Social Anthropology Of Africa Assingment. Group 3

SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF AFRICA ASSIGNMENT.

BACS22515  ODURO MICHAEL YAW DENSU


1. With authorities, define anthropology and discuss the sub fields of anthropology.

·         Anthropology is a holistic discipline. It has several sub-disciplines.

 It studies the entire human conditions such as the past, present and the future; such as man’s biology, language, society, culture and the like. The word anthropology itself tells the basic story. From the Greek anthropos (“human”) and logia (“study”), it is the study of humankind, from its beginnings millions of years ago to the present day.

·         These include the following:

                            - Physical Anthropology

                            - Cultural Anthropology

                            - Ethnomusicological Anthropology

                            - Archaeological Anthropology

                            - Linguistic Anthropology

Physical Anthropology

·         This branch of anthropology is known in the United Kingdom as Human Biology. It studies racial differences  as well as humans as biological organisms.

Its description as physical anthropology is informed by the curiosity that characterized the evolution of the mother discipline in terms of the different humans encountered on the planet earth especially different from the Europeans. These non-Europeans were encountered by explorers, missionaries, fortune hunters, traders and colonialists.   The possibility of coming into contact with non-Europeans was as a result of scientific revolution. The European scholars were struck by the stuck differences between them and the non-Europeans and decided to discover the reasons for the dissimilarities between them.  This led to the exercise which became an academic enterprise and named physical of biological anthropology.

·         Winnick (1964:29) defines physical anthropology as the study of human biology, racial differences, the development of the human organism, changes in the body over the generations, and the relation between ecology and the organism. The definition shows that this sub-discipline of anthropology is about exploring the physical differences between/among human races.

Cultural Anthropology

·         To Kottak (2000:11) cultural anthropology is the study of human society and culture, it describes, analyzes, interprets and explains social and cultural similarities and differences.

Cultural anthropologists study humans through a descriptive lens called the ethnographic method, based on participant observation in tandem with face-to-face interviews, normally conducted in the native tongue. Ethnographers compare what they see and hear themselves with the observations and findings of studies conducted in other societies. Originally, anthropologists pieced together a complete way of life for a culture, viewed as a whole. Today, the more likely focus is on a narrower aspect of cultural life, such as economics, politics, religion, or art. Cultural anthropologists seek to understand the internal logic of another society. It helps outsiders make sense of behaviors that, like face painting or scarification, may seem bizarre or senseless. Through the comparative method, an anthropologist learns to avoid “ethnocentrism,” the tendency to interpret strange customs on the basis of preconceptions derived from one’s own cultural background. Moreover, this same process helps us see our own society—the color “red” again—through fresh eyes.

·         In a broader sense, cultural anthropology embraces prehistoric archaeology or prehistory, ethnography and ethnology, and even social anthropology, ethnomusicology and the study of primitive art.

Ethnomusicological Anthropology

·         Stated broadly, ethnomusicology may be described as a holistic investigation of music in its cultural contexts. Combining aspects of folklore, psychology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, comparative musicology, music theory, and history, ethnomusicology has adopted perspectives from a multitude of disciplines. This disciplinary variety has given rise to many definitions of the field, and attitudes and foci of ethnomusicologists have evolved since initial studies in the area of comparative musicology in the early 1900s. When the field first came into existence, it was largely limited to the study of non-Western music—in contrast to the study of Western art music, which had been the focus of conventional musicology. In fact, the field was referred to early in its existence as “comparative musicology,” defining Western musical traditions as the standard to which all other musics were compared, though this term fell out of use in the 1950s as critics for the practices associated with it became more vocal about ethnomusicology’s distinction from musicology. Over time, the definition broadened to include study of all the musics of the world according to certain approaches.

·         This branch of anthropology studies music in its different forms and how these musical forms relate to the various cultures all over the world.  An analysis of a particular music and its form may enable its analyst relate it to a particular group(s) of people. Music varies widely and every society has its own musical style and form. Each society makes meaning out of its own music. For example, kete is associated with the Akan, agbadza with the Ewe and kpalongo with the Ga. The study of music has historical undertones enabling anthropologists delve into the past of preliterate societies. 

Archeological Anthropology

·         Also known as archaeology, it concerns itself with the historical reconstruction of cultures no longer in existence.  It studies material remains, usually from the past, to describe and explain human behavior. It uses the interpretation of artifacts to construct a holistic picture of man’s prehistory when no written records exists.  Examples of the past of the early people studied by the discipline include how a people lived, their religious belief system, their level of technology as expressed in their artifacts such as tools they used in their everyday life etc.

·         Archaeological Anthropology traces the origin, growth and development of culture in the past. By past is meant the period before history when man had not acquired efficiencies of written language in order to record the story of his life. The archaeologist try to reconstruct the events of man's past dating back to millions of years ago. Archaeology tells us about the technology used in the past by analyzing the tools people have left behind. On this basis it can shed light on the economic activities of the people. The engravings on the pottery, jewelry etc reveal the artistic capacities of the people. Certain aspects of religious beliefs can also be guessed by observing burial sites and the articles kept there. The Archaeological Anthropology makes an attempt to understand the geological processes particularly the climatic phases that have left evidences in earth's surface. The archaeological evidences are found in abundance mainly in river terraces. The chief methods of archaeologists are excavation to discover artifacts dating to assign an approximate time period and to build the cultural history of

man's past based on that.

·         Fortunately, the human record is written not only in alphabets and books, but is preserved in other kinds of material remains—in cave paintings, pictographs, discarded stone tools, earthenware vessels, religious figurines, abandoned baskets—which is to say, in tattered shreds and patches of ancient societies. Archaeologists interpret this often fragmentary but fascinating record to reassemble long-ago cultures and forgotten ways of life. Archaeologists, apart from interpreting materials they unearth from sites they excavate, also find out from the artifacts changes experienced by the various socio-cultural systems. The archaeologist, therefore, deals with the era of prehistoric people.

Linguistic Anthropology

·         This branch of anthropology is considered as a constituent of cultural anthropology.  Linguistics is defined by Winick (1964:324) as the “comparative study of the structure, nature, interrelationships, history and development of languages.  Linguistics is also referred to as glottology (the science of tongues or languages). For Kottak (2002:16), the discipline studies language in its social and cultural context across space and over time.

·         Kottak indicates three objectives of linguistic anthropology. Firstly, he says the subject makes inferences about universal features of language, linked perhaps to uniformities in the human brain. Second, the discipline helps in reconstructing ancient languages by comparing their contemporary descendants and in so doing make discoveries about history. Thirdly, through the study of linguistic differences, varied perceptions and patterns of thought in different cultures are discovered. The study of linguistic anthropology enables scholars discover which group of people have similar characteristics in their brain. This helps in facilitating the classification of languages into families as well as demarcating similar language or cultural areas. There is, therefore, that relationship between language and culture.

·         One aspect of culture holds a special fascination for most anthropologists: language, hallmark of the human species. The organization of systems of sound into language has enabled Homo sapiens to transcend the limits of individual memory. Speech is the most efficient medium of communication since DNA for transmitting information across generations. It is upon language that culture itself depends—and within language that humanity’s knowledge resides. Linguistic anthropologists, representing one of the discipline’s traditional branches, look at the history, evolution, and internal structure of human languages. They study prehistoric links between different societies, and explore the use and meaning of verbal concepts with which humans communicate and reason. Linguistic anthropologists seek to explain the very nature of language itself, including hidden connections among language, brain, and behavior. Language is the hallmark of our species. It is upon language that human culture itself depends.


2. Is there a relationship between anthropology and communication studies?

Anthropology is the study of everything human, from culture, to language, to past records and even the future. As human beings everything we do is done through communication, so I do believe there is a relationship between anthropology and communication studies.

•     We learn clear, precise record-keeping skills and have to be attentive to detail.  You have to observe what people say (and what they don't say), what they do (and what they don't do), what their bones or bodies tell you.  

•    Anthropologists also learn analytical reading and critical thinking skills: how to read between the lines of a text, to question an author's or speaker's biases and the cultural context in which their ideas were formed.  Thinking critically means questioning one's own biases in addition to those of others.  

•     We also learn how to deal with unfamiliar social situations - we learn new languages and new rules for communication with people from all over the world, and we do this through participation in addition to observation so that we can understand where someone else is coming from.  

Anthropology gives students the tools to navigate the complex, multicultural, and changing realities of the world around them. Students can use ethnography to engage and observe the human relationships in which they are involved.  Above all, students taking a cultural anthropology course can learn to appreciate cultural diversity and