Sociology and Society — Sociology STD 11 Humanities — Question
CBSE BoardEnglish MediumSTD 11 HumanitiesSociologySociology and Society6 Marks
Question
How Sociology is related with Social Anthropology?
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Answer
Relationship between Sociology and Social Anthropology:
Types of Society: Sociology emerged as the study of modern, industrial complex societies while Social Anthropology emerged as the study of primitive, simple and small scale societies. The anthropologists of the past documented the details of simple societies apparently in a neutral scientific fashion. In practice, however, they were constantly comparing those societies with the model of the western modern societies as a benchmark.
Scale of study: Social anthropology tended to study society (simple societies) in all their aspects, as a whole. In so far, as they specialised, it was on the basis of area. For example, the Andaman Islands. Sociologists study complex societies and would therefore often focus on parts of society like the bureaucracy or religion or caste or a process such as social mobility.
Methods of Study: Social Anthropology has been associated with the ethnographic methods of participant observation. It is characterised by long field work tradition, living in and with the community being studied for a long time and learning their language.
Sociologists have often relied on survey methods and quantitative data using statistics and the questionnaire mode. Convergence of Sociology and Social Anthropology:
Today the distinction between a simple society and a complex one itself needs major rethinking. India itself is a complex mix of tradition and modernity, of the village and the city, of caste and tribe, of class and community.
Consequently, there is a coming together of sociology and social anthropology in India. There have been fruitful interchanges between the two disciplines and today often methods and techniques are drawn from both.
On the other hand, sociology too has been using quantitative and qualitative techniques, macro and micro approaches for studying the complexities of modern societies.
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