A Brief Encounter: Society

1. A Brief Encounter: Society …anthropologists view behaviour as an outcome of mental maps provided to us by culture. But what else is there? Human culture is moderated by life in social groups. Our evolution has been possible because of our dependence on our life in groups. So we must talk about society. We may have a culture, but we belong to a society. And what then is that? How is it ordered or structured? Culture and society are simply different angles from which to see the same thing.

2. An exercise… • You are doing ethnography in a small society and you see very little in terms of cultural stuff. You hear the language, you see the living quarters, you watch them obtain food through hunting and gathering. What else is there? How is their society organized? • Division of labor…does it exist and if it does ..who does what? Even technologically simple societies assign tasks to people based on age and gender. • Groups form to accomplish particular functions and they coordinate their activities with other groups.

3. Structure and Function… Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown …1920’s – 1950’s …sought to understand the way groups are formed in society, the rules governing the behaviour of their members, how groups relate to one another, and the functions, both latent and manifest, that they perform. Structural functionalism saw society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability. The ‘organic analogy’ popularized by Herbert Spencer, presents these parts of society as ‘organs’ that work toward the proper functioning of the ‘body’ as a whole.

4. Radcliffe –Brown… • Joking relationships and avoidance relationships. • Terms used to refer to an institutionalized form of interaction between pairs of individuals in certain societies. • A joking relationship is one where one party is permitted, and sometimes required to tease or make fun of the other, who in turn is required to take no offense. • An avoidance relationship is just the opposite, whereby contact in the social situation is limited ( the mother-in-law wears bells!) • Radcliffe –Brown looked at these as structural situations which could be dangerous if not managed in some way. They represented a ‘structural situation’ in which the potential for conflict or social awkwardness is high.

5. The joking or avoidance relationship provided people with a kind of social script for getting around difficult structural situations, either by allowing the most egregious behaviourand requiring them not to take offence, or by prohibiting them from interacting at all.

6. Malinowski… Although the two, Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown were seen as the fathers of structural-functionalim they were quite distinct in their approach or view of the function of social stucture. Malinowski …every ‘primitive man’ was a rational actor whose every practice and institution served a function that contributed to the satisfaction of individual and collective needs. This was what he termed the ‘doctrine of needs’: supplying the basic wants of individual members of society, such as food, shelter, etc.

7. Claude Levi-Strauss… …came to view social structures as existing to organize the flow of marriage partners among groups, seeing reciprocity, exchange, and alliance as defining social relations. For Levi-Strauss there was a significant difference between societies organized around various kinds of alliances between kin groups and societies in which marriage choices were ‘preferential”. Post-organic analogy…parts of society seen as constituting flows of data in a system of information.

8. Karl Marx… …regarded social life and the structure of society as contingent upon the dominant technologies of a given period and the ways people were organized to produce with these technologies. This was a time of factory organized labor and production. What about now? What about in an economy increasingly based on information flow?

9. Emile Durkheim.. Traditional… Modern… Mechanical Solidarity- Society is held together by the basic similarity of its members Organic solidarity- Society is held together by the interdependence of its parts and the allegiance to common symbols

10. Ferdinand Tonnies… Traditional… Modern… Gemeinschaft… Community: Traditional rules create a sense of universal solidarity among people Gesellschaft… Society: constituted by a deliberately formulated social contract which reflects rational self-interest.

11. Lewis Henry Morgan… Traditional… Modern… Common kinship… The basis for collective identity Common territory… The basis for collective identity

12. Max Weber… Traditional… Modern… Enchantment… People relate to the world around them as participants in an animated whole; legitimacy is derived from divine sources; positions and relations are determined by social stratus Rationality… People see themselves as separate from the natural world; legitimacy derives from proven merit; institutions are organized for efficiency

13. Lucien Levy-Bruhl… Traditional… Modern… Pre-logical thinking… The thought of ‘primitive’ people is not illogical, but mystical and associative Logical thinking… Modern thought is dominated by logic and scientific method

14. Post-Modernism… Modern… Post-modern… Positivist Industrial production Generates knowledge through direct experience Holism Nation-state Relativist Information flow Generates knowledge through simulation and modelling Pluralism Trans-national communities

15. Meet the Natives… You thought those videos were just for fun! How do these four gentlemen fit into these schemes?