Field Of Social Anthropology Research Articles

Ethnography: a tool for learning

Although the question of including ethnographic studies in nursing curricula is seldom discussed in the British nursing literature, the need for such perspectives is recognised. Developed and used imaginatively, small-scale projects based on ethnographic research methods can help to provide the experience needed for developing cultural awareness and sensitivity amongst nurse learners. A wealth of texts, mostly in the field of social anthropology, exist which provide insight into this approach to cultural discovery.

A Case Study of Migrant Labor in Tanzania

One of the most attractive and stimulating features about research in African history has been its eclecticism. Grounded particularly in the extensive and fertile field of social anthropology, Africanists have explored the implications of cultural relativism and the techniques of structural-functional analysis. Now, when some of the basic assumptions which have undergirded social sciences are being questioned, historians might re-examine their own orientations toward the men and societies about which they write.

Tanzania: Documentation in Political Anthropology -- The Hans Cory Collection

Hans Cory, 1888-1962, in his years as Tanganyika government sociologist, produced a collection of papers and monographs in the general field of political anthropology that rank as an important primary research source concerning that nation. The documentation, as do Cory's published writings, reflect the diverse interests of the author and the many sides of his character. The son of a Viennese musical family, his early interests were in African songs and dances, in composing Swahili poetry, and in collecting African drawings and figurines. Largely self-taught in the field of social anthropology, he had an abiding interest in ceremonies and rites, in the composition of secret societies, and in the use of plant medicines for religious and magical purposes. As an official he advised the government on a myriad of social problems. Outbreaks of murder, venereal disease, cattle theft, or armed revolt often brought administrative requests that he investigate the problem in depth and make policy recommendations. The composition of the Cory collection, which is housed at the University College Library, Dar es Salaam, is predominantly typewritten papers, interviews, observations, and correspondence. Some of the field notes are handwritten, and a few papers are in German. There are also important subfiles of plant samples, drawings, paintings, and song texts. Cory's own bibliographical collection annotates and cross-indexes other writings by ethnic group, region, and individual author. The material falls into seven general categories: (1) local government, including native administration, constitution, and reform; (2) agricultural economics and land tenure; (3) magic, religion, secret societies, and related medical practices; (4) arts and crafts; (5) ethnography and tribal history; (6) customary law; and (7) language. The regional foci of much of the work are on the ethnic groups around Lake Victoria, particularly the Sukuma, Haya, Zinza, Kerewe, and Kuria. The peoples of central and western Tanzania, the Nyamwezi, Gogo, Nyaturu-Rimi, Ha, and Fipa, are represented in the collection, and some data exist on the eastern and coastal ethnic groups, particularly the Pare, Luguru, Zaramo, and Sambaa. Aside from a few monographs dealing with the Ngoni and Hehe, most ethnic groups of the southern regions of the country are not treated.

Parsons' Concept of “Generalized Media of Social Interaction” and its Relevance for Social Anthropology

The concept of “generalized symbolic media of social interaction” was introduced by Parsons five years ago in his two articles on the concepts of power and influence.1 I believe that it represents a theoretical development of the first importance, which has received much less attention—particularly in my own field of social anthropology—than it deserves. The purpose of the present paper is to review and criticize the concept itself and to point out its relevance to certain problems in social anthropology.

Citation analysis in the field of cultural anthropology

Citation analysis in the field of cultural anthropology

Some Articles in the Field of Cultural Anthropology from recent Issues of Bijdragen

Some Articles in the Field of Cultural Anthropology from recent Issues of Bijdragen

A Case Study of Industrial Resettlement: Milpitas, California

Decentralization of industry from urban to suburban and rural areas is a notable current trend. One zone where it is particularly marked is the rapidly expanding "Bay Area" around San Francisco, where a number of planned industrial communities are springing up. This is a first general report of a study being made by a staff and graduate student group at Stanford University of the movement of industry into a semi-rural community within that area. A prime purpose of the study, which will continue over a period of years, is to assess the special contributions the behavioral science field of social anthropology can make to research on industrial community development.

Animadversions on Cultural Absolutism

Previous articleNext article No AccessDiscussionAnimadversions on Cultural AbsolutismKurt P. TauberKurt P. Tauber Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Ethics Volume 61, Number 3Apr., 1951 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/290778 Views: 3Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1951 University of Chicago PressPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Karl Joseph Marschall Bau und funktionen der blutzellen des mehlk�fers Tenebrio molitor L., Zeitschrift f�r Morphologie und �kologie der Tiere 58, no.22 (Jan 1966): 182–246.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00406725

Problems of Religious Education IN JAPANESE‐AMERICAN BUDDHISM1

1The present paper is based on a study of some years’ duration covering the social and cultural changes undergone by the Japanese Buddhist minority in the United States. The methodological frame of reference has been drawn from the field of social anthropology

Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class

This is a landmark study in Southern social stratification. First published in 1941, Deep is the cooperative effort of a team of social anthropologists to document the economic, racial, and cultural character of the Jim Crow South through a study of a representative rural Mississippi community. Researchers Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner lived among the people of Natchez, Mississippi, as they investigated how class and caste informed daily life in a typical southern community. This Southern Classics edition of their study offers contemporary students of history a provocative collection of primary material gathered by conscientious and well-trained participant-observers, who found then - as now - intertwined social and economic inequalities at the root of racial tensions. Expanding on earlier studies of community stratification by social class, researchers in the Deep South Project introduced the additional concept of caste, which parsed a community through rigid social ranks assigned at birth and unalterable through life - a concept readily identifiable in the racial divisions of the Jim Crow South. As African American researchers, Davis and his wife, Elizabeth, along with his assistant St. Clair Drake, were able to gain unrivaled access to the black community in rural Mississippi, unavailable to their white counterparts. Through their interviews and experiences, the authors vividly capture the nuances in caste-enforcing systems of tenant-landlord relations, local government, and law enforcement. But the chief achievement of Deep is its rich analysis of how the southern economic system, and sharecropping in particular, functioned to maintain rigid caste divisions along racial lines. In the new introduction to this edition, Jennifer Jensen Wallach situates this germinal study within the field of social anthropology and against the backdrop of similar community studies of the era. She also details the subsequent careers of this distinguished team of researchers.

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE

URRENT use of the terms, social organization and social structure, in social science writings indicates uncertainty as to the meaning of either term. Writers alternate in their use of these terms in the same paragraph. This can be confirmed by reference to works on sociological concepts or to writings in the field of social anthropology.' I t is the purpose of this article to suggest more precise definitions of these terms and to propose a method for the systematic analysis of these concepts. The following distinction is suggested for the terms, social organization and social structure: social organization refers to the systems of obligationrelations which exist among and between the groups constituting a given society, while social structure refers to the placement and position of individuals and of groups within that system of obligation-relations.2 It is the contention of this paper that the use of either term in analysis of social phenomena should take place within this dual conceptual framework, and that the difference between these terms is primarily one of approach and emphasis. Thus, a description of the social organization of American society would stress the nature and functioning of obligation-relations as these operate among the various groups constituting this society. On the other hand, an analysis of the social structure of this society would describe the position of the numerous groups in this social order with reference to each other as manifested in the system of familial, economic, political, religious and socialclass obligation-relations which obtains a t any given time.

The Evolution of Culture

PROP. MURDOCK, of Yale University, has made an admirable translation of Lippert's “Kul-turgeschichte der Menschheit in ihrem organischen Aufbau”(1886–87), which together with his other writings, gained for the author the reputation in Germany of being in the front rank of sociologists, though his work has scarcely had due recognition in other countries. At that time trustworthy data on the ethnography of backward peoples were very scanty and incomplete, so it is not surprising that occasionally his imagination led him beyond his facts and that he was inclined to read too much into them. Such faults are characteristic of most pioneers, but Lippert consciously strove to be inductive, as is shown by his use of the method of comparative ethnology. His approach was distinctly evolutionary, as was almost inevitable at that time, and he covered, so far as he could, the whole field of social anthropology with a due regard to balance and perspective. He did not, however, make the common mistake of confusing evolution with progress. Although Lippert says that “human ingenuity has striven in different places to achieve the goal set by the care for life with the elements there at hand”(p. 169), he does not ignore diffusion from a single centre in the case of the bow (p. 180) and claims it for the fire cult (p. 584) and for the origin of grape wine (p. 199), but in his time the conception of the diffusion of cultures had not achieved the importance which it has now attained. The Evolution of Culture. By Julius Lippert. Translated and edited by Prof. George Peter Murdock. Pp. xxxiii + 716. (London: George Alien and Unwin, Ltd., 1931.) 20s. net.