I.

Introduction: Nature and Beginning Anthropology

What is anthropology?
Anthropology is taken from two Greek words logos, which means study, or
logia to study, and anthropos, which means man.
Anthropology has been defined as that branch of knowledge which deals
with the scientific study of man, his works, his body, his behaviour and
values, in time and space.
It is the scientific study of physical, social and cultural development and
behaviour of human beings since their appearance on earth.
The central concern in anthropology is the study of man. Man is not only the
measure of all things but is the main focus and unit of investigation and
analysis in this field. Man is studied and analyzed regardless of the color of
skin, the nature of his commitment to ideology, or the level of his
technological advancement.
Branches of Anthropology

1. Physical Anthropology. This is also known as biological

anthropology. It deals with mans biological foundations, race
evolution, racial classifications, and differentiation. It relates biology
and culture. It traces the evolutionary development of man and
studies the biological variation within the species. It concentrates on
the study of mans physical characteristics, the processes by which
the biological change occur, and the resultant human variations.
2. Cultural Anthropology. This is also known as social anthropology.
It deals with one of the most significant and revolutionary concepts
in the social sciences the concept of culture. Cultural
anthropologists, therefore, study technology or material culture,
economic life, community organizations, family life, clans, secret
societies, government and law, magic, religion, the arts, and all
other forms of cultural behaviour.
3. Archaeology. It is a branch of general anthropology concerned
with the study of mans culture and society in the past, as far back
in time as prehistoric times, that is, many million years ago, the
main evidences for evaluating prehistoric societies are (a) fossils,
and (b) artifacts. Fossils are remnants of the past that have organic
life which withstood the test of time and forces of nature. Artifacts
are man-made and man conceived remains of prehistoric times that
have endured through time.
4. Linguistics. It refers to the systematic study of recorded and
unrecorded languages all over the world. It also deals with the
relationship between language and culture. It deals with how culture
affects language, and vice versa.
Relationships Between Sociology and Anthropology
Both sciences attempt to understand the way of life of various
cultures or various societies.

Both sciences borrow heavily from each other.

Both sciences are also interested in the study of social issues.
In terms of origins, the two sciences differ. Anthropology started with
the study of primitive or non-literate groups, considered exotic and
queer by Westerners. On the other hand, sociology started as the study
of Western civilization and later, of advanced and contemporary
societies.
On the whole, the two sciences have common subject matter.
A. Early Tradition
The following were some of the pioneers of the two disciplines:
Auguste Comte (1798-1857). He was generally recognized as the
father of sociology. His major works include Positive Philosophy
(1842), composed of six volumes, and Positive Polity (1854). It was in
his first book where he first used the term sociology. Comte divided his
subject matter into two: social statics and social dynamics. He also
argued that knowledge passes through three stages: the theological or
religious stage; the metaphysical or abstract reasoning stage; and the
positive or scientific stage.
Herbert Spencer (1532-1903). The central focus of Spencers works
was on the application of Darwins theory of evolution to social life.
Spencer argued that like animals, human societies evolved from simple
forms (primitive societies) to more complex forms (industrial societies).
He believed that through natural selection, those societies that adapt
to their environment and compete successfully will persist. He argued
that social life is governable by the laws of conflict and competition
and, as in the animal world, natural selection leads to survival of the
fittest. Spencer believed that the doctrine of the survival of the fittest
would eventually lead to social progress, which, in his views
constituted social justice. His book entitled Social Statics (1885), a
systematic presentation of sociological analysis, is often called the
first sociological textbook.
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917). A French scholar, Durkheim had as
his major focus the social forces that hold society together. He believed
that social solidarity was based on the shared values and beliefs of the
members of a society. He identified two types of societal solidarity (10
mechanical solidarity this is provided by the similar tasks, sameness
in primitive societies; and (2) organic solidarity based on differences
like those that prevailed in industrial societies resulting from the
peoples various tasks, most of them necessary for the continuance of
society. According to Durkheim, these activities are interdependent like
the human beings. His well known works include The Division of Labor
in Society (1893) and The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1917).
Karl Marx (1818-1883). Unlike Durkheim who focused on social
solidarity, Marx concentrated on social conflict. According to him, social
change was brought about through the process of conflict between
two opposing classes. This was the first modern theory of social

change with emphasis on a single determining factor. He characterized

history as a class struggle between the oppressed and the oppressors.
Marx was an economic determinist because he believed that the
structure of the economy determined all other aspects of society. He
argued that material conditions were at the core of class conflict, and
that those who owned and controlled the means of production were the
oppressors and those who owned nothing but their own labor were the
oppressed. He also believed that the conflicting interests of these two
groups would inevitably lead the oppressed to overthrow their
oppressors. Marxs major works include The Communist Manifesto
(1848) and Das Kapital (1867).
Max Weber. Webers first book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism (1906) examined how belief systems might affect peoples
actions and in turn the economic system of their society. He
hypothesized that the Protestant ethic (admonishments to achieve
salvation through hard work) influenced the development of capitalism.
He not only developed his own view of social change, he also argued
with those who simply wanted to adopt the methods of other
disciplines for the study of human social life. He introduced the
Verstehen method into sociology. He believed that sociologists must
not only employ objective methods but also ascertain the subjective
meanings that people attach to their own behaviour and that of others.
Through the process of Verstehen, sympathetic understanding, these
meanings can be an object of study for sociologists. Today, sociologists
still rely on Webers descriptive analysis of bureaucracy, the
organizational structure that is prevalent in modern societies.
Ferdinand Toennis (1835-1936). Toennis chief contribution to
sociology was the introduction of a suggestive typology of social
groups and even types of society. With modifications, the distinctions
between gemeinschaft and gesselschaft were in certain respects
similar to dichotomies which were subsequently developed by other
writers. According to Toennis, all social relations are creations of
human will, of which there are two types: (1) the essential will: the
basic, instinctive, organic tendency which drives human activity; and
(2) arbitrary will: the deliberate, purposive form of volition which
determines human activity with regard to the future To him, essential
will dominates the life of peasants, artisans, common men, while
arbitrary will characterize the activities of businessmen, scientists,
persons of authority, and members of the upper class. He concluded
that the expression of the essential will dominates the gemeinschaft,
while the arbitrary will that of the gesselschaft.
George Simmel (1858-1918). Simmel advanced the view that
society cannot be understood as a psychic entity independent of
individual minds, as a kind of mysticism or conceptualism that ascribes
reality to mere concepts. To him, many reciprocal relations may not
persist in time, while others are crystallized as definable, consistent
situations such as the state, the church, or even a band of

conspirators, a school, an economic association, and others. Simmel

displayed an unusual gift of bringing together instances that are
seemingly so dissimilar that only few minds could have grasped those
common features which served as the basis for theoretical abstraction.
Edward Tylor (1832-1917). Sir Edward Tylor was one of the
pioneering anthropologists of the world. He dominated, shaped, and
consolidated anthropology in Britain for the first fifty years of its
development. His works include a research into the Early History of
Mankind and the Development of Civilization (1865), Primitive Culture
(1871), Anahuac of Mexico and the Mexicans Ancient and Modern
(1861). He is credited for his contributions such as the invention of the
term animism (a belief in spiritual beings); his use of comparative
methods with attempts at statistical correlations; and his stress on
material culture.
William Graham Sumner (1840-1910). He was a famous
sociologist, anthropologist, scholar, and teacher. He dealt extensively
with a discussion and study of folkways. According to him, folkways are
habits of the individual and customs of the society which arise from
efforts to satisfy needs. Sumner is what is known as a realist.
According to him, the value of anything is not what you paid for it, not
what it cost to produce, but what you can get for it at an auction.
A.R. Radcliffe-Brown (1881-1955). Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown
was regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern social
anthropology. From 1906 to 1908, he engaged in anthropological
fieldworks: The Andaman Islanders (1922), The Social Organization of
Australian Tribes (1930), and Structure and Function in Primitive
Society (1952). He became instrumental in making anthropology a
university subject. His first book was in effect an attempt to test in the
field the Durkheimian hypothesis that the primary function of ritual is,
by giving expression to the collective sentiments of a society, to
contribute to social cohesion, and to the maintenance of a social
system through time. However, in later writings he went further. He
claimed that ritual might express more than merely mans dependence
on society; even more basically, it expresses his dependence on his
whole environment, physical as well as social. To Radcliffe-Brown, there
are two important things to be found out about any ritual procedures:
(1) what it means to the people who have it, and (2) what its social
consequences are.
Friedrich Engels (1820-1903). Engels worked in the history of
literature and politics in collaboration with Karl Marx. Many of their
books were written jointly. He was born in the German town of Barmen
in 1820 and was the son of a manufacturer who had deep pietistic
convictions. He acquired higher education while working in an export
office and during his year of military service in Berlin. Together with
Marx, he wrote The Communist Manifesto.

Thornstein Veblen (1857-1929). Veblen was popular for his

concepts on conspicuous consumption, ostentatious display, trained
incapacity, higher learning, predatory culture, absentee ownership, and
discretionary control. His major work was the book, The Theory of the
Leisure Class (1899). His other important contribution was seen in his
Higher Learning in America, a memorandum on the conduct of
universities by businessmen (1918), because it was based on
participant observation. Many of his ideas have become so much a part
of the general currency of sociology and of general social criticism that
he gave them point and emphasis. Status consciousness and social
emulation, were in some respects the major enduring themes of The
Theory of the Leisure Class, but it was he who showed how they were
related to other values in society and how they led to certain
consequences such as the development of advertising in modern
times.
Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942). Malinowskis monographs on
the Trobriand Islands were certainly the most formative influence on
the work of British social anthropologist from 1922, when he published
his first field study, until his death in 1942. His field monographs
Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), Sexual Life of Savages (1929),
and Coral Gardens and Their Magic (1935) produced a revolution in the
aims and field techniques of the younger anthropologists. His studies
were characterized by the following: (1) he made very detailed firsthand observations of the major activities of the Trobriand islanders
such as their kula, overseas trading expeditions or their agriculture;
and (2) his works were entirely different scale from anything produced
before. The chosen activity was shown to be coordinated with a set of
other activities, ritual or instrumental, governed by a set of rules and
facilitated by linguistic usages; (3) his interest on social grouping and
social organization; (4) his linguistic texts which were superb, probably
fuller than any collected at the time except those of Boas from the
northwest Pacific area. He wrote in vivid personal style often describing
his own adventures in field work.
Pitirim Sorokin (1889-1968). Sorokin sought to provide a complete
account of sociologically based and philosophically oriented. His
approach has a vast macroscopic conspectus rather than a detailed
survey of limited, particular problems. His works included:
Contemporary Sociological Theories (1928), Fads and Fables in Modern
Sociology and Related Sciences (1956), Social and Cultural Dynamics
(1937-1940), an encyclopaedic survey classified under fluctuations of
forms of art, of systems of truths, of ethics, of law, of social relations,
war and revolution. It related to the whole of recorded history, from
ancient to the present. In 1947, his Society, Culture, and Personality
was published which is considered the best source of his views as a
whole, where he returned to the staple topics of much sociological
writings such as groups, classes, roles, social structure, and social
mobility.

Talcott Parsons (1902-1979). He made his first widespread impact

with the publication of the Structure of Social Action in 1937.In this
book, he reviewed the works of number of prominent social theorists
and attempted to lay the foundations for a general theory of social
action a theory which would provide a solution to the Hobbesian
problem of social order, by locating the springs and orientations of
action in reference to the normative aspects of social life. This involved
a basic rejection of theories which purported to account for orderliness
in social life in terms of the pursuit of self interest, the operation of
coercive force, or notions like a spirit of the age. Furthermore, he was
critical of positivist theories which conceived of human action merely
as automatic responses to external stimuli. His aim was to elaborate a
scientific analysis and yet allow for voluntariness, that is choices
among alternative courses of action. According to Parsons, action was
not to be conceived as completely free but was grounded in and
circumscribed by norms and ultimate principles of action (values). In
1951, he published his book The Social System, acclaimed to be his
major contribution to the field of sociology. He further advanced the
idea that any real social system consists of: (a) individuals who are (b)
interacting with others on the basis of a minimal degree of
complementary expectation, by means of and according to (c) a shared
system of beliefs, standards, and symbols.
Methods of Inquiry in Anthropology
Sciences require a rigid, accurate, and critical analysis of data.
Scientific investigations require the following:
1. Empirical investigation. This means that the knowledge must be
obtained through direct experience or observation. Controlled
observation and testing must be used in the study of social
phenomena. The findings of scientific investigations are capable of
being tested to see whether they are supported or contradicted by
disciplined and scientific observation. This must be true to both
sociology and anthropology.
2. Objectivity. This simply means that in sociological and anthropological
investigations, data must be presented, analyzed, and interpreted
independently of the researchers own beliefs and value judgments.
Objectivity is the ability of a researcher to give an account of things as
they are and not what they ought to be.
3. Ethical neutrality. This is related to objectivity. One must remain neutral
in the interpretation of ones findings, without being influenced by his
value judgment or his convictions about his own group or of himself.
4. Sociological imagination. It was W. Wright Mills who espoused the
personal use of sociological imagination which is the set of mind that
enables the individual to examine his own experiences by locating
himself in the period in which he lives and studying the events in his
personal life against events in society. Through this, one can better

understand the relationships between what is happening in society,

thus gaining a wider potential for freedom from social pressures.