is anthropology a social science

is anthropology a social science

The Role of Anthropology as a Social Science

1. Introduction to Anthropology and Social Sciences

Two reasons for the absence of discussion between anthropology and allied subjects tended to ignore culture, which, to them, was perhaps too vague and elusive to secure their sustained interest. This, in an appreciation of the subject matter of anthropology, was the fusion of other social sciences were openly legislative as an approach to the study of culture. Many problems non-anthropologists who attended to theoretical orientations of other social scientists, to the exclusion of their own. That is, they did not rely entirely on a set of generalizations accepted by all anthropologists to stimulate a new theoretical analysis of old sets of facts. Compared to other social sciences, anthropology could appear both as abstract and entirely formal. Some remarkable field-workers in anthropology, when asked “what is culture,” produced replies or remarks that rather resemble the compilation of field techniques in a textbook of certain social scientists entitled “A Four Anthropology and the National Science Foundation.” Only since the late 1970s an amendment to the present introduction to anthropological research was made to proposed application. Thus, despite exasperated, such a straightforward question had caused considerable confusion. We conformed ourselves to the fundamental truths in the assignment of different obligations as the awareness of these obligations as the unity of anthropology.

Anthropology is the behavioral science that studies the cultures of the human race. It is one of the four social sciences. Anthropology makes the main contribution to social science in the area of culture and its influence on human relationships. For long, however, anthropologists distinguished themselves from other social scientists by their method of field research rather than by the fact that they studied culture. Instead, social scientists put their emphasis on human interaction, human motivation, and economic considerations in the area of culture. Although there have been frequent communications between anthropologists on the one hand, and sociologists and psychologists on the other, they were rare.

2. Key Concepts and Methods in Anthropology

Anthropology is sometimes thought of as a science that is closer to the humanities than other natural sciences because of its focus on people and societies. Students may have difficulty understanding their role as scientists, gathering data as scientists, and using scientific data to gain cognitive and applied experience. However, our focus is to address and clarify the role of anthropology as a social science. All anthropology is multifunctional in that it allows researchers to use the results of cognitive observations and cross-cultural comparisons and interpretations to explore basic science principles. At the same time, knowledge about people in different cultures can inform and facilitate practice. Cultural anthropology seeks to understand universal human phenomena in the context of the location, time, and diversity of cultural and noncultural behaviors created by a group of people.

What are the key concepts, theories, and methods that anthropologists use to understand and solve social problems? Begin by thinking. Anthropologists use keys and tools to understand the social and cultural behavior of countries around the world. One way to understand a scientific way is to identify key concepts, important theories or models that can explain districts or ideas, and the methodical steps in which one can develop ideas and social phenomena during research. Some key concepts for anthropological research are culture, material culture, non-material culture, and subculture.

3. Anthropology’s Contribution to Social Science Theories

The theories of anthropology have relevance to the historical development of anthropological knowledge and theory, the nature of the explanations, and the associated methodologies. The anthropological generalizations we develop play an inevitable role in the development of these bodies of theory. Theoretical constructs must be specific enough to be operationalized, or reduced to a null, in specific settings. This requires us to identify empirically measurable variables against which our concepts can be tested. Our ideas and concepts become both the independent and dependent variables within the multidisciplinary body of social science theory.

Most of the social sciences in the United States derive ideas about theories and methods from the field of anthropology. Anthropologists study human activities and behaviors to find out the reasons for the differences in human behavior. Most important of all, the explanation is general and applicable beyond a specific case. To test our explanations, we compare the behavior of persons within different settings, since customs and values often differ from setting to setting. Similarly, we also compare societies and communities. This process of comparison prompts us to formulate, and we believe, test for appropriate generalizations concerning human relationships in the areas of concern, including the family, within education, communities, occupations, law, economics, and politics. Thus, anthropological concepts and insights contribute significantly to the theory building of the social sciences.

4. Case Studies and Applications of Anthropological Research in Social Sciences

Being a social science, what is anthropology? According to the functionalist, anthropology is a social science that studies the different structures of primitive societies in addition to how these societies solve social problems such as the control over envying and selfish tendencies in human nature. Abel Hoffman says a society can be compared to a complex mechanism that consists of independent parts and the main task of the anthropologist is to analyze the function of these parts including how they relate to each other. Due to the above, the anthropologist collects much data on primitive societies to attain knowledge of their past, present, and future social problems for application in a social science reconstruction of future society.

A. The universality of the definition of religion in social science research with emphasis on the case of totemism. Being a social science, what is anthropology? The case of the social division of labor. The class structure of an advanced society. The structure of the landlord class, capitalists, and the bourgeoisie. The place of the bourgeoisie. The epitome of class structure in an advanced society. The role of anthropology as a social science. The universality of the definition of religion in social science research with emphasis on the case of totemism.

5. Conclusion: The Future of Anthropology as a Social Science

The academic roots of anthropology are, in modern Western countries, found in the unfamiliar and the far away and in the domain of non-literate societies. Ethnography was not only the key method of gathering data, it was also seen as providing the central and defining category of anthropological knowledge. As changes in the way the research was done, and in the focus of research, began to take place a number of anthropologists began to voice the concern that other scholars were undertaking anthropology’s defining method and its classic intellectual concerns. However, as in the process anthropology was finding its data in novel questions and in the contemporary world, many of its defining questions were also changed in the process. The future of anthropology, as a coherent social science discipline, might therefore lie in cultivating further this cross-disciplinary function.

This chapter weaves together the methods, both qualitative and quantitative, and theoretical concerns of the social sciences to show the utility of anthropology among other social science disciplines. By exploring the four main mechanisms used in anthropology to help derive a better understanding of the human condition, the final section argues the importance of expanding this form of cross-disciplinary practice to help solve the pressing social and environmental issues of our time.