On Quantification in Social Anthropology

Abstract

The methods of social anthropological study are frequently contrasted with those in the other social sciences. Traditionally, anthropologists have pursued their studies among peoples whose languages, customs, and social institutions have differed sharply from their own. In this situation, according to some, their task has been primarily to translate the cultures of these peoples into the idiom of the anthropologist's own culture. The anthropologist cannot depend upon quantitative data derived from sample surveys, which sociologists typically collect in their field studies, but has to rely mainly upon intimate knowledge arising out of a long-standing acquaintance with a few informants. The anthropological method has tended to be taken as synonymous with the intensive study of small communities through participant observation without the use of quantitative methods. By contrast, sociological methods are assumed to involve schedules, questionnaires, and statistical procedures. The result has been an increase in quantitative material and statistical analysis in sociology and the other social sciences but a rudimentary development of these methods in social anthropology. The collection of quantitative material in anthropological fieldwork has increased considerably during the past twenty years but its origins go back farther. Statistical methods have not been unpopular in all fields of anthropological inquiry for there is a long and respectable tradition of using quantitative methods to demonstrate the association among cultural traits in different societies.