Considering the practices of the classification of societies – A step towards indigenization

Abstract

The reasonability of the construction of classificatory rankings of societies and related theoretical implications are considered in this paper. I argue that existing classificatory rankings are based on the essentialist views and represent societies as homogenous entities whereas they ignore intra-societal variety. Moreover, the quantitative methodology and methods which underlie those rankings are based on the etic approach and use concepts and indicators which are constructed in the west and don’t reflect indigenous socio-cultural dynamics. Besides, existing rankings simply equalize particular aspects to the whole societal development. For example, gross domestic product is equalized to the level of societal development; however, it actually can’t fully reflect even the situation in the economic field. Though it can be still reasonable to use such impersonal indicators as gross domestic product or longevity which are based entirely on impersonal data and are free from subjective interpretations, for the exploration of general tendencies in particular fields, however, we should restrain ourselves from invalid generalizations. Krys et al. proposed to elaborate culturally sensitive approach, however, still remained in frame of the etic approach, whereas I argue that the only way for the comprehensive and deeper assessment of the level of societal development is to construct a fully emic and indigenous approach that implies the usage of only locally constructed concepts during the definition of indicators. Those indigenous concepts most probably won’t be translatable to other languages that make the aim of the creation of a unified scale theoretically impossible; however, this is the only way for getting valid results at least concerning particular societies with current methodological apparatus. The solution to this issue requires further theoretical development and methodological innovations.