkways’ published in 1906, where he stated ‘ethnocentrism refers to the tendency to assume that
one’s culture and way of life are superior to all others’.
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(b) Cultural Relativism

Ans. Franz Boas, American anthropologist in the 19th century postulated the Cultural Relativism or
Cultural Determinism approach which studies behaviour of a particular group from the perspective
of their own culture. The idea was to view a particular culture in relation to its own context and time.
For example, polyandry in a particular society might seem at odds to a researcher’s own society.
However, instead of judging this custom the researcher has to understand the functionalities of such a
system in that society. As every culture has its own history and culture traits, that needs to be
understood in terms of the cultural whole, as each society is different, and its customs depends on the
other aspects of culture like environment, population etc. Cultural relativism, however, has had its
own set of criticisms, if looked from human rights perspectives, many of the cultural practices in
many societies are a violation of human rights. One such example can be female infanticide practiced

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in some societies or not letting women inherit property. Feminists have been particularly critical of
the fact that most cultures encourage patriarchy in the name of tradition.
(c) Interpretive theory
Ans. According to this theory, given by Clifford Geertz, entire cultures are nothing but systems of
meaning, that hang together because the meanings of one part are only explainable by the meanings
of another and all are contextualised to the entire system of meanings. Thus human beings are
suspended in webs of signification that they have created and they reproduce, but no longer control.
We are born into a system of meanings that we imbibe through the process of enculturation. In our
everyday life practices, we continuously reproduce these systems of meaning. For example, in the
Hindu cultural system, there are many sacred beings and places, and there are culturally prescribed
ways of behaviour associated with these beings and places, that further tend to reproduce the

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sacredness of these fragments of the environment. The manner in which the sacredness is expressed is
again a part of the larger system of meanings, like some colours are auspicious in a culture and some

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colours are not; some prescribed acts are respectful and others are not. Why this is so is again linked
to other systems of meanings and explanations. Thus every part of the cosmology is linked to the
other, and every act makes sense only in reference to the larger context. Geertz (1973) said that

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cultural anthropology was not a science in search of laws but an interpretative one in search of
meanings. In this way he had directly criticised the earlier positivist stand point.
(d) Historical particularism
Ans. The American School of Historical Particularism was founded by Franz Boas, who being of
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German origin derived his theoretical insights from the German school of diffusion as well as from
the Gestalt psychology. He understood the importance of history in other words of the process of
contextual social transformation rather than the generalised process of evolution. The American
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experience of colonisation was different from that of the British in Africa and India. The Native
Americans were a dispersed and depopulated lot and the impact of history was evident as the
anthropologists were often faced with the prospect of having to interview the last remaining
representative of a tribe; and often had to make do with remnants of material culture, stories passed
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down and myths and folklore, when most members of the tribe were dispersed or dead. Boas spent
most of his academic life in collecting and classifying these materials under the apprehension that
they were going to be lost forever. Since history refers to the particular and not the general, according
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to Boas, there is not one Culture, but many cultures, each historically derived and specifically located
and the product of minds of people in different locations. Thus both regional environments and the
minds of the people who make up that culture, were factors influencing how a culture shaped up.
Culture was also rooted in its material existence and not a sequence of ideas building upon ideas, as
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postulated by Tylor. In other words, Boas, had a more materialistic perspective on culture, and a
situational one, unlike Tylor’s ideational view of culture as a purely mental phenomenon.
(e) Primary and Secondary group
Ans. The concept of society is further developed by comparing it with an organism. This is known as
organic analogy, which means that the model of an organism is used for understanding society. As an
organism is divided into organs, which are in turn divided into tissues, which are further divided into
cells, in the same way society is divided into communities which are divided into groups, and groups
into individuals.
The examples of primary group are family, peer group, and neighbourhood. By comparison to a
primary group, sociologist have spoken of a kind of group which is known as secondary group, in
which there are a large number of individuals and the interaction among them is not face-to-face; it is

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rather a means to ends type. This means that such groups involve exploitation of the other, and once
the goals are met with, the group comes to an end.
(f) Participant Observation
Ans. Participant observation owes its subsistence to Malinowski whose study among the Trobriand
Islanders of Papua New Guinea set the benchmark for fieldwork in anthropology. Malinowski had
stated in order to participate in the everyday activities of the community, “one has to cut oneself off
from the company of other white men, and remaining in as close contact with the natives as possible,
which really can only be achieved by camping right in their villages” (Malinowski, 1922: 6). This was
one of the classic ways to carry out observation and to a certain extent it is right to state that in order
to connect with the people under study one needs to live the lives of those people. However, in the
twenty-first century when the very definition of field has changed from an ‘exotic’ location far away

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from the researchers homeland, camping right in the middle of the community might not be possible,
if the study area is an institution like school, non- government organisation, corporate space, etc.

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More so, anthropologists need not be far away from their own kind, as the researchers today also
conduct work among their own communities to have an insider’s view. Participant observation
amounts to the researcher participating in the activities of the community under study where the

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researcher directly involves himself or herself to be a part of the community or activity.
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