Social anthropology belongs to a series of sciences about the process of human development. She studies the evolution of society, as well as the stage at which modern people are.
That is, human behavior is considered as the cause and main mechanism of the entire development process, which can include culture, social system, and other forms of activity. This article will reveal the question of what social anthropology studies, and also briefly dwell on the history of this science.
Born of Revolution
When considering the essence of many sciences, it is customary to find the beginnings of a particular discipline, as well as sayings about its necessity in the works of ancient or later philosophers. There are also a number of treatises that contain thoughts similar to those later developed by social anthropology.
So, in the works of the French writer and thinker of the 18th century Charles Montesquieu, the theory is considered that traditional culture, that is, a system of social relations, as well as material and spiritual values, should be carefully analyzed at all stages of human development, and the resulting knowledgeorganize.
The French scientist proposed to conduct this study in order to take the best from the primordially established customs of the peoples of the world and create a new, universal system of social relations on their basis.
Such thoughts visited the great thinker after a series of revolutions that swept through Europe.
These coup d'etat, according to the writer, brought very little benefit to humanity. Therefore, he considered it necessary to create a new theoretical basis for possible social transformations.
In such an analysis of the smallest components of culture and human relationships, as well as in the possible prediction of further history and improvement of existing orders, the functions of social anthropology as a science lie.
Putting ideas into practice
Montesquieu was not only a theorist.
He created a number of social theories, which were subsequently put into practice. The achievements of his scientific thought are still applied today. In particular, he is credited with the detailed development of the concept of the separation of powers. This scheme consists in the distribution of powers between the legislative and executive branches. The works of Charles Montesquieu were widely used to create a system of power in the then young state of the United States of America.
His ideas about the organization of governance were adopted and supplemented by later political scientists, who carried ideas about load sharing fromhorizontal plane to vertical. This was manifested in the delimitation of legislative and executive powers between the federal authorities and local self-government.
Following the United States of America, most European states have chosen a similar form of political organization.
Currently, the vast majority of countries in the world have just such a system of government, where powers are divided between different branches.
Thus, such a science as social anthropology, while still in its infancy, already had practical results on a global scale.
The appearance of the term
The very name of science - social anthropology - arose at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The universities of Great Britain and the United States of America became the cradle for the new industry. It is worth saying that the term for this science still exists in two versions. In England it is customary to call it social anthropology. Accordingly, the British version has a more politicized bias. In the US, the name "cultural anthropology" is more commonly used.
From this name itself it follows that American scientists consider historical events that determine the development of society, as well as material and cultural values, as social phenomena.
In particular, at Yale University a theory was developed about the connection between the language in which a person communicates and his way of thinking. This hypothesis was named after its founders - Sapir andWhorf. These linguists used in their scientific work the results of observations of the life of the indigenous peoples of America, as well as knowledge about the features of their national languages.
Thus, cultural anthropology takes into account the achievements of numerous sciences of man and society to identify the essence of social behavior, as well as to comprehend the history of mankind. Linguistics is also present among this variety of fields of knowledge, which is confirmed by the existence of the Sapir-Whorf theory.
The works of these researchers have had varying popularity throughout the 20th century. Their works were either considered outstanding among the representatives of the scientific community, or they were ridiculed. However, the emergence of a number of studies at the end of the century proved the viability of this hypothesis. In particular, in the scientific research of George Lakoff, devoted to metaphor in the languages of the peoples of the world and its role in the formation of human thinking, the achievements of his predecessors from Yale University are used.
Development of science in France
This branch of knowledge continued to exist and develop in the homeland of Charles Montesquieu, his founding father.
In the 20s of the 20th century, the prominent French scientist Marcel Moss, developing the ideas of his predecessors, created a number of works in which he considered the so-called "gift economy". According to his deep conviction, the statement that at the stage of human development, which preceded commodity-money relations, exchange was used,deeply mistaken.
In primitive times there was a system of social relations in which the social status of members of society is determined by how often and in what amounts they made gifts to others. These offerings consisted in helping the poor, in the maintenance of various religious institutions, as well as their ministers. Thus, we can conclude that before the advent of commodity-money relations, the moral and ethical ideas of society in some ways even surpassed later examples.
This theory was one of the first achievements in the history of social anthropology. Its practical application has been realized in some forms of modern social relations. In particular, a similar phenomenon exists in the so-called virtual culture. For example, some companies provide new software to everyone for free.
Theorists and practitioners
Despite significant achievements, Marcel Mauss and many of his supporters were called "scientists in armchairs". This metaphor stuck with a number of researchers due to the fact that their scientific works were not based on such methods of obtaining information as experiment, etc. However, the generation of social anthropologists that followed them began to widely use practical methods of obtaining material. One such scientist is Claude Levi-Strauss. This French scientist was a student of Marcel Mauss. Having received a diploma that allows him to teach in college, Levy nevertheless did not follow the beaten path,and decided to carry out a series of scientific expeditions in order to study the traditions and customs of the indigenous peoples of Brazil.
To implement his plans, he moves to this country and goes to work at one of the universities. Based on his observations, he created several scientific works on the theory of the emergence of colloquial speech. According to his hypotheses, the vocabulary of a particular language is made up of words that, in the course of history, developed from a variety of cries and interjections of ancient people. But the range of problems that he solved in the course of his research extended far beyond the bounds of linguistics. So, Levi-Strauss devoted a lot of time to the study of traditional forms of marriage and family that exist on the South American continent.
As a true modern scientist, he understood that the comprehension of any global problem requires consideration of the issue from the point of view of various branches of knowledge. Therefore, he worked closely with the mathematician Weil, who wrote chapters on the economic and logical foundations of his theory.
Levi-Strauss lived a long life, reaching the age of 100.
Until the last days he was in his right mind and engaged in scientific activities. There are not many such examples in academic circles. He is the founding chair of sociology in departments of sociology at several universities.
This researcher was also friendly with Franz Boas, the scientific predecessor of Sapir and Whorf, and used some of his achievements in his work.
Complex sciences
Due to the emergence of many new branches of knowledge, as well as the rapid growth of the development of science and technology, in the last two centuries it has become possible to use the achievements of one discipline in works devoted to the problems of another. Over time, this interaction of different points of view came to be seen as a necessity.
It can be argued that the diversity of branches of human knowledge has made it possible to look at long-studied facts of history from a point of view different from political and economic.
New research in the field of culture and arts, as well as the study of various forms of social relationships, made it possible to implement this new approach.
Man in social anthropology
The life of people and their society is studied by numerous sciences. In recent decades, complex disciplines have emerged that allow us to consider human history even at the molecular level. Such sciences as sociology, history, political science, anthropology and others are sometimes called behavioral.
Since these branches of knowledge are concerned with the consideration of various forms of social organization, as well as the process of its development, the subject of social anthropology, one way or another, is a person. Different views on this issue differ from each other only in some nuances. So, some scientists tend to consider the history of mankind as a subject of science, while others - its culture.
In any case, this discipline allows you to look at people from a fundamentally new point of view. This makes it possible to complete the overall pictureof the world that a modern person develops in the process of studying various theories and hypotheses.
Personality as the engine of history
So, the subject of social anthropology is man. But this term in different contexts can mean completely different concepts. Under the word "man" in the science we are considering, the designation of people as both a biological species and individuals, members of society and family can be hidden.
Thus, when considering a rational being from different points of view, specialists in the field of social anthropology have a fairly complete portrait. The relationship between various functions and aspects of people's being is emphasized by the fact that all these aspects of life are denoted here by one word - "man".
Unlike history and sociology, which study processes such as revolution, evolution, and so on, without taking into account individuals, the science discussed in this article tries to get away from this depersonalization and analyze this phenomenon on a deeper level.
In the name of this industry, the word "anthropology" is more significant than its definition - "social". This once again proves that the essence of this field of knowledge is the study of social processes, taking into account the smallest structural units - individuals. Therefore, the most important concept of social anthropology is a person.
Ways of development of science
In different years anthropology wasinfluenced by various scientists and philosophers. Their thoughts largely determined the direction in the development of this branch of knowledge at specific stages.
For example, at the very beginning of its existence, science was largely guided by the idea that any discipline should first collect the most important facts that can be applied in further research. After that, such information should be analyzed and laws drawn up on its basis, and the number of these rules should be reduced to a minimum.
The next direction of social anthropology arose under the influence of the ideas of the French thinker Dilthey. In contrast to the previous theory, he was of the opinion that not all phenomena relating to human life can be explained logically. Therefore, if veils relating to the history of mankind, various social conditions, can be studied by the method of cognition, then everything related to the personality of people should not be analyzed, but simply understood and felt.
The main thing in this direction of social anthropology is the parallel between the qualities of individuals belonging to a particular ethnic group and the phenomena of culture and art.
Dilthey said that in the sciences that study human relationships, it is not enough to use only logical thinking. In such areas of knowledge, it is necessary to delve more subtly into all the analyzed processes. Such a situation can only provide sensual empathy for representatives of different cultures. This approach ensures respect for material and cultural values.other countries. And it allows you to preserve the heritage of different eras and increase it.
Connection with other sciences
As already mentioned, the subject of study of a number of disciplines is a person. Therefore, it is sometimes very difficult to draw boundaries between such areas of knowledge as sociology, cultural studies, social anthropology, sociology and others. Some scientists are considered the founders of several disciplines at the same time.
An even closer connection exists between ethnology and social anthropology. Today, when considering these terms, it is customary to say that the latter of the sciences is a more extensive field of knowledge, since it includes, among other things, also psychological and cultural components.
It is worth mentioning that in Soviet times there was a single name for both sciences - ethnography.
A closely related relationship also exists between sociology and cultural anthropology.
Claude Levi-Strauss suggested dividing the areas of these sciences in this way. In his opinion, sociology should deal with the conscious component that determines the development of human society, that is, various external factors, as well as the intentional actions of people.
Social anthropology, he assigned the function of studying the unconscious. That is, in their research, such scientists should rely on the study of various superstitions, rituals, and so on.
It must be said that the science in question in this article, at the dawn of its formation, was engaged inthe study of only primitive primitive societies. Therefore, it can be argued that this branch of knowledge in the process of its development not only deepened, but also expanded the territory of its study, not only analyzed the behavioral characteristics of representatives of various ethnic groups, but also considered more and more new historical eras.
It can be said that modern social anthropology has joined sociology, as it is studied as part of the training program for specialists in this discipline.
The convergence of the two sciences began to occur after the Second World War. Then sociologists realized the need to recognize a number of anthropological achievements.
In particular, they adopted research on such small groups as the family, tribal community, residents of one city, and so on. Such knowledge was useful to sociologists, since they had to admit that it is these societies that have a strong influence on many historical processes. It is these groups that are in the field of close attention of cultural anthropology.
At the same time, the developments of sociology were also useful to representatives of a related science. For example, until the middle of the 20th century, anthropology was mainly concerned with societies with a traditional way of life, where people are mainly employed in peasant farming and live in small settlements. Since the 1950s, social anthropology has turned its attention to the study of the characteristics of the socialization of residents of large cities and industrial centers. One of the most important topics being developed today in this discipline isancient beliefs in an industrial society.
Curriculums
The study of this discipline, as a rule, takes place within the framework of the training program for sociologists in Russian universities. In particular, there is a department of this science at St. Petersburg State University at the Faculty of Sociology. This science is mastered by graduate students.
Also, students in the speci alty "Sociology" under the bachelor's program take this subject.
The curriculum contains a sufficient amount of humanities designed to teach students to conduct research activities through participation in various ethnological expeditions.
Today, such studies are extremely important, as many questions have accumulated related to modern society. For their understanding, it is social anthropology that can play a big role, with rich experience in studying the inner world of a person and its connection with the forms of social order.
Conclusion
This article was devoted to social anthropology, which is a fairly young branch of knowledge in Russian science. In several sections of the article, the question of the subject of this discipline, as well as its connection with other areas of knowledge, was highlighted. This area of knowledge is one of the humanities that study human relationships. Interacting with other disciplines, it contributes to the system of knowledge about people both as a multitude of individuals and as members of a single society. Social anthropology is not only concerned withstudy of modern society and its history, but also makes numerous predictions for the near and distant future.
