SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Definition of Sociology
 Socius means group, associates or
patterns.
 Accdg. To Joseph Fichter, it is the
scientific study of patterned, shared human
behavior.
 It was first used by Auguste Comte (Frenchman) who
called himself as sociologist.
 Definition of Sociology

 Rodney Stark, it deals with the study of patterns and

process of human relations.
 The social anthropology intend to make a comparative
analysis of how people behave or act in social
circumstances.
 The problem that social anthropology face:
 The raw material is disappearing in due course
 Most are not evaporating but they have been changing the
way of their lives that is the special work areas of social
anthropologists.
For example:
 Head-hunting, cannibalism and human sacrifice had
disappeared.
 Totemism, exogamy, and polygamy.
 Definition of social anthropology

 Main work of social anthropologist in

this article:
 What social anthropologist studies
 What methods social anthropologist uses
 What results social anthropologist gets
 How valid the result of studies
 Definition of social anthropology
 Social anthropology studies human social process
comparatively.
 Life of animals and plants can be useful for drawing
fundamentals of what life in a society must consist of
in respect to social process.
 Anthropological generalization about human society
are collaborative definitive.
 Definition of social anthropology
 Sociology, psychology share its general field of work and
history as well.
 History, in a different way, has interest in social process. It
is not personal events but supply documents in time
perspective on society. Sociology, gives massive structure
of concepts and date in collected by observation of
Western society. Psychology has interest in analyzing the
social as in individual and classifying the individual act in
types.
 Definition of social anthropology
 Where does social anthropologist involve?
 Its traditional role is regional complement to sociology. And
historically, it studies process in society of people who are
far from us in their lives and not familiar with is in their
traditions.
 What anthropologist studies:
 Social anthropologist never cut the touch with Western
society. He studies family, kinship, magic, religion,
mythology and morality.
 Definition of social anthropology

 The purpose of the anthropological researchers is pay

attention to general characteristic underlying all
societies. The social anthropologist studies with
customs of people to reveal the general questions
about the nature of society and of social process.
 Definition of social anthropology
 Most anthropologist study at one time among
communities those are small. Study among the small
groups also helps to understand or conceptualize of
the society as a whole. Different from other social
scientist, he is used to understand how people really
do and behave in different social environment and try
to find out common factor and variant in their
conduct.
 Definition of social anthropology
 What anthropologist studies:
 In another perspective, social anthropologist has to put
a clear line between basic social situations and a wide
variety of human circumstances.
 Philosophy, literature and social sciences try to observe
the different kinds of human experiences and come to
conclusion with their own characteristics.
 Definition of social anthropology

 Literature perform in imaginary way, philosophy in

skepticism way and the social sciences perform in
acceptance and analysis. So that, in particularly, social
anthropology is comparative.
 Definition of social anthropology
 Difficulties that social anthropologist faces
 First, social anthropologist seeks for the widest
possible range of experience against foreigner
background. Experience is must be meaningful to be
susceptible of regularity. The aim of the social
anthropology is to draw regularities from alien,
obscure of experience express them in more general
principle and tendencies of familiar.
 Definition of social anthropology
 The second difficulty is finding sufficient regularities
among the conduct of the member of the group to
generalize adequately.
 Change of human society caused by technological and
economic activities or etc. result in social difficulties
and anthropologic problems because change has never
been succeeded smoothly.
 Definition of social anthropology

 Criticism, defense, either of activities or of value

system behind them cannot be placed in social
anthropology. They would be only factors in total
situation that social anthropologist is concerned.
 Definition of social anthropology

 Provinces of Social Anthropologist:

 Social anthropologist has wider province than small
scale primitive and preliterate peasant culture. Most
studies are related to those but boundaries are neither
technological nor geographical.
 Definition of social anthropology

 American anthropologist has newly tendencies to

study on personality and character formation in
civilized countries or communities in addition to
primitive ones.
 Definition of social anthropology
 Closeness to other Social sciences:
 The anthropologist approach to study of
contemporary civilization must be awareness of
contribution of other social sciences to problems.
 For example, American social scientist used the
anthropologic methods to understand Irish rural life
and collect the material
 Definition of social anthropology
 Features that distinguishes the social anthropology
from other disciplines.
 Firstly, its intensive detailed characteristic for
systematic observation is to examine the conduct of
people in group relation. What people actually do is
the concern area for anthropologist.
 Definition of social anthropology
 Secondly, it is holistic implication. Any particular item
selected for observation is always regarding to its place in
total phenomena in the life of human group.
 Third, characteristic is comparison that is given by social
anthropologist for emphasis, Comparison is performed
between items of behavior in different major social units
and identification of the major scale unit, and items
selection base on the abstraction.
 Definition of social anthropology
 Validity of methods used by social anthropologist in terms
of considering problems.

 Problem observation
 Problem of assignment of meaning
 Problem of Expression
 Definition of social anthropology
 Problem of observation
 Social anthropologist should observe the environment of
the human. He has to hear what people say. He has to see
what people do.
 Observer-effect is important for observation and his senses
can give the correct data, interpretation. He has to put the
intuitional comprehension, empathy existential thinking a
side and pay attention to the relevant field of observation.
 Definition of social anthropology
 Problem of assignment of meaning
 In the study of behavior, he has to work by
contextualization. If the understands the context
adequately, he can understand the meaning of behavior.
 Research is a process of learning and practicing new
modes of personal behaviors. If he infers wrong scientific
meaning, he gets practical difficulties.
 Definition of social anthropology

 Problem of expression
 Expression of the result of the study is served by set of
theoretical concepts in which scientific observation of
phenomena and attribution of meaning to them can be
done.
 Definition of social anthropology
 Society, culture and community is most frequently used
term in the description and the analyses of group of life of
human beings. Each one expresses the idea of totality.
 If society is considered as an organized set of individual
with given way of life, so culture is that way of life. If
society is regarded as total of social relations, so culture is
the content of those relations.
 Definition of social anthropology
 Constant problem of social anthropology
 Time is also a factor to develop the implication decision
and consequent action. A person can choose consciously or
unconsciously what he will follow, this affects the future
structure of society. Social structure is continuity principles
of society but social organization is variation or change
principle by ensure the evaluation of situation and entry of
individual choice.
Thank You