How Far Can Structural Studies Take Account of Individuals?

Abstract

THE SUBJECT OF THIS DISCUSSION1 was suggested by a sentence in DrJohn Beattie's (1958) very generous review of my book Function, Purpose and Powers in a recent number of MAN. He asked whether I thought that 'the proper study of social anthropologists is social institutions or people or both'; and I was invited to try to answer this question. In suggesting as a title 'How far can structural studies take account of individuals?' I have perhaps put the question in its most difficult form. It would be tempting to re-word it 'How much of the anthropos can the study of social anthropology include?' For 'social anthropology' is presumably a wider term than 'structural studies'. But I think it may be worth concentrating on the more limited aspect of structural studies, since these move on a level of generality which seems a long way from individuals, and indeed a 'social structure' is an abstraction which can be said to exclude them by definition. Let me say to begin with, in answer to Dr Beattie's question, that I imagine no one can think that Social Anthropology is simply concerned with the study of people as individuals, or even with what psychologists call 'personality studies'. If we must accept the antithesis: 'social institutions or people?' we should, I am sure, have to say 'social institutions'. But I want to say that we need not accept the antithesis put baldly like that, in so far as the study is not just of social institutions but of institutional man. And so we can ask how an individual can be taken into account in studying institutional man. And what are the different stages of abstraction from the study of individuals to the study of institutional man, and then to the notion of a social structure ? I have said that a social structure is described on a level of generality which excludeindividuals by definition. But of course everyone would not agree with this. Radcliffe