Sociology and Anthropology Essay

A. The Science of Sociology and Anthropology Sociology is the scientific survey of human society and its beginnings. development. organisations. and institutions. ] It is a societal scientific discipline which uses assorted methods of empirical probe and critical analysis to develop a organic structure of cognition about human societal activity. constructions. and maps.

A end for many sociologists is to carry on research which may be applied straight to societal policy and public assistance. while others focus chiefly on polishing the theoretical apprehension of societal procedures.

Capable affair ranges from the micro degree of single bureau and interaction to the macro degree of systems and the societal construction. The traditional focal points of sociology include societal stratification. societal category. civilization. race and ethnicity. gender and gender. societal mobility. faith. secularisation. jurisprudence. and aberrance.

As all domains of human activity are affected by the interplay between societal construction and single bureau. sociology has bit by bit expanded its focal point to farther topics.

such as wellness. medical. military and penal establishments. the Internet. environmental sociology. political economic system and the function of societal activity in the development of scientific cognition. Anthropology is the survey of worlds. yesteryear and nowadays. To understand the full expanse and complexness of civilizations across all of human history. anthropology draws and physiques upon cognition from the societal and biological scientific disciplines every bit good as the humanistic disciplines and physical scientific disciplines.

A cardinal concern of anthropologists is the application of cognition to the solution of human jobs.

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Historically. anthropologists in the United States have been trained in one of four countries: sociocultural anthropology. biological/physical anthropology. archeology. and linguistics. Anthropologists frequently integrate the positions of several of these countries into their research. instruction. and professional lives. Sociology and anthropology are separate. but related. subdivisions of the societal scientific disciplines that study worlds and society. Once anthropology and sociology were similar in how they studied worlds. but in the early portion of the twentieth century. their methodological analysiss and focal points diverged.

B. The Development of Sociology and Anthropology The history of Anthropology and Sociology is long and full of priceless penetrations into the human status.

It provides a mirror that reaches deep into ourselves and explains why we do things that are sometimes contradictory to logic. and most frequently in confederation with social criterions. For these grounds. Anthropology and Sociology have remained extremely honored Fieldss of survey and go on to boom as a library of societal idea grows. August Comte was the first to coin the term “sociology” . He was non the first to make theories of sociology. but was the first to proclaim himself a sociologist.

Comte was a functionalist who believed every facet of society served a intent. He is most celebrated for his thought of societal statics and kineticss. Social statics is the survey of societal order. whereas societal kineticss is the survey of societal alteration and advancement. Dividing the survey of sociology into these two classs created two different frames of mention from which sociology could be studied ( Collins and Makowsky 26 ) . The following important development in sociology came with Karl Marx.

Marx was a conflict theoretician who believed that all facets of society could be explained as a battle between two or more opponent groups. There were three parts to Marx’s theory. First. there was his sociology which established the category system ( Collins and Makowsky 34 ) . This system included the capitalists. or businessperson. who owned the agencies of production and profited from working workers. or the labor ( Collins and Makowsky 40 ) . Following. Marx’s political relations explained that a category battle for power would be won by the group that best suits the germinating economic system ( Collins and Makowsky 36 ) .

Since the lone manner for the capitalist to net income is by working the worker. and the worker can non gain on his ain because he does non have the agencies of production. capitalists could drive rewards lower and lower until the workers revolt ( Collins and Makowsky 41 ) . Finally. Marx speculated that this rebellion would happen because the worker would be deriving less from their work than what they put in. This was his social/political doctrine ( Collins and Makowsky 45 ) . At around the same clip in the field of Anthropology the prevailing school of idea was going the societal evolutionists.

These theoreticians used Charles Darwin’s theory of development to explicate society ( Collins and Makowsky 85 ) . Herbert Spencer said that societies were similar beings in that they went from simple to complex and independent to interdependent. However. societies were non similar beings because they were non organized likewise or interconnected ( Collins and Makowsky 85-86 ) . Sir Edward Burnett Tylor was another societal evolutionist who believed that all civilizations were derived from a individual organic structure of information and that certain societies had less and others more ( McGee and Warms 27 ) .

Lewis Henry Morgan perpetuated this thought by claiming that there were three types of societies: barbarian. barbaric. and civilised ( McGee and Warms 41 ) . The facets of the society that determined how evolved the civilization was along this graduated table were how people gained subsistence. the system of authorities. linguistic communication. household. faith. house life and architecture. and the type of ownership of belongings ( McGee and Warms 42 ) . The three phases could be defined along the lines of innovations and finds and the types of primary establishments ( McGee and Warms 46 ) .

Some old ages after the societal evolutionists established their theories of Anthropology. Emile Durkheim made an impact on Sociology. Like Comte. he excessively was a functionalist. Durkheim created many theories. among them the most noteworthy being that of the map of offense and Social Facts. Durkheim believed that the map of offense was to unify members of society. Crime provides a rule behind which most members of society can stand behind and go united. The reverberations of offense besides teach the young person the norms and values of a society ( Collins and Makowsky 105 ) .

Durkheim is besides commended for his theory of Social Facts. A Social Fact is determined by a society and is non true across all societies. whereas facts are true across all societies ( McGee and Warms 88 ) . Another sociologist who was working at the same clip as Emile Durkheim was Max Weber. Weber was a symbolic interactionalist who believed that all interactions in society represented a deeper feature of society. However. Weber was besides a Marxist who deemed category. power. and position the foundation of society ( Collins and Makowsky 120-121 ) . Weber spent much of his clip explicating the signifiers of authorities.

He described two types of authorities: Patrimonialism and Bureaucracy. In Patrimonialism. places in authorities were awarded via traditional legitimacy. or birth-right ( Collins and Makowsky 126 ) . No particular accomplishments were needed to carry through occupation demands and there were by and large few to no regulations. In Bureaucracy. people were appointed or elected for places. This system used rational-legal legitimacy and contained a hierarchy. Bureaucracy required a great sum of specialisation and included many regulations and ordinances ( Collins and Makowsky 127 ) .

Two other symbolic interactionalists who made important parts to sociology around this clip were Charles Horton Cooley and George Herbert Mead. Cooley developed the construct of the Looking-Glass ego. The rule had three dimensions. First. people look at themselves as they think others see them. Then. they look for judgements others may be doing about them. And eventually. they evaluate those judgements and adjust their behaviour consequently ( Collins and Makowsky 167 ) . Mead besides created a theoretical account of the ego. In Mead’s theory. the first phase we encounter is the “me” .

This is a phase in which we anticipate stimulations and react with formulated responses. As we mature. we enter the “I” where we are now able to see the outlooks society has of us and we react with learned responses ( Collins and Makowsky 174 ) . After we are able to place ourselves as portion of a community. we adjust our actions to outdo suit the involvements of the community ( Collins and Makowsky 175 ) . A new school of Anthropology developed shortly after the theories of Cooley and Mead.

The school was Historical Particularism and it drew upon the work of Franz Boas and Alfred L. Kroeber. Historical Particularism brought with it the thought that each society has a alone history based on different waies of development and hence. no society is inferior to the following ( McGee and Warms 130 ) . Boas believed that one must plunge oneself in a civilization in order to understand it and draw decisions. This was starkly different to the anthropologists before him who used comparative surveies to analyze other civilizations. Boas used ethnographic surveies to document civilizations that were about to be lost because of contact with the outside universe ( 131-132 ) .

Kroeber was Boas’ pupil. nevertheless Kroeber took a different attack to anthropology. He did non believe that the single played a important function in the development of society. whereas Boas did ( McGee and Warms 133 ) . Kroeber’s major part to anthropological theory was his “Eighteen Professions. ” These professions were 18 beliefs about societal development which Kroeber did non hold with. He believed that societal development began on an premise that society evolves like beings. and did non believe heory should include premises ( McGee and Warms 141 ) . Three every bit influential anthropologists of the same clip period were Bronislaw Malinowski. Alfred Reginald Radcliff-Brown. and Edward Everet Evans-Pritchard. All three belonged to the Structural Functionalist school of anthropology. Structural Functionalists sought to understand the implicit in construction of society. The most noteworthy Structural Functionalist was Malinowski. He studied the Kula trade in New Guinea with the Trobriand Islanders.

Malinowski discovered that necklaces and watchbands being exchanged in this system were non merely gifts between folks. They were in fact making a relationship between the folks so that other goods. such as nutrient. could be traded freely because of the established bond between the two folks ( McGee and Warms 161 ) . Radcliffe-Brown is best known for his research on the relationship a kid holds with his or her mother’s brother. He hypothesized that the mother’s brother acts as a 2nd. or alternate. female parent to the kid whereas the male parent of the kid acts as a martinet.

In add-on. the kid has entree to the mother’s brother’s nutrient and belongings if the female parent dies and the mother’s brother helps when the kid is ill or if the female parent is no longer capable of caring for the kid. This explains the positive relationship that the mother’s brother has with the kid. and the negative relationship a kid has with his or her male parent ( McGee and Warms 177 ) . Previous theoreticians such as Sigmund Freud had speculated that a negative relationship a boy had with his male parent was a consequence of green-eyed monster the boy felt because the male parent was holding sex with the female parent ( Collins and Makowsky 148 ) .

The last of the Structural Functionalists was Evans-Pritchard. He developed the thought of a Segmentary Lineage System. This was a system by which people see themselves in relationship to each other depending on how closely related they are to each other. For illustration. even if an person is friends with person from another household. they will take the side of a member of their ain household before supporting the friend outside their lineage ( McGee and Warms 191 ) . During this clip. another school of anthropology was developing. This was the school of Culture and Personality.

Culture and Personality was defined by three subjects: the relationships between civilization and human nature. civilization and single personality. and civilization and society typical socialisation. It was pioneered by two anthropologists ; Ruth Fulton Benedict and Margaret Mead ( McGee and Warms 206 ) . Benedict’s major part was the extremely influential construct of cultural relativism. Cultural relativism asserted that there are no superior or inferior civilizations. merely different civilizations. Benedict besides stressed that cultural constellation established the personality of its members.

She was chiefly interested in civilization and human nature ( McGee and Warms 209 ) . Mead was chiefly concerned with civilization and the person. Her major part was a survey on Sexual activity and Disposition in Three Primitive Societies. Mead studied three folks: the Mundugumor. the Arapesh. and the Tchambuli. In the Mundugumor folk. both sexes were aggressive caput huntsmans. In the Arapesh folk. both work forces and adult females were soft and unagitated job convergent thinkers. In the Tchambuli folk. work forces were disposed to dish the dirt and provided fostering while adult females were dominant.

Since all three of these systems were really different from the western. patriarchal manner of believing. they contributed significantly to the survey of anthropology ( McGee and Warms 222 ) . Another motion in anthropological idea began in this clip period. It was called Cultural Ecology and Neo-Evolutionary Thought. Pioneered by Julian Steward and George Peter Murdock and focused on how societies adapt to their environments as a measuring of development ( McGee and Warms 225 ) . When Boas made ethnographic surveies a criterion in anthropology. cross-cultural surveies had been abandoned.

Murdock revived the pattern of cross-cultural surveies and created the Human Relations Area Files. This was a aggregation of my volumes documenting the organisation of assorted civilizations around the universe ( McGee and Warms 263 ) . Murdock besides contributed significantly to the survey of divorce. He hypothesized that a stable matrimony is more likely if one or more of three factors are in topographic point. First. a bride monetary value helped to procure a matrimony because there was no duty to refund the monetary value and hence matrimony was profitable. Second. arranged matrimony would stabilise a matrimony.

The concluding factor that would guarantee the stableness of a matrimony was the crow. This is a state of affairs in which adult females are stolen and would non be returned because this is a mark of failing ( McGee and Warms 265-266 ) . Steward is responsible for the differentiation between civilization type and civilization nucleus. A society’s civilization type is how a civilization uses a specific engineering to work the environment. Culture nucleus histories for the characteristics of a civilization that play a function. Knowing both the civilization type and nucleus of a society can turn out utile when analyzing how the society aintains subsistence ( McGee and Warms 228 ) . Up until this point in history. few if any sociologists had touched upon race. Then. the rise of the black sociologist occurred in the signifier of W. E. B. DuBois. DuBois was a Marxist and saw inkinesss as the modern twenty-four hours labor. He believed it was segregation that kept black from obtaining occupations and in bend bad occupations led inkinesss to take down economic position. DuBois believed the lone manner to make alteration was through instruction. though he admitted that instruction was useless under segregation ( Collins and Makowsky 196 ) .

DuBois besides suggested that inkinesss have a “double consciousness” . Blacks feel caught between two individualities: one black. and one American. These two individualities divert blacks’ attending from carry throughing either individuality to its fullest extent. It besides places undue mental emphasis on African-Americans to maintain exchanging individualities to fit their fortunes ( Farganis 180 ) . Several old ages subsequently. Erving Goffman. another symbolic interactionalist. contributed his theory of Dramaturgy. Goffman stated that each one of us has a “back stage” and a “front stage” .

The “back stage” is who we truly are when we think we are non being judged. Goffman categorizes this as a accurate individuality. The “front stage” is the act we put on for the remainder of society to see. This is what Goffman labels a fancied individuality ( Farganis 360 ) . There are four stairss to pull offing a fabricated individuality. First. one must command the scene. Then. an single puts on a personal forepart. Following. one will play the portion they have created. And eventually. the single must pull off the audience ( Farganis 366-367 ) .

Another influential sociologist was Michele Foucault. He belonged to the new motion of Contemporary European Thought under the umbrella of Post-Modernism. Foucault suggested that over clip. societies discourse. or presumed truths. have changed. For illustration. during the in-between ages. society at big made the premise that everything in the universe could be explained through faith. However. during the enlightenment. the discourse of western thought shifted to look towards scientific discipline for an reply to all phenomena ( Faganis 411 ) .

In post-modernism. sociologists propose that there are no ultimate truths that scientific discipline. faith. or any other establishment can specify ( Farganis 413 ) . At the same clip. Claude Levi-Strauss is analyzing linguistic communication from an anthropological point of view. His major part to the field is through his disposition to near linguistics from a structuralist point of position. Levi-Strauss asserts that linguistic communication should be studied to detect the implicit in constructions that create societies. Previous theoretician such as Boas thought linguistic communication was of import to analyze because it showed how we categorize the universe ( McGee and Warms 335 ) .

Around this clip. Sally Slocum is trying to execute a Feminist Critique. Female anthropologists and sociologist of the past had excessively frequently focused on the importance of work forces in society and glossed over the parts of adult females. Slocum pointed out that adult females are 2nd category citizens in most societies because of their association with nature which was seen as wild and hence unsafe. Work force were associated with civilization because they were the accountants of civilization. This created an image of work forces as being the more civilized of the two genders.

Womans were aligned with nature because of their ability to bear kids and the work they normally did bring forthing. alternatively of killing as work forces frequently did ( McGee and Warms 419 ) . These anthropologists and sociologists of the yesteryear have provided current minds with a footing for farther research and geographic expedition. Today. Anthropology and Sociology are turning Fieldss of involvement across the universe. Thousands of anthropologists and sociologists bit off at life’s major inquiries every twenty-four hours. As the canon of literature grows. human existences grow closer and closer towards self-actualization.