Ethnology and the Study of Culture Change

Abstract

The ‘Five Year Plan of Research’ of the Institute described in this Journal, vol. v, no. 1, aims at a scientific study of the change in the cultural life of African peoples which, like an inevitable destiny, takes place under the influence of Western civilization. The object of the study is to provide a sound basis for dealing with practical questions of administration and education. Such an investigation must be based on an intensive knowledge of the original culture of the people to be studied; it must ascertain the foreign influences effecting the change, as well as the way in which they affect the culture of the people; and it has to study the changes being brought about by them in the culture. In order to start with concrete phenomena the investigation should, in the first instance, be confined to the changes that are being brought about by world economic conditions in the traditional social order of selected African communities, and in particular to the changes in the economic organization of native society. The study of changes in economic conditions must, however, inevitably lead to an examination of the way in which these affect the family, tribal organization, religious beliefs and sanctions, and the whole social organization. Regarded from the scientific point of view, this is a task which touches upon the most important problems of culture. Ethnology, as the most comprehensive and the most fundamental of the culturesciences, is to an especially high degree interested in this problem and in this investigation. Being myself a student of ethnology as a culturescience, I am venturing to discuss here the questions of principle involved, especially since the principles of culture-science underlying the ‘five year plan’ coincide to a large extent with my own conceptions.