Anthropology

A Mirror Of
Humanity

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Social Anthropology

Anth 1012
Credit Hours: 2

Instructor:
Balela B.

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 Unit One

Introducing Anthropology and its Subject Matter

Definition, Scope and Subject Matter of Anthropology

Defin and Concepts in Anthropology

 Etymologically the term anthropology is a compound of two

Greek words, anthropos‘ and logos‘, means human
being/mankind and reason/study/science‘ respectively.
 So, anthropology means reason about humans‘ or the study

or science of humankind or humanity‘.

 man has two important characteristics:

 biological inseparable elements

 cultural
 Culture influences human physical structures and the vise-

versa.
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 literally, anthropology is the study of humans.
 Yet, this literal definition is not particularly illuminating; because a

number of other academic disciplines—including sociology, biology,

psychology, political science, economics, and history—also study
human beings.
 What is it that distinguishes anthropology from all of these

disciplines?
 Anthropology is the study of people their origins, development

their, and contemporary variations, wherever and whenever they

have been found.

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 It is a broad scientific discipline dedicated to the comparative study of
humans as a group, from its first appearance on earth to its present
stage of development.
 Of all the disciplines that study humans, anthropology is by far the

broadest in scope.
 In more specific terms, Anthropology is the science which:
 Investigates the strategies for living that are learned and shared by

people as members of human social groups;

 Examines the characteristics that human beings share as members of

one species (homo sapiens) and the diverse ways that people live in
different environments;
 analyses the products of social groups: material objects (material

cultures) and non-material creations (religion/beliefs, social values,

institutions, practices, etc..

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 Anthropology is an intellectually challenging, theoretically
ambitious subject
 tries to achieve an understanding of culture, society and

humanity through detailed studies of community life,

supplemented by comparison..
 Anthropology seeks to explain how and why people are both

similar and different through examination of our biological

and cultural past and comparative study of contemporary
human societies.

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 The ultimate goal is to develop an integrated
picture of humankind
 what makes us human?
 Why do some groups of people tend to be tall
and lanky, while others tend to be short and
stocky?
 Why do some groups of people practice
agriculture, while others hunt for a Living?
 Anthropology primarily offers two kinds of

insight- 1.produces knowledge about the actual biological

and cultural variations in the world;
2. anthropology offers methods and theoretical perspectives
enabling practitioners to explore, compare, understand and
solve societal problems.
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 The Historical Development of
Anthropology
 Like the other social sciences, anthropology is a

fairly recent discipline.

 given its present shape during the 20thc. .

 History is not primarily a product of the past itself,

but it is rather shaped by the concerns of the

present.
 The anthropology, considered as the science of

humanity, originated in the region we commonly

call the West‘, notably in three or four Western‘
countries: France, Great Britain, the USA and,
Germany.

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 Historically speaking, this is a European
discipline, and its practitioners, like those of all
European sciences, occasionally like to trace its
roots back to the ancient Greeks.
 The present academic anthropology has its

roots in the works and ideas of the great ancient

and Medieval Greek, Roman, and Hebrew
philosophers and social thinkers.
 These people were interested in the nature,

origin and destiny of man, and the morality and

ethics of human relationships.
 The discipline did not emerge as a distinct field

of study until the mid-nineteenth century.

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 Anthropology as an academic discipline was born during the
19th century, out of the intellectual atmosphere of
Enlightenment,
-which is the 18th century social and philosophical movement
that emphasized human progress and the poser of reason, and
based on the Darwinian Theory of Evolution.
 By the late 1870s, anthropology was beginning to emerge as a

profession.
 A major impetus for its growth was the expansion of western

colonial powers and their consequent desire to better

understand the peoples living under colonial domination.

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 During its formative years, anthropology became a profession
primarily in museums.

 Early anthropologists mainly studied small communities who

were technologically simple societies. Such societies are often
called by various names, such as, traditional, non-industrialized
and/or simple societies.
 Anthropologists of the early 1900s emphasized the study of

social and cultural differences among human groups.

 many of the indigenous peoples of non-western world and their

social and cultural features were studied in detail and

documented. This approach is called ethnography.

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 By the mid-1900, however, anthropologists attempted to
discover universal human patterns and the common bio-
psychological traits that bind all human beings. This approach
is called ethnology.
 Ethnology aims at the comparative understanding and analysis

of different ethnic groups across time and space

 In Ethiopia, professional anthropologists have been studying

culture and society on a more intensive level only since the late
1950s.
 Almost inevitably, the initial emphasis was on ethnography, the

description of specific customs, cultures and ways of life.

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 Scope and Subject Matter of Anthropology
 The breadth and depth of anthropology is immense; there is no time

and space left as far as man exists.

 The temporal dimension covers the past, the present and even the

future.
 In terms of the spatial dimension- studies from Arctic to Desert, from

Mega polis to hunting gathering areas.

 The discipline covers all aspects of human ways of life experiences and

existence, as humans live in a social group.

 Anthropology touches upon all aspect of human conditions as far as

there is a relation between human beings themselves, and humans and

natural environment.

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 As one of the foremost anthropologists of the 20th, Claude Lévi-Strauss,
has expressed:
- Anthropology has humanity as its object of research, but unlike the other
human sciences, it tries to grasp its object through its most diverse
manifestations‘ (1983:
 In other words, anthropology studies humanity with its all aspects of

existence, and in its all means of differences (diversities) and similarities

(commonalities). Wherever human beings live, there is always
anthropology.

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 Such focus areas of investigation and the stated aims of the
discipline convey that the areas covered by anthropology are
diverse and enormous.
 Anthropologists strive for an understanding of the biological and

cultural origins and evolutionary development of the species.

 They are concerned with all humans, both past and present, as

well as their behaviour patterns, thought systems, and material

possessions.

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 Sub-fields of Anthropology

 Anthropology is often divided into four major subfields:

I. Physical/Biological Anthropology,
II. Archaeological Anthropology
III. Linguistic Anthropology and
IV. Socio-Cultural Anthropology.

Each sub-field of anthropology is further divided into a number of specialization

areas some of which are indicated in Fig. 1.

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• Biological Anth • Prehistoric Arh
• Primatologiy • classical Arch
• Forensic Anth
• • Urban Arch
Human ecology

Physical Archaeolo
Anth gy

Linguistic Cultural
Anth Anth
• Structural ling. • Ecological Anth
• Morphology • Political Anth
• Socio linguistics • Ur ban Anth

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 Physical/Biological Anthropology
 is a branch of anthropology that focuses on the biological
aspects of human beings.
 It studies the biological dimensions of human beings, including

biological evolution, the physical variations between

contemporary populations, and the biology and behaviour of non-
human primates
 It has sub-fields such as biological anthropology, forensic

anthropology, primatology, paleo-anthropology, population

genetics, and human ecology.
 The subfields of physical anthropology are closely related to

natural sciences, particularly biology.

 There are two major areas of research in physical anthropology:

1) human evolution, and 2) modern human variation.

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 Research in human evolution shows that the origin of humanity
is traced back over 6 million years.
 Africa is found to be the cradle of human beings. Research findings

indicate that East Africa, especially the Great Rift Valley, is the origin
of mankind.
 The oldest fossils of human ancestors were discovered in this part of

the continent.
 The discovery of fossils such as Lucy/Dinknesh (Australopithecus

Afarensis) in the Afar Region shows that Ethiopia is among African

countries regarded as the origin of human ancestors
 Physical anthropologists study how culture and environment have

influenced biological evolution and contemporary human variations.

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 Human biology affects or even explains some aspects of behaviour,
society, and culture like marriage patterns, sexual division of labour,
gender ideology etc.
 The features of culture in turn have biological effects like the

standards of attractiveness, food preferences, and human sexuality.

 Biological variations such as morphology/structure, colour, and size

are reflections of changes in living organism. Since change occurs in

the universe, it also applies in human beings.
 Human biological variations are the result of the cumulative processes

of invisible changes occurring in human life.

 These changes have been accumulated and passed through genes.

 Genes are characteristics that carry biological traits of an organism,

including human beings.

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 The major sources of biological variations are derived from the interrelated
effects of natural selection, geographical isolation and genetic mutations.
 Physical anthropology is essentially concerned with two broad areas of
investigation: human evolution and genetics.
 Human evolution is the study of the gradual processes of simple forms
into more differentiated structures in hominid.
 It is interested in reconstructing the evolutionary record of the human
species using fossils/bones.
 Human evolution is further divided into three specialties:
Paleoanthropology, Primatology and anthropometry.
 Palaeo anthropology (paleo meaning ―old) is the study of human
biological evolution through the analysis of fossil remains from prehistoric
times to determine the missing link that connect modern human with its
biological ancestors.

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 Primatology; studies about primates or recent human
ancestors to explain human evolution.
 The study of the biology and behaviour of primates, that is,

the animals that most closely resemble human beings in

terms of physiological and anatomical structure.
 Primatologists study and observe the anatomy and social

behaviour of such non-human primate species as gorillas,

gibbons, orangutans and chimpanzees in their natural
habitats in an effort to gain clues about our own evolution as
a species and to ascertain the similarities and differences
between these other primates and humans
 Anthropometry: The study of human variations within and

among different populations in time and space, human

ecology, population genetics, etc make up the central
concerns of this sub-branch of physical anthropology.
 These physical differences may be in terms of blood types,

skin colors, skull shape, facial shape, hair texture, and the
like.

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 2.2 Archaeological Anthropology
 studies the ways of lives of past peoples by excavating and analysing the
material culture/physical remains (artefacts, features and eco-facts) they
left behind.
 Archaeologists study artefacts to get clues about values, beliefs, and
norms; in general, about the cultures of societies that existed in the past.
 Artefacts :- are material remains made and used by the past peoples and
that can be removed from the site and taken to the laboratory for further
analysis.
 Tools, ornaments, arrowheads, coins, and fragments of pottery are
examples of artifacts.
 Features:- like artifacts, are made or modified by past people, but they
cannot be readily carried away from the site.
 Archaeological features include such things as house foundations, ancient
buildings, fireplaces, steles, and postholes.

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Eco-facts :-are non-art-factual, organic and environmental remains
such as soil, animal bones, and plant remains that were not made or
altered by humans; but were used by them.
 Eco-facts provide archaeologists with important data concerning the
environment and how people used natural resources in the past.
 Archaeology has also its own subfields or areas of specialties. The
most important ones include –
Prehistoric Archaeology,
Historical Archaeology
Ethno-archaeology
Prehistoric archaeology:- investigates human prehistoric cultures.
It focuses on entire period called prehistory- between 6,000 years ago and the
time of the first stone tools (the first artefacts), around 2.5 million years ago.

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 Historic archaeologists :- help to reconstruct the cultures of people
who used writing and about whom historical documents have been
written.
-Historic archaeology takes advantage of the fact that about 6,000
years ago, some human groups invented language and began to
write down things that can tell about the past.
 Ethno-archaeologists :- study material culture of current societies

(e.g., pottery products) to understand the cultures (life styles) of past

societies.
 We Ethiopians have very glorious past. Archaeological findings in

north, south, east and western part of the country have shown our
county belonged to those countries which have old civilization

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 Linguistic anthropology
 generally focuses on the evolution of languages by studying
contemporary human languages as well as those of the past.
It studies how language is used within a society, and how the
human brain acquires and uses languages.
It tries to understand languages variation in their structures, units,
and grammatical formations.
It gives special attention to the study of unwritten languages.
Language is a key to explore a culture.
 Indeed, linguistic anthropology or anthropological linguistics
studies human language as a cultural resource and speaking as a
cultural practice in its social and cultural context, across space and
time.

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 Linguistic anthropology is divided into four distinct
branches or areas of research:
I. Structural or Descriptive Linguistics,
II. Historical Linguistics,
III. Ethno-Linguistics, and
IV. Socio-linguistics
I. Structural /Descriptive Linguistics: -
-studies the structure of linguistic patterns.
-Structural linguistics studies grammatical patterns of
languages to identify the similarities and
differences among contemporary languages.

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 -It examines sound systems, grammatical systems, and the
meanings attached to words in specific languages to
understand the structure and set of rules of given
language
II. Ethno-linguistics (cultural linguistics):
-Examines the relationship between language and culture.
- Moreover, cultural linguists explore how different linguistic
categories can affect how people categorize their
experiences, how they think, and how they perceive the
world around them.

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 III. Historical linguistics: -
-Deals with the emergence of language in general and how specific
languages have diverged over time.
-It focuses on the comparison and classifications of different
languages to differentiate the historical links between them.
IV. Socio-linguistics: -
-Sociolinguistics examines how the use of language defines social
groups.
- It investigates linguistic variation within a given language.
- No language is a homogeneous system in which everyone speaks
just like everyone else.
- One reason for variation is geography, as in regional dialects and
accents.
-Linguistic variation also is expressed in the bilingualism of ethnic
groups.
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 Socio-Cultural Anthropology

 Itis called cultural anthropology in North American universities;

ethnology in countries such as Germany; and social anthropology
in other countries including the United Kingdom and Ethiopia.
 commonly used to refer to this largest sub-field of anthropology.
 studies contemporary societies and cultures throughout the

world.
 Famous anthropologists such as Evans Pritchard and Meyer

Fortes conducted ethnographic research in the British colonies.

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 Currently, socio-cultural anthropologists conduct fieldworks all over the
world including in urban-industrial societies.
 Indigenous anthropology or anthropology at home‘ has also emerged as

more and more anthropologists have begun doing fieldworks in their

own societies.
 Society is the group of people who have similar ways of life, but culture

is a way of life of a group of people.

 Society and culture are two sides of the same coin.
 Socio cultural anthropology describes, analyzes, interprets, and explains

social, cultural and material life of contemporary human societies.

 Socio-cultural anthropologists engage in two aspects of study:
 Ethnography (based on field work) and
 Ethnology (based on cross-cultural comparison).

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 Cont....

 Ethnography:- provides a comprehensive account of a particular community,

society, or culture.
 It describes the features of specific cultures in as much detail as possible
including local behaviour, beliefs, customs, social life, economic activities,
politics, and religion.
 These detailed descriptions (ethnographies) are the result of extensive field
studies (usually a year or two, in duration) in which the anthropologist
observes, talks to, and lives with the people he or she studies.
 Ethnology:- is the comparative study of contemporary cultures and societies,
wherever they may been found.
 It examines, interprets, analyzes, and compares the results of ethnographic data
gathered in different societies

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 Conti...
Ethnography Ethnology
Requires field work to Uses data collected by a
collect data series of researchers

Often descriptive Usually synthesizes

ethnographic data
Group/community Comparative/cross-
specific cultural

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 Social anthropology has been sub-divided into many other
specialized fields as: Anthropology of Art, Medical
Anthropology, Urban Anthropology, Economic Anthropology,
Political Anthropology, Development Anthropology,
Anthropology of Religion, Demographic Anthropology,
Ecological Anthropology, Psychological Anthropology,
Ethnomusicology, etc.
 All of them are considered to be the applied areas of

anthropology

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 Unique Features of Anthropology

 Anthropology is unique in its scope, approach, focus

and method of study.
 Anthropology has a broad scope.
 It is interested in all human beings, whether
contemporary or past, ''primitive'' or '' civilized''.
 It is interested in many different aspects of humans,
including their phenotypic characteristics, family lives,
marriages, political systems, economic lives,
technology, belief systems, health care systems,
personality types, and languages.

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 Its approach
 In its approach anthropology is holistic,
relativistic, and Comparative.
Holistic, in a sense, means that it looks any
phenomena from different vantage points.
-Studying one aspect of the ways of life of a
group of people by relating it to other
complex related aspects of life.
Anthropology seeks to understand human
beings as whole organisms that adapt to
their environments through a complex
interaction of biology and culture.

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Relativistic
Anthropology tries to study and explain a certain belief,
practice or institution or a group of people in its own context.
It does not make value judgment, i.e., it does not hold the
position that a given belief or practice is good‘ or bad‘.
Comparative
Anthropology's comparative perspective helps to understand
differences and similarities among human beings across
time and place.
-Studies certain aspects of the culture of a group of people by
comparing it across societies and different times; the present with
the past, the modern with the traditional, etc.
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 Focused one /Emphasis on Insiders' View
it considers insiders' views as a primary focus
of any anthropological inquiry.
 Anthropological studies give attention to how
people perceive themselves and understand
their world; how a particular group of people
explain about their action, or give meaning to
their behaviour or cultural practices.
This is what anthropologists call an emic
perspective.

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 Its Research Approach/method of research

 Anthropology is highly dependent on qualitative research to

understand the meaning behind any human activity.
Qualitative research methods such as Extended fieldwork,
participant observation, in-depth and key informant interviews
and focus-group discussion are qualitative research
instruments to explore change and continuities in human
societies.
Ethnographic fieldwork is an important strategy which normally
requires spending a year or more with research subjects and
document realities occurring across time.

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Focusing more on the local than the big social
processes has been another exclusive approach in the
discipline.
 Paying great attention to local or micro-social
processes certainly helps us to better
understand big changes in societies.
 A detailed account of an event or a

phenomenon discovers multiple realities in a

community

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 Misconceptions about Anthropology
 Differentmisconceptions are held about anthropology.
1.Related to the area of its study.
It is said that anthropology is limited to the study of
"primitive" societies. Indeed, most of the works done by
anthropologists during early periods focused on isolated,
so called "primitive", small scale societies. However,
anthropologists nowadays study most advanced and
most complex societies as well.
 Anthropologists only study the rural people and rural
areas.

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2. It is also wrongly misconceived that anthropology is the
study/analysis of fossil evidences of the proto-humans like that of
Lucy/Dinkinesh.
 It is true that anthropology is interested in the question of the
origin of modern human beings.
However, this does not mean that anthropology is all about the
study of human evolution. It studies both the biological and the
cultural aspects of humans and examines the existing human
physical and biological variations and cultural diversity

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As a matter of fact, most of the studies conducted during the
formative years (when it was undergoing a process of development
to be become a separate fields of study) of the discipline focused
on rural areas.
 But now, anthropologists are also interested in the study of urban
people and urban areas.
 There is a distinct sub discipline devoted to the study of urban
societies called-Urban Anthropology-which focuses on urban areas
and complex cities

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 Conti...
 Itis also misconceived that the purpose of anthropology
is to study and preserve communities far from
development and obsolete cultural practices in
museums.
Rather, anthropologists‘ duties are to support those
communities' capacity to empower themselves in development
processes.
They assist peoples' initiatives instead of imposed policies and
ideas coming from outside and play active roles in bringing
about positive change and development in their own lives.

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The Relationship between Anthropology and Other Disciplines
 Anthropology is similar with other social sciences such as
sociology, psychology, political sciences, economics, history,
etc. Anthropology greatly overlaps with these disciplines that
study human society.
 However, anthropology differs from other social sciences and

the humanities by its broad scope, unique approach,

perspective, unit of analysis and methods used.
 In its scope, anthropology studies humankind in its entirety.
 In its approach, anthropology studies and analyzes human

ways of life holistically, comparatively and in a relativistic

manner.

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 In its perspective, anthropology approaches
and locates dimensions of people‘s
individual and communal lived experiences,
their thoughts and their feelings in terms of
how these dimensions are interconnected
and interrelated to one another, yet not
necessarily constrained or very orderly,
whole.
 The perspective is empirical, naturalistic and

ideographic [particularising] than

nomothetic [universalising] one

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In its method of research, it is unique in
that it undertakes extended fieldwork
among the study community and
develops intimate knowledge of the life
and social worlds of its study
group/society through employing those
ethnographic data collection techniques
such as participant observation, key
informant interview and focus group
discussions

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 Contributions of Anthropology
 The philosophical underpinning is that since we are human beings,

we have to know our civilization.

 Anthropology has established for itself the task of examining all

aspects of humanity for all periods of time and for all parts of the
globe. Because of the enormity of this task, anthropologists must
draw on theories and data from a number of other disciplines in the
humanities, the social sciences, and the physical sciences.
 Accordingly, its contributions are immense. By studying anthropology,

we get the following benefits, among others

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 Anthropological perspective, should lead us to the
conclusion that our culture is just one way of life
among many found in the world, and that it
represents one way (among many possible ways) to
adapt to a particular set of environmental
conditions.
o Through the process of contrasting and comparing,
we gain a fuller understanding of other cultures and
our own.
o helps us better understand ourselves or our own
ways of life. As a mirror of human life, by studying
others, we can better understand ourselves.

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 Anthropology gives us an insight into different
ways and modes of life of human society (social
and cultural diversity
o Knowledge about the rest of the world is
particularly important today because the world
has become increasingly interconnected.
o Through its distinctive methodology of long-term,
intensive, participant-observation research,
cultural anthropology offers a unique perspective
on how local cultural groups are engaging with
the processes of globalization

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 Because of its Relativistic approach, anthropology
helps us to be more sensitive to and appreciative of
cultural diversity and variability.
o It helps us to avoid some of the misunderstandings
that commonly arise when individuals of different
cultural traditions come into contact.
o Anthropology helps us fight against prejudice and
discriminations.
o It helps us fight against ethnocentrism:
 the belief that one's own culture and one's
own way of life is superior to others‘ cultural,
social and material lives. This arises from
ignorance about other ethnic groups and their
ways of lives.

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 in its Applied perspective, is also used as a tool for development.
o Paying attention to local conditions is crucial to solve community problems.
o Anthropologists are better equipped with the knowledge, skills and methods of
identifying the needs and interests of local people for the betterment and change
of their lived experiences.
o It recognizes the advantages of consulting local people to design a culturally
appropriate and socially sensitive change, and protect local people from harmful
policies and projects that threaten them.
o In general, anthropology is able to suggest sound solutions to all things human. For
example, it is often applied in areas of Environmental Change, Health and
Nutrition, Globalization, Social Justice and Human Rights, cultural resource
management (CRM) and Cultural Dimensions of Civil and Religious Conflicts.

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THE END

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