Paper No.

: 02 Social Cultural Anthropology

Module : 01 Meaning and Scope of Social cultural Anthropology

Development Team
Prof. Anup Kumar Kapoor
Principal Investigator Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi, Delhi

Prof. Sabita Acharya

Paper Coordinator
Department of Anthropology, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar

Content Writer Dr. Deepak Kumar Ojha

Department of Anthropology, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar

Prof. A.K.Sinha
Content Reviewer
Department of Anthropology, Panjab University, Chandigarh

Social-Cultural Anthropology
Anthropology
Meaning and Scope of Social Anthropology
 Learning Outcomes

After studying this module:

· You shall be able to get an informative background of Socio-Cultural Anthropology, which is a

major and very important branch of anthropology.

· You will also learn the basic introductory background about Socio-cultural Anthropology, its
historical background, aim and objectives.

· The module also provides knowledge about the entire subject matter of the socio-cultural
anthropology as well as its different sub-branches.

· Adding to this, the module also attempts to describe the scope and application of Socio-cultural
Anthropology in various fields.

Objectives
The primary objectives of this module are:

· To give a basic understanding to the students about socio-cultural anthropology, its history
origin, elements and subject matter.

· It also attempts to provide an informative background about the aims and application of Socio-
cultural Anthropology.

Social-Cultural Anthropology
Anthropology
Meaning and Scope of Social Anthropology
 1. An Introduction to Socio-Cultural Anthropology
Anthropology is a social science, which studies mankind in its entirety. The word “anthropology” is
derived from two roots: ánthropos (the Greek term for “human”) and logos (the Greek term for
“word,” now used to refer to a field of study). As its very name indicates, anthropology is the scholarly
discipline that studies humans. In a very real sense, anything about humans can be studied from an
anthropological perspective. Many anthropologists travel to other countries to learn about such aspects
of cultural life as family structures, political organizations, economic systems, the settling of disputes,
and not surprisingly religions. Others carry out excavations to uncover information about ancient
societies. Some study languages to understand how this important human capacity shapes the way we
perceive the world. And some even observe other animals to determine which features we share with
these animals and which are found only in the human species. Of course, each of these topics may also
be studied by researchers from other disciplines. What sets anthropology apart is that it brings together
all of these different lines of evidence to provide an all-encompassing perspective for understanding
the human condition. In practice, most anthropologists focus on just one or a few aspects of what it
means to be human. But they also integrate other perspectives into their work. They may make use of
cultural, archaeological, linguistic, or biological data, and they also draw upon insights from other
disciplines. Because they strive to take all relevant data into consideration, anthropologists tend to
work from an interdisciplinary, holistic, and integrative perspective. As we shall see, this broad
approach is very useful for considering one of humankind’s most unique traits: religiosity, our capacity
for religious thought and spiritual experience.

In a more specific term, anthropology is a science which investigates the strategies for living that are
learned and shared by people as members of human social groups. It examines the characteristics that
human beings share as members of one species (homo sapiens) and the diverse ways that people live in
different environments; and analyzes the products of social groups: material objects (tools, cloths,
houses, etc) and nonmaterial creations (beliefs, values, practices, institutions, etc). (World Book
Encyclopedia. Vol.1 PP. 545-548)

With its holistic perspective, Anthropology intersects the multiple approaches to the study of
humankind viz: biological, social, cultural, historical, linguistic, cognitive, material, technological,
affective, and aesthetic. This inter-disciplinarity is integrated within Anthropology as a whole and
formalized in the four major fields that compose the disciplines: archaeological, biological, linguistic,
and socio-cultural anthropology although many anthropologists also conduct research across these
fields.

· Archaeological anthropologists are concerned with the evolution and historical changes to
cultural and sociopolitical configurations, the materiality of human experience, and the
stewardship and interpretation of cultural heritage.

· Biological anthropologists are concerned with the physical and bio-cultural aspects of humans,
including biological aspects of human health and well being; micro and macro evolutionary

Social-Cultural Anthropology
Anthropology
Meaning and Scope of Social Anthropology
 study of the human condition; relationships to other primates; human growth and
development; pathology, mortality and morbidity; and population genetics.

· Linguistic anthropologists examine the history and structure of human languages, the
relationship between language and culture, cognitive and biological aspects of language, and
other symbolic forms and media of communication and reasoning.

· Socio-cultural anthropologists are concerned with human social and cultural diversity and the
bases of these distinctions, be they economic, political, environmental, biological; social roles,
relationships, and social transformation; cultural identity; cultural dimensions of domination
and resistance; and strategies for representing and analyzing cultural knowledge.

Fig:1 – The Anthropology as a study of man includes all the systems of human being

Social-cultural Anthropology, being an important branch of anthropology is concerned with the

social and cultural dimensions of the living people; and with the description and analysis of people’s
lives and traditions (Podolefsky and Brown, 1997). Socio-cultural anthropology studies the social,
symbolic or nonmaterial and material lives of contemporary and historically recent human societies,
taking the concept of culture central to its goal (Howard and Dunaif-Hattis, 1992). Cultural
anthropologists conduct studies of living people, most often by visiting and living among a particular
people for an extended period of time, usually a year or longer (Keesing 1981). Anthropologists
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Social-Cultural Anthropology
Anthropology
Meaning and Scope of Social Anthropology
 conduct fieldwork among the people they study and describe the results of their investigations in the
form of books and articles called ethnographies. Cultural anthropology is also concerned with making
generalizations about, and seeking explanations for, similarities and differences among the world's
people. Those who conduct comparative studies to achieve these theoretical goals are called
ethnologists. Thus, two important aspects of social/cultural anthropology are ethnography and
ethnology. The former is more of empirical study or description of the culture and ways of lives of a
particular group of people, while the latter is more of a theoretical study of the similarities and
differences among the human groups of the world, past or present. There are many other specialized
fields of study in social or cultural anthropology. Some of these include: anthropology of art, medical
anthropology, urban/rural/economic anthropology, political anthropology, development anthropology,
anthropology of religion, legal anthropology, demographic anthropology, ecological anthropology,
psychological anthropology, ethnomusicology, etc.

2. Meaning and Definition

A single-sentence definition of social anthropology is of doubtful utility. Social Anthropology
addresses the big questions of ‘what it is to be human’ by studying the amazingly diverse ways in
which people in all parts of the world make a living, organize themselves, make families and
communities, and think about the world around them and how to live a good life. According to Evans-
Pritchard, ‘Social anthropology includes the study of all human cultures and societies’. The basic idea
is that it tries to find out the structure of human societies all over the world. What Social anthropology
seeks to establish is that all societies notwithstanding any country are an organized whole. It is not just
the separate customs or beliefs that are different, but the whole pattern of working, living, marrying,
worshipping, organizing politically, keeping order and so on. Everything is different from the way we
do things because the structure, the plan and the ideas behind them are different. It is here that social
anthropology, on one hand, accounts for the social and cultural variations among the different tribal
groups, but on the other hand, it also conceptualizes the similarities found between tribal social
systems and human relationships. As a matter of fact, when we try to understand the tribal economy as
a particular group, for example Santal Tribe, we try to find out how this economy is connected with
other aspects of the Santal society.

Evans-Pritchard further adds by comparing Social Anthropology with Sociology that it is a general
body of theory to primitive social life which constitutes the subject of social anthropology. In other
words social anthropology studies: (i) primitive societies and (ii) generates data by doing field work.

John Lewis has defined Social anthropology in a very conservative style. According to him Social
anthropology is a comparative discipline of the study of social institutions. However despite limiting
the field of Social anthropology to the study of primitive communities, Lewis suggested for
establishing a pattern of indigenous society.

Social-Cultural Anthropology
Anthropology
Meaning and Scope of Social Anthropology
 Eriksen on the other hand puts emphasis on the study of small places in Social anthropology. He argues
that Social anthropology intensively is concerned with the small places, but these small places are
related to large issues.

Anthropology being a large and diversified subject is practiced somewhat differently in different
countries, although it retains its distinctive character everywhere. A.L. Kroeber, in his celebrated work
on anthropology published in the forties, divides anthropology broadly into two divisions; physical
anthropology and socio-cultural anthropology. At a later stage, the socio-cultural anthropology split
into Cultural anthropology and Social anthropology. Even today, this split is not readily accepted all
over the world. By elaborating the anthropological traditions at the regional level in each country and
continent, we would identify a number of variations.

Traditions of Cultures of Anthropology in Different Countries

Country/ Continent Traditional Form

Great Britain, Scandinavian Countries, Social Anthropology
India and other Asian Countries
United States of America Cultural Anthropology, Linguistics, Cultural Ecology,
Psychological and Interpretive Anthropology, Pre-
history
France Structuralism and Structural Marxism

According to Piddington, “Social anthropologists study Cultures of contemporary primitive

communities”. This definition of Social anthropology is a bit narrow because anthropology does not
only study primitive cultures but studies contemporary cultures also.

S.C. Dubey defined “Social anthropology as that part of Cultural anthropology which devotes its
primary attention to the study of social structure and religion rather than material aspects of culture”. It
is clear that Social anthropology studies the different aspects of social structure such as, social
institutions, social relations and social events, etc.

Charles Winick has opined that “Social anthropology is the study of social behavior, especially from
the point of view of the systematic comparative study of social forms and institutions”.

In brief, Social anthropology is a comparative study of social behavior and social phenomena of
humans of all countries and ages.

3. Historical Background
Social anthropology as we find it in India, South Africa and elsewhere outside the US, originates from
England. Evans-Pritchard has elaborated the origin and development of Social anthropology in
England. He says that the subject was taught at Oxford since 1885 under the name of anthropology or
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Anthropology
Meaning and Scope of Social Anthropology
 ethnology. It was started at Cambridge and in London in 1900 and 1908, respectively. But, the first
university chair which bore the title of Social anthropology was started in 1908. Sir James Frazer was
made the honorary professor at Liverpool in 1908. Since then the subject has received wider
recognition and it is now taught under the name of Social Anthropology in Great Britain. But it is
argued that historically, early anthropology started sometime during the 18th century.

According to some historians, the origin of Social anthropology is traced to David Hume and
Immanuel Kant who were the first philosophers to define Social anthropology. Hume was a British
Empiricist who argued that “experience was the only trustworthy source of valid knowledge”. Kant
contrasted the empirical approach to Social anthropology as given by Hume. He argued that people had
certain shared innate faculties, which were assumed to be embedded in their mode of thought.

The 19th century social anthropologists were greatly influenced by the findings of Darwin and his
associates. The definition of Social anthropology given by social Darwinists is a landmark in the
development of this discipline. The foundations of present anthropology goes back to Henry Maine’s
Ancient Law (1861) and Lewis Henry Morgan’s books, including Ancient Society (1877). Both of these
authors developed theories of primitive society which were to wield influence far into the 20th century.
The theory expounded by Morgan was one; there were other theories too; for instance, Westermark set
out the theory of human marriage; Brifault propounded the theory of family. What we intend to
conclude here is that there was a team of evolutionists which established theories of culture, including
religion and other fields of social anthropology. These evolutionists included W.H.R. Rivers, Tylor,
Frazer, William James, A.C. Haddon and Charles Seligman. All these early social anthropologists
defined Social anthropology as a science of social evolution. In other words, Social anthropology
studies the origin and evolution of social institutions such as society, religion, marriage, kinship and so
on.
Franz Boas and Malinowski are often regarded as the first modern anthropologists. Boas belonged to
Germany but he came to the US in 1880 to study the American Indians. He conducted field research by
himself and founded modern American cultural anthropology. According to Malinowski, functionalism
is the most important approach of culture growth

4. Aims of Social Anthropology

Pointing out the aim of scientific study, Ralph Piddington has proclaimed, “the aim of any science is to
study a specified part of the real world and from a study of facts to formulate theories which shall serve
as recipes for human conduct, whether that conduct be the carrying out of further research or the taking
of practical steps for the the promotion of human welfare”. Based upon this criterion, Piddington has
admitted two aims of Social Anthropology.

(i) The primary aim of Social anthropology is to gather information about human nature. Human
nature is a controversial subject. Different scholars have laid emphasis upon different aspects of
human nature. The primitive man and society present human nature in its most rudimentary and

Social-Cultural Anthropology
Anthropology
Meaning and Scope of Social Anthropology
 raw form. Therefore their study is useful for the understanding of the basic essentials of human
nature without much influence of culture upon them.

(ii) Another aim of Social anthropology is the study of the processes and results of cultural
contacts. Most of the primitive societies are gradually coming in contact with more developed
cultures. This contact is gradually creating social, religious, economic and political changes and
disorganization. The administrators and the social planners require the help of social
anthropologists in the understanding of processes and consequences of cultural contacts.

According to the Royal Anthropological Society of Great Britain and Ireland the most important aims
of Social anthropology are the following:

(i) The study of primitive culture in its present form.

(ii) The study of cultural contact and specific purposes. This includes the exploration of the
influences of outer groups creating cultural changes.
(iii) Reconstruction of social history
(iv) Search for universally valid social laws.

Thus the chief aim of Social anthropology is to study human society, social institutions, culture and
kinship bonds in their most elementary form. Besides being useful for the understanding of present day
human societies, it aids to our knowledge of human history as well as the nature of social institutions.
It is hence proved that Social anthropology is closely related to history and archaeology.

The above aims of Social anthropology are particularly evident in the utilization of functional method
in its study. According to Malinowski, in the functional method we try to discover those human needs
which maintain his bio-psychic existence and finally his higher intellectual survival. The functional
method also helps us in finding out ways and means for the fulfillment of these needs. As Radcliffe
Brown has aptly pointed out, culture is an integrated system. It serves certain functions with reference
to human societies. It aims at discovery of the general principles required for the explanation of
cultural phenomena. It is clear that the discovery of the functions of social institutions, needs and
culture, etc. in primitive societies will provide a solid foundation for the understanding of developed
societies and cultures. For example, it has been discovered that components of culture act separately as
well as together. All this has been useful in the understanding of present day societies. They will
protect them and keep them free from disease. In political fields also, the administration is mostly in
the hands of females. This however, does not mean that the status of males is pitiable in any sense. On
the other hand, they are respected and their desires are fulfilled. Divorce requires mutual consent and
both are free in their personal affairs.

5. Scope of Social Anthropology

The general understanding of social anthropology is that it tries to study human societies all over the
world. This meets the objective of studying the society. Secondly, by employing the comparative

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 method, social anthropologist finds similarities and differences in diverse societies. Identification of
these similarities helps us construct universal anthropological theories which will enable us understand
the human society. This objective of Social anthropology becomes all the more relevant in the context
of the accelerating processes of localization and globalization. In any projection towards the building
of a world society, Social anthropology has enough to contribute.

At this stage of discussing the scope of Social anthropology we must address one question to ourselves:
If we accept that Social anthropology, notwithstanding India, European continent or the US, studies the
primitive peoples and if these primitive people become extinct from the social map of the world in the
context of the all-embracing changes, what would anthropology study?

In other words, if there are no tribals in India, what would social anthropologists do? Whom will they
study? The question is relevant and is very much concerned with the scope and subject matter of social
anthropology today. Let us take the problem of the scope of social anthropology as is addressed to us.
What has become of the peoples first explored by anthropologists during colonialism? Nearly all of
them are, to varying degrees, integrated into the wider economic, cultural and political systems. It is
reported that the Trobriand islanders, whom Malinowski studied in the first quarter of the 20th century,
have now adapted themselves to the process of modernization on their own terms. Modernization has
led to changes in political organization: in the economy and in the politics of identity, but both the
kinship system and the system of ceremonial exchange still function, even if they do not have the same
meaning as before. In India, the Toda, Gond, Khasi, Bhil and other tribes have embraced new political
and economic systems unleashed by the national government. It appears that the tribals today are not
the same as they were fifty years back. The situation is very complex and we have to examine the
scope of Social anthropology in this new context.

Admittedly, Social anthropology cannot be ‘sold’ in the academic market where it is not relevant in
understanding the reality of society. It is also in the interest of Social anthropology that it does not
remain only ‘a veiled discipline’ closing its eyes to the society’s demands and expectations. At the
outset, we would like to observe that the subject matter and scope of Social anthropology have never
been conservative, no will to change, quite static and sterile. It has always been changing.

Social anthropology is concerned with culture per se whether it belongs to the primitive men of the
stone age or the European city-dwellers of today. It includes a study of different parts of culture, social
institutions, economic and political administration. Its wider scope can be illustrated more by
describing its branches, such as –

(i) Ethnography
(ii) Familial Anthropology
(iii) Economic Anthropology
(iv) Political Anthropology
(v) Symbology and Linguistics
(vi) Thought and Art
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Social-Cultural Anthropology
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 (i) Ethnography: Ethnography is the main field of anthropology. It is regarded as the descriptive study
of cultural group or community. Its scope also includes the study of cultures of different races and it
aims at combining all the elements of a community life.

(ii) Familial Anthropology: Family is the basic institution of society. Social anthropology therefore,
studies the family also. It takes up a comparative study of the families of different cultures and
societies and it covers different forms of family along with its progress.

(iii) Economic Anthropology: Economic rules play an important part in social organization. Some
radical changes take place in social structure along with a change in economic administration. Social
anthropology therefore minutely studies the economic administration of primitive and civilized human
societies and of different levels of evolution in them.

(iv) Political Anthropology: Political anthropology has also an important place in social structure
along with economic administration. Social anthropology, therefore, studies all types of political
administration, laws, governments and rules of punishments, etc. This branch of social anthropology is
known as political anthropology.

(v) Symbology and Linguistics: The study of different symbols of human behavior which are current
in languages of different societies, supplies many important facts for the study of society. Social
anthropology, therefore, studies all these also. Thus the whole linguistic field falls within this branch of
Social anthropology.

(vi) Thought and Art: The study of thoughts in theoretical study is very important. Thought includes
religion, magic, science and even legends. Social anthropology is a comparative study of all these
things in ancient human societies. Art is an important part of culture and culture depicts the interior of
a society. Social anthropology studies sculpture, metallurgy and even dancing and instrumental and
vocal music.

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Social-Cultural Anthropology
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Meaning and Scope of Social Anthropology