Understanding Culture, Society and Politics

This course uses insights from Anthropology, Political Science, and Sociology
to develop students awareness of cultural, social and political dynamics.

What is Sociology?

The word sociology itself actually derives from the Latin word socius
(companion) and the Greek word logos (study of ).

Thus, sociology is most literally the study of companionship. It is the study

of interaction, collective behavior and social relationships. It is the study of
society. A social science involving the study of the social lives of people,
groups, and societies.

The study of sociology starts from the basic premise that human life is
social life.

People who practice sociology are called sociologists. They are intensively
and endlessly, interested in the doings of humans.

But so what? What does that definition actually mean? Why is sociology
important? Why should anyone study sociology? What does sociology offer to
us in our personal lives? And what does it offer to wider society?

Most of us are constantly involved in interactions with other human beings.

From the families we are born into, through school, work, and play;
retirements; and even the gatherings that memorialize our deaths, we
spend our lives within a tapestry woven of interlocking social
arrangements. Sociology focuses on these arrangements, including how they
are created, how they change, and how they impact our lives, opportunities,
and options.
What is Anthropology?

Anthropology ( from anthropos - a person)

Anthropology is the study of people throughout the world, their evolutionary

history, how they behave, adapt to different environments, communicate and
socialize with one another.

The study of anthropology is concerned both with the biological features

that make us human (such as physiology, genetic makeup, nutritional
history and evolution) and with social aspects (such as language, culture,
politics, family and religion). Whether studying a religious community in
London, or human evolutionary fossils in the UAE, anthropologists are
concerned with many aspects of peoples lives: the everyday practices as
well as the more dramatic rituals, ceremonies and processes which define us
as human beings. A few common questions posed by anthropology are: how
are societies different and how are they the same? how has evolution shaped
how we think?

Anthropology is the study of what makes us human. Anthropologists take a broad approach to
understanding the many different aspects of the human experience, which we call holism. They
consider the past, through archaeology, to see how human groups lived hundreds or thousands of
years ago and what was important to them. They consider what makes up our biological bodies
and genetics, as well as our bones, diet, and health. Anthropologists also compare humans with
other animals (most often, other primates like monkeys and chimpanzees) to see what we have in
common with them and what makes us unique. Even though nearly all humans need the same
things to survive, like food, water, and companionship, the ways people meet these needs can be
very different. For example, everyone needs to eat, but people eat different foods and get food in
different ways. So anthropologists look at how different groups of people get food, prepare it,
and share it. World hunger is not a problem of production but social barriers to distribution, and
that Amartya Sen won a Nobel Prize for showing this was the case for all of the 20th centurys
famines. Anthropologists also try to understand how people interact in social relationships (for
example with families and friends). They look at the different ways people dress and
communicate in different societies. Anthropologists sometimes use these comparisons to
understand their own society. Many anthropologists work in their own societies looking at
economics, health, education, law, and policy (to name just a few topics). When trying to
understand these complex issues, they keep in mind what they know about biology, culture, types
of communication, and how humans lived in the past.

The Four Subfields

American anthropology is generally divided into four subfields. Each of the subfields teaches
distinctive skills. However, the subfields also have a number of similarities. For example, each
subfield applies theories, employs systematic research methodologies, formulates and tests
hypotheses, and develops extensive sets of data.

Archaeology

Archaeologists study human culture by analyzing the objects people have made. They carefully
remove from the ground such things as pottery and tools, and they map the locations of houses,
trash pits, and burials in order to learn about the daily lives of a people. They also analyze human
bones and teeth to gain information on a peoples diet and the diseases they suffered.
Archaeologists collect the remains of plants, animals, and soils from the places where people
have lived in order to understand how people used and changed their natural environments. The
time range for archaeological research begins with the earliest human ancestors millions of years
ago and extends all the way up to the present day. Like other areas of anthropology,
archaeologists are concerned with explaining differences and similarities in human societies
across space and time.

Biological Anthropology

Biological anthropologists seek to understand how humans adapt to different environments, what
causes disease and early death, and how humans evolved from other animals. To do this, they
study humans (living and dead), other primates such as monkeys and apes, and human ancestors
(fossils). They are also interested in how biology and culture work together to shape our lives.
They are interested in explaining the similarities and differences that are found among humans
across the world. Through this work, biological anthropologists have shown that, while humans
do vary in their biology and behavior, they are more similar to one another than different.

Cultural Anthropology

Sociocultural anthropologists explore how people in different places live and understand the
world around them. They want to know what people think is important and the rules they make
about how they should interact with one another. Even within one country or society, people may
disagree about how they should speak, dress, eat, or treat others. Anthropologists want to listen
to all voices and viewpoints in order to understand how societies vary and what they have in
common. Sociocultural anthropologists often find that the best way to learn about diverse
peoples and cultures is to spend time living among them. They try to understand the perspectives,
practices, and social organization of other groups whose values and lifeways may be very
different from their own. The knowledge they gain can enrich human understanding on a broader
level.

Linguistic Anthropology

Linguistic anthropologists study the many ways people communicate across the globe. They are
interested in how language is linked to how we see the world and how we relate to each other.
This can mean looking at how language works in all its different forms, and how it changes over
time. It also means looking at what we believe about language and communication, and how we
use language in our lives. This includes the ways we use language to build and share meaning, to
form or change identities, and to make or change relations of power. For linguistic
anthropologists, language and communication are keys to how we make society and culture.

Difference Anthroplogy and Sociology

There are the surface ones, of course sociology typically
studies first-world societies, whereas anthropology has a rep for
studying so-called primitive cultures. But the fundamental
difference is a philosophical one: sociologists study society,
while anthropologists study culture.

Anthropology = culture and communities

Sociology = social problems and institutions

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WHAT SOCIOLOGY OFFERS

A sociological look at the world provides a number of unique benefits and

perspectives.

Sociology provides an understanding of social issues and patterns of behavior. It

helps us identify the social rules that govern our lives.

Sociologists study how these rules are created, maintained, changed, passed
between generations, and shared between people living in various parts of the
world. They also study what happens when these rules are broken.

Sociology helps us understand the workings of the social systems within which we
live our lives.

Sociologists put our interactions with others into a social context. This means they
look not only at behaviors and relationships, but also how the larger world we live in
influences these things. Social structures (the way society is organized around the
regulated ways people interrelate and organize social life) and social processes (the
way society operates) are at work shaping our lives in ways that often go
unrecognized. Because of this perspective, sociologists will often say that, as
individuals, we are social products. Even though we recognize their existence, these
structures and processes may appear to people in the course of daily life as
through a mysterious fog (Lemert 2001, 6). Sociologists strive to bring these things
out of the fog, to reveal and study them, and to examine and explain their
interrelationships and their impacts on individuals and groups. By describing and
explaining these social arrangements and how they shape our lives, sociologists
help us to make sense of the world around us and better understand ourselves.

Sociology helps us understand why we perceive the world the way we do.

We are inundated with messages in a variety of forms about how we, and the world
around us, both are and should be. These messages come in forms as diverse as
guidance from parents and teachers, laws handed down by religious and political
entities, and advertisements ranging from pitches for athletic shoes to feeding
hungry children. Sociology helps us examine the types of messages we are
constantly receiving, their source, how and why they influence us, and our own roles
in producing, perpetuating, and changing them.

Sociology helps us identify what we have in common within, and between, cultures
and societies.

Sociologists know that, although people in different parts of the city, country, or
world dress differently, speak differently, and have many different beliefs and
customs, many of the same types of social forces
are at work shaping their lives. This is an especially important perspective in a world
where media headlines are often accused of focusing on divisive issues.

Sociologists look for what social structure and processes mean for various
groups. They look at how various groups shape, and are impacted, by society.

Sociologists can help groups find common concerns, understand other groups
perspectives, and find ways to work together rather than work at odds with each
other.

Sociology helps us understand why and how society changes.

Obviously, the social world is constantly changing. This change has been a major
interest to sociologists from the beginning of the discipline. However, many
sociologists believe that sociology should not stop with only explaining society and
how and why the world changes. They argue that sociologists also have an
obligation to act, using their unique skills and perspectives to work to improve the
world. Sociology, they argue, is a field of inquiry simultaneously concerned with
understanding, explaining, criticizing, and improving (italics mine) the human
condition (Restivo 1991, 4). Armed with a sociological perspective, we can more
effectively take action if we dont like what is happening. We can better participate
in shaping the future for ourselves and for others.

Sociology provides us theoretical perspectives within which to frame these

understandings and research methods that allow us to study social life scientifically.

Sociology is a social science. That means sociologists work to understand society in

very structured, disciplined ways. Like scientists who study the physical world,
sociologists follow scientific guidelines that incorporate an assortment of theories
and methods that provide for accuracy in gathering, processing, and making sense
of information. In the case of sociology, theories focus on how social relationships
op-
erate. They provide a way of explaining these relationships. Scientific methods
provide ways of generating accurate research results. The major theoretical per
spectives sociologists utilize are discussed in detail in chapter 2. The ways that
sociologists conduct scientific research are discussed in chapter 10.

Sociology is not just common sense.

Results of sociological research may be unexpected. They often show that things
are not always, or even usually, what they initially seem. People who like to avoid
shocking discoveries, who prefer to believe that society is just what they were
taught in Sunday School, who like the safety of the rules and maxims of what Alfred
Schultz . . . has called the world-taken-for-granted, should stay away from
sociology (Berger 1963, 24). This challenge means that sociological findings are
often at odds with so-called common sense, or those things that everybody
knows. What we think of as common sense, or something that everybody knows, is
actually based on our own experiences and the ideas and stereotypes we hold. This
gives us a very limited view of how the larger world actually is. Taking a sociological
perspective requires that we look beyond our individual experiences to better
understand everyday life (Straus 1994). It allows us to look for the social forces that
impact our lives and form those experiences. Once we have a solid understanding of
these forces, we can better address them. For example, a common perception is
that suicide is an act of those with individual psychological problems. However, an
early sociological study of suicide by Emile Durkheim (18581917) revealed the
importance of social factors, including relationships within church and family, in
suicide (Durkheim 1966).

(Durkheim is profiled in chapter 10, and his research on suicide is covered in more
detail there as well.) Another common perception is that crimes are always
committed by some criminal element, identifiable as troublemakers. In his
textbook on social problems, Thomas Sullivan (1973, 296) introduces the chapter on
crime by arguing that this is a far too simplistic view of criminality. He notes a study
(Zimbardo 1973) in which researchers abandoned a car on a New York City street
and watched from a hidden position to see if it was vandalized and by whom. The
vandals discovered by the researchers included a family, a person with a toddler in
a stroller, and many people who were well dressed and
interacted with people who passed by during their activities.

===================
Political Science

When you study Political Science, youll learn about how political power is
distributed, how different governments operate and interact, how rules are made
and enforced. You will explore both the "who" of politics (such as politicians,
international organizations, and the public) and the "how" (such as elections,
political institutions, and public administration). Politics affects virtually every
aspect of our lives, including the the availability of education, jobs, housing and
healthcare. Whether countries are at war or at peace depends both on what
governments do and who supports them.

What is Political Science?

Politics (from Greek: politikos, definition "of, for, or relating to citizens") is the
process of making decisions applying to all members of each group. More narrowly, it refers to
achieving and exercising positions of governance organized control over a human community,
particularly a state. Furthermore, politics is the study or practice of the distribution of power and
resources within a given community (a usually hierarchically organized population) as well as
the interrelationship(s) between communities.

A variety of methods are deployed in politics, which include promoting or forcing one's own
political views among people, negotiation with other political subjects, making laws, and
exercising force, including warfare against adversaries. Politics is exercised on a wide range of
social levels, from clans and tribes of traditional societies, through modern local governments,
companies and institutions up to sovereign states, to the international level.

Political science is a social science discipline that deals with systems of government, and the
analysis of political activities, political thoughts and political behaviour. It deals extensively with
the theory and practice of politics which is commonly thought of as determining of the
distribution of power and resources. Political scientists "see themselves engaged in revealing the
relationships underlying political events and conditions, and from these revelations they attempt
to construct general principles about the way the world of politics works."

Political science comprises numerous subfields, including comparative politics, political

economy, international relations, political theory, public administration, public policy and
political methodology.

Political science is the study a range of political ideas, events, actions, and
institutions. It includes both understanding and explaining the world of politics that
is all around us. We all participate in politics, though most of the time we do so
unknowingly. Politics is much more than simply voting in an election or working in
government. Reading or listening to news, making donations to aid groups, or
talking with friends and family about social issues and values are a few of the many
examples of political activity in our every day lives.

Political Science is concerned with the many institutions, organizations and norms
that determine how people perceive society, and in turn, how they interact within it.
In Political Science, we discuss basic concepts, such as power, government or
democracy, in order to get us thinking about the world around us, and our place in
it. Once that we understand the many concepts, we study the connections between
them in order to better explain political outcomes, such as: why people vote for one
political party as opposed to another, why governments and policies differ in
different countries, or why armed conflicts happen in some cases while they are
avoided in other cases.

Citizen participation and engagement occurs because of the nature of the

institutions that structure society: we work and live within them, and sometimes we
rebel against them. If you study Political Science, you will look at how and why.

Where Does Political Science Lead You?

Studying political science can open up a wide range of job opportunities in both the
public, private, and not-for-profit private sectors. Students interested in careers in
business, education, law, journalism, communications, government, or politics more
generally will obtain vital knowledge and skills. Students can also get practical skills
by doing co-ops with government or organizations as part of their education
experience.

You will gain expertise and proficiency in the following:

experience working with others and interacting in a diverse community;
greater command of reading, writing and critical thinking;
research and analysis skills that are valuable in a range of employment areas
an ability arrive at decisions based on the analysis and synthesis of information
and data
an ability to engage with political events and a greater understanding of the
processes involved in different political systems around the world;

These are all useful and important skills necessary for a successful career in any
field.

Sociology and Political Science are different from each other on the following grounds:

(1) Sociology is a science of society. Sociology studies all kinds of society, organized or un-
organised. But Political Science is a science of State and Government. and studies only
politically organized societies.

(2) The scope of Political Science is narrower than the scope of Sociology or the scope of
Sociology is much wider than that of Political Science. Sociology studies all the social
institutions whereas Political Science studies only State and Government.

(3) Sociology deals with social man or studies man as a social animal. On the other hand,
Political Science deals with political man and studies man as a political animal.

(4) Sociology deals with conscious and unconscious activity of man, where Political Science
deals with the conscious activity of man.
(5) The approach of Sociology is sociological. It follows its own methods in addition to the
scientific methods in its investigation. On the other hand, the approach of Political Science is
political. It has its own method of study like the historical, philosophical comparative.

(6) Finally, Sociology is quite young. It is not even two centuries old. On the other hand,
Political Science is an older science. It has centuries of history of its own.

1. Sociology studies society as a whole and man as a social being where as political science deals
with a particular aspect of society which is regarded as a politically organised unit. Therefore,
political science is a more specialised science than sociology.

2. Sociology has wider scope than that of political science. Sociology deals with social, political,
economic, cultural and other aspects of society and studies will be the social institutions such as
family, marriage, religion, kinship, caste and so on.

But political science deals with political aspect and studies a specific political institution like
state and government only. Thus, sociology is regarded as a general science while political
science is viewed as a specialised social science.

3. Sociology studies forms of associations and institutions where as political science deals with
the state and government which are known as specific forms of association.

That is why professor Garner remarks Political science, is concerned with only human form
association such as state, sociology deals with all forms of association.

4. Sociology studies all kinds of social relationship in a general way. But political science studies
only the political aspect of social relationship in a particular way.

5. Sociology studies both organised and disorganised societies. But political science studies only
the politically organised societies.

6. Sociology deals with both formal as well as informal relations of the society which are based
on customs, traditions, folkways, mores, norms etc. But political science deals only with formal
relations based on laws and order of the state.

7. Sociology is the study of all means of social control. Political science, on the other hand, is the
study of only government recognized means of control.

Conclusion:
Sociology and Political Science are mutually contributory. A politician is basically a sociologist
and uses sociological concepts. Without the sociological background the study of Political
Science will be incomplete. Society acts as a mirror of political life of country. In short, both
Political Science and Sociology are the two sides of the same coin.

Anthroplogy and Political Science

Political Science deals with descriptions of systems of government and how
they work (Greek - polis , a city state). Anthropology ( from anthropos - a
person) deals with different people groups and their culture and customs.
Both have links with sociology and history but the first also involves
economics and management, while the second is also connected with life
sciences and geography.

Anthropology is the study of Culture which is defined as learned behavior socially transmitted.
Anthropology is considered to be holistic: in other words, culture is treated as a systems. If an
anthropologist were to describe a culture, it would include everything those people traditionally
do: including family structure, society, food procurement, traditional law and politics, religion
and whatever else their traditions include.

Anthropology therefore includes the study of politics and its relationship to the total culture, but
political science focuses only on the study of politics.

QUESTIONING

A learner is by nature a questioner. If there is a drive in an individual to increase

knowledge, skills or understanding it is driven by doubt, curiosity, wonderment,
incomprehension, puzzlement, uncertainty, recognition of a need, or curiosity.

This drive is then focused through questions that the learner formulates and
actively seeks to find answers to. They may be simple questions that seek clear
facts, or complex questions that probe deep into concepts, beliefs and
understandings. The question may provide an answer that solves the learning need
or may lead to further questions as knowledge and understanding grows. It is
obvious though, that however simple or complex an issue is, a good clear relevant
question will be of far greater use to the learner than a question that is vague,
poorly defined or irrelevant.

All our knowledge results from questions, which is another way of saying that
questioning is our most important intellectual tool." (Neil Postman)

Activity:
I need you to write down at least 5 sensible questions regarding society, politics,
life. Questions that you really want to be answered or questions that you really do
not have concrete answers.