Scientific Anthropology: A Comprehensive Overview
Diversity in Scientific Anthropology
Introduction
In the eighteenth century, various attempts were made to establish a more scientific approach to anthropology. Since the late eighteenth century, anthropology has become a field of scientific work with a positive methodology. Scientific anthropology has been referred to by various names, including biological, social, and cultural anthropology, which has led to confusion and the development of a general anthropology of man. The study of anthropology is organized around two main branches: physical and cultural.
A) Physical and Biological Anthropology
Basics
Early works in physical anthropology (18th and 19th centuries) studied different human races through their bodies (the first method was craniometry). The discovery of skeletons of prehistoric men led anthropologists to reconstruct the natural history of humanity. The study of man in his biological aspect became a concern, and the study was extended to zoology, soon giving rise to paleoanthropology. Research on the inheritance of racial characteristics was then introduced into biological anthropology. Darwin’s theory of evolution and Mendel’s laws of genetics were the most decisive factors in the development of biological anthropology.
Ethology
Within philosophical anthropology, ethology has focused on the study of the convergences and differences between animal and human behavior. Such a study would lead to a basic differential anthropology.
Key Points:
- From a theoretical perspective, in animals, we can study the natural behavior of men without culture.
- Practice: It is believed that a good understanding of animal behavior could help develop better ways of human coexistence. Basic anthropology maintains that the natural foundations of man are the basis of social organization.
Conclusions: The standards of animal life are not so different from those of humans.
Sociobiology
Sociobiology is defined as the study of the biological basis of all social behavior (both in animals and humans). Hence, it investigates the same themes: aggression, sexuality, social hierarchies, etc. However, sociobiology proposes to construct a synthesis of the human sciences, bridging the gap between biology and sociology. Thus, there are differences:
- Ethologists seek the roots of behavior in hormonal, neurological, and genetic explanations, while sociobiologists focus on the individual.
- Ethologists start from the evolution of the group, compared to the individual in sociobiology.
- While ethology focuses on investigating the behavior patterns of each species, sociobiology aims to achieve a new anthropological synthesis.
In the end, both arise to discover the genetic basis of social behavior.
B) Cultural Anthropology (CA)
CA studies the development and emergence of culture and cultures in human groups. Its study focuses on the peculiarities of a way of living and interacting. Scientific CA emerged in the mid-nineteenth century and has produced extensive literature on different cultures.
Different Schools within CA
Evolutionist (Morgan, Tylor, and Frazer)
This is the first school in BC, as theories emerged in 1830 that attempted to explain emerging socio-cultural phenomena and a general theory of humanity, unrelated to religious constraints. For Tylor, human culture is the product of natural evolution, subject to laws governing the mental faculties of the human animal in its social status. The main features of this school are naturalism, anti-creationism, natural selection, and the evolution from the simple to the complex.
Morgan identified three stages that all cultures must go through to reach the perfection of European societies:
- Savagery: Two phases: lower (fishing and mastery of fire) and upper (domain of weapons).
- Barbarism: Three levels: lower (domain of pottery and domestication), medium (conquest of agriculture), and higher (use of iron).
- Civilization: Stage for people who developed the phonetic alphabet and possess literary records.
Engels contributed to the dissemination of Morgan’s work but soon criticized evolutionary theory.
Relativist (Franz Boas)
This school opposes the evolutionary approach through meticulous research and empirical relativism. As evidence, Boas points out that each culture has its own stages of evolution, which need not coincide with each other. This cultural relativism provides two ways of studying a culture: a vision that the culture has of itself (subjective and often false) and the view that one culture has of another (more objective and realistic in most cases).
In this way, the social and behavioral sciences use the emic and etic distinction to refer to two different descriptions. The first, emic, is a description in terms meaningful to the agent who performs them (as explained by members of that society and the reasons for this custom). The second, etic, is a description of observable facts without any attempt by the observer to discover the meaning that the agents involved give it.
Distribution
Diffusionism also opposes evolutionism. It focuses on the similarity of objects belonging to different cultures and the dissemination of these objects between them. In short, diffusionism emphasizes cultural contact and exchange and includes cultural progress as a result of the exchange.
Functionalist
Functionalism is not so interested in the historical development of cultures but in the relationship between the elements of a culture. The functionalist approach focuses on synchronic and a-historical analysis and stresses the integrated concept of society with a tendency to think of it as a complex closed system, leaving aside the interest in the origin of culture that characterized previous schools.
Neo-evolutionist
This school represents a return to the study of the historical stages of cultures, with the aim of finding a basic law of evolution. Neo-evolutionists have spent half a century trying to explain the evolution of techniques for obtaining resources.
Culture and Personality School
This school focuses on how cultures shape the personality of individuals. The behavior of individuals within a social group makes up a culture, and this, in turn, shapes the personality of individuals.
Structuralism (Lévi-Strauss)
Structuralism continues functionalism but considers the differences observed in other schools and places the structure at deeper levels to achieve an explanation of the logic of social organizations in their synchronic dimension. Structuralism, in its strong form, implied a rejection of the sense of history and an exaltation of the savage mind that leads to relativism.
New Ethnography
This school studies cultures from an intracultural approach (emic), with the same eyes, if possible, that its members see and understand them. It believes that any external view tends to distort and misinterpret a culture. Therefore, the etic approach is complemented by the emic one.
C) General Anthropology (GA)
GA is the unification of physical-biological and socio-cultural anthropology. It attempts to cover all facets of human sciences. It is a search for criteria to clarify what it means to be human, how we define ourselves. The fragmentation of knowledge into separate parcels has given the West its technical and intellectual power. The prevailing view in science is the specialist; the other option is to become a generalist. But it may not have to be a choice between specialist and generalist. Today, we consider the human being as biological, cultural, psychological, and social. Currently, it is essential to relate knowledge; relating knowledge is undoubtedly the major challenge facing education.