James George Frazer: The Symbol of the Sacred King
Another renowned and classic English anthropologist, James George Frazer (1854–1941), who shared the evolutionary approach (he also traced the genetic series and stages of evolution along the line “magic-religion-science”), is of interest, above all, because of the enormous amount of material concerning the magical and religious ideas of archaic societies his work offers, the methodological analysis of which is presented in his famous book The Golden Bough.208 In it, Frazer studies a number of archaic rites connected with the “Year-King” or “Forest-King,” drawing material for his analysis from different cultures of the world’s ethnoses.
Fraser elaborates on the figure of the “sacred king,” whose functions had no political dimension but were connected only with the performance of certain rituals (for instance, rainmaking) in European antiquity (Romans, Greeks, Germans), as well as among the archaic narods of today, in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific Ocean region. A number of rites, myths, symbols and social institutions that play an important role in ancient societies are built up around the institution of “sacred kingship.”
Fraser studied the link between ritual and magical beliefs and convincingly solved a number of riddles from the realm of folklore, which had previously brought anthropologists to a dead-end.
Fraser’s book The Golden Bough appears in Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now, in which, on the basis of material from the Vietnam War, the pivotal theme in Fraser’s book is illustrated — the “king of the German forest.”
Also of great importance are Fraser’s studies of the archaic layers of the Bible, which he worked out and systematized in his book Folklore in the Old Testament.209
Bronisław Malinowski: Functionalism and Social Anthropology
A turn in English anthropology occurred together with the influence of the Polish emigrant Bronisław Malinowski (1884–1942), who radically changed the field in England, similar to the way Franz Boas abruptly changed the development of American Anthropology. It is customary to call Malinowski’s school “Social Anthropology,” but in its own fundamental parameters it is practically identical with the German Ethnosociology of Thurnwald and Mühlmann, and the Cultural Anthropology of Boas and his students.
Malinowski rejected Evolutionism and Orthogenesis, insisted on the priority of field studies (he introduced the concept of “participant observation”), denied the racial or genetic factor as a meaningful form of social explanation, refused to hierarchize society on an evolutionary or racial basis — he came forward, practically analogously, with the scientific program of Thurnwald and Boas.
Malinowski’s field studies are devoted primarily to the Pacific Ocean region and Melanesia and remain to this day the most authoritative studies of the archaic societies of that part of the Earth.210 , 211
Malinowski called his method “Functionalism.” Malinowski essentially proposed to explain any cultural and social phenomenon (rite, symbol, custom, institution, etc.) through its function, which must be considered first and foremost, in contrast to the form, name, origin, etc. Function comprises the semantics of culture, Malinowski asserted.212
The plurality of societies, languages, symbols, and cultural complexes should not, according to Malinowski, be understood as different stages of evolution (contrary to what the evolutionists claimed), nor as the interweaving routes of dissemination of “cultural circles” (contrary to the Diffusionists). We owe this manifest to the fact that in different situations, different societies will respond differently to the same challenges. If we re-establish the structure of the challenge and the structure of the response (the function), then we will substantially reduce the volume of disconnected ethnographic material and understand the logic of researched societies. Malinowski applied this principle to the study of the religious worldviews of primitive narods, and also to the area of kinship. In the sphere of the studies of sexual life and the organization of the system of kinship among the tribes of the Pacific Ocean region (in particular, the inhabitants of the Trobriand Islands), Malinowski applied some of Freud’s ideas, thereby introducing Psychoanalysis into Social Anthropology.
Malinowski thought that the task of anthropology was to save the diversity of human cultures from Westernization and disappearance under the conditions of the planetary domination of the West. The processes of acculturation swiftly destroy the independence of archaic narods and thereby rob humanity, depriving it of linguistic, ethnic, and cultural riches. An anthropologist should, at least, preserve the memory of this diversity, and, at most, draw attention to the worth and uniqueness of each ethnic society, stopping the process of their destruction.
Alfred Radcliffe-Brown: Social Structures
Along with Malinowski, the English scholar Alfred Radcliffe-Brown (1881–1955) made a tremendous contribution to the establishment of Social Anthropology. He collected ethnographic material from the Andaman Islands and in African societies, later setting out the material he gathered in his expeditions in such classic works as The Andaman Islanders, African Systems of Kinship and Marriage, and others.213 , 214
Like Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown rejected Evolutionism and emphasized the study of social functions. Durkheim’s ideas exerted a sizeable influence on him, and he proposed as the main task the application of the strict criteria of the sociological method to the study of ethnoses and archaic societies. At the same time, he also considered structural comparison, the comparative method, the basic operation that allows one to systematize the chaotic data about primitive societies. Radcliffe-Brown bound Ethnography and Sociology tightly together into a single scientific discipline, Ethnosociology (although he himself did not use this term).
According to Radcliffe-Brown, social relations, the totality of which comprise the social structure, must be placed at the center of attention.215 The concept of “social structure” is crucial for Social Anthropology as a whole. A social structure is a theoretical construct, based on the study, observation, description, and analysis of social relations, which are (or represent) the reality of a society. Each society has a unique social structure, which is amenable to internal change, but which preserves at each stage certain immutable features. Social Anthropology is tasked with tracing the changes of the social structure of a society, registering the influence of one social structure on another, and working out different classifications of social structures on the basis of the comparative method.216
Meyer Fortes: The Sociology of African Tribes
The English anthropologist Meyer Fortes (1906–1983), born in South Africa, was a consistent functionalist and continued the work of Bronisław Malinowski. He developed standard structural models of the classification of African societies, accepted in contemporary Ethnology, in a series of classical works devoted to the ethnosociology of Africa.217 The most famous of these is Oedipus and Job in West African Religion.218
Fortes paid special attention to the problem of the sociology of time in archaic ethnoses. His reconstructions of the temporal patterns of archaic narods became classics in Ethnosociology. The studies devoted to this problem were published in the work Time and Social Structure.219
Like all other social anthropologists, Fortes was convinced that impersonal, super-individual paradigms dominate in the structure of society, predetermining the behavior of the separate members and constantly being reproduced — including through the model of “time closed in on itself.”
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard: The Translation of Cultures
Another well-known British social anthropologist, E. E. Evans Pritchard (1902–1973), collaborated closely with Fortes in his African studies. Together they released the classic work African Political Systems.220 Evans-Pritchard devotes a whole series of works to African ethnoses, in which he demonstrated the effectiveness of a functionalist and structuralist approach.221 He also gave much attention to Ethno-ecology. Evans-Pritchard reconstructed the basic social and political forms of archaic societies, ha
ving built orderly and lucid conceptions and classifications of types using the comparative method from disparate data, seemingly exotic to Europeans.222 He conducted similar work in explaining the archaic structure of African religions.223
Evans-Pritchard cast doubts on whether or not Social Anthropology belonged to the domain of the natural sciences, proposing instead, to refer it to the historical, humanitarian sciences or to that which the German philosopher Dilthey, following Schleiermacher, called the “spiritual sciences” (Geisteswissenschaften). Evans-Pritchard also pointed to the fact that the theory of the origin of religion and its interpretation among archaic societies depends to a significant extent on whether the researcher himself is a believer. If he is an atheist, he is inclined to interpret religion psychologically, pragmatically, or sociologically. If he is a believer, he will pay greater attention to the philosophical side and to the forms of comprehending the world and man in archaic religious traditions. Moreover, Evans-Pritchard emphasized (in the spirit of Boas), that the culture of the anthropologist himself can distort entirely the description of the culture he is studying, ascribing to people and groups motivations, impulses, and meanings that have nothing in common with reality.
In his last years, Evans-Pritchard retreated somewhat from the classical Functionalism of Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown and focused his attention on the problem of the “translation of cultures,” reconsidering the generally negative attitude of this school towards Diffusionism. The conception of the “translation of cultures” can be considered a softened and contemporary form of the “theory of cultural circles.”
Max Gluckman: Social Dynamics
The famous British anthropologist Max Gluckman (1911–1975), born, like Fortes, in South Africa, labored in the same spirit as Fortes and Evans-Pritchard and was a key figure in the Manchester school of Social Anthropology. While Fortes laid the foundations of this school, Gluckman further developed his theories, giving them order and a sense of finality.
Gluckman specialized in the ethnoses of Africa, accenting in his studies their legal traditions, the connection of their customs and laws, and the legal significance of their rites and rituals. He studies these themes in his works Custom and Conflict in Africa, Order and Rebellion in Tribal Africa, Politics, Law, and Ritual in Tribal Society, and others.224 , 225 , 226 Gluckman’s main tendency in the theoretical domain was the improvement of Functionalism and Structuralism, which are characteristic of Social Anthropology on the whole, from the perspective of a more meticulous description of the dynamic component and the construction of models of social dynamics.
Edmund Leach: Gumsa/Gumlao
Edmund Leach (1910–1989) was an outstanding British anthropologist, who was formed under the influence of the ideas of Malinowski, but later decided to reconsider the basic points of Functionalism.
Leach predominantly studied the archaic ethnoses of Burma, Sri Lanka, and Ceylon, examining their legal and political systems, and also their social stratification.227 Based on the example of the populations of two villages he studied, Leach formulated a critique of the functionalist theory that all societies tend towards equality. Instead, Leach showed examples of social systems that are constantly found in “unstable equilibrium” with a continuous oscillation of social patterns. This theory received the name “the model of gumsa/gumlao.”228
Two groups of the archaic Kachin ethnos, dwelling in the Burmese countryside, located not far from one another, had two social models of political organization with vividly expressed traits. The system of the gumsa was strictly hierarchical and patriarchal, with caste features and a specific language for the aristocracy. The system of the gumlao, on the other hand, was radically egalitarian, without any hint of social stratification. In studying their relations, Leach showed that these systems are found in a constant dynamic, provoked in both cases by different reasons: the “feudal” system of the gumsa was constantly subject to attacks by crushing elements, which tried to broaden their power and slacken the social harmony, while the egalitarian system of the gumlao suffered crisis after crisis owing to its chaotic and disordered organization. According to Leach’s conclusion, neither system is immobile nor in equilibrium, but both are constantly modified, right up to the likely change of the social matrix into the directly opposite one, under the impact of inner and historical causes.
This conception proposes the “reversibility” of social phenomena and, in this sense, is fully included in an accurate ethnosociological approach.
On the other hand, in the course of his critical reconsideration of functionalism, Leach suggests transferring attention to the individual and his actions within the ethnos, which, according to Leach, are the reasons for the social dynamic.229 This point radically contradicts Durkheimian Sociology, Cultural and Social Anthropology, and Ethnosociology and very likely represents the projection of Western individualism onto archaic societies. In this last and most contentious of Leach’s conclusions one can see a preparation for the instrumentalist approach in Ethnosociology — applied in an incorrect situation.
Leach’s concepts anticipate postmodern theory; in particular, the “sociology of nets” and the “theory of the rational choice of the little actor” (the individual) in the analysis of the structure of social behavior.
Leach is also well known as a critic of the theory of Claude Lévi-Strauss and for his alternative theory of kinship.230
Ernst Gellner: From Agraria to Industria
The works of the philosopher Ernst Gellner (1925–1995), who, in the course of his studies, combined the methods of Anthropology, Sociology, and Philosophy, and came to conclusions that are exceedingly important for the entire structure of ethnosociological knowledge are especially worthy of attention.
Gellner engaged in field studies in North Africa and specialized in Islamic society.231 At Cambridge he was the head of the department of Anthropology, and at the London School of Economics, the head of the Philosophy department.
Gellner was the author of the philosophical work Words and Things, in which he subjected to harsh criticism Ludwig Wittgenstein’s idea that “meaning” arises from the “language games” of the society to which the discourse belongs.232 , 233 In his book Plough, Sword, and Book: The Structure of Human History, he describes his vision of the historical process, in which three social forms are isolated: societies of hunters and gatherers, agrarian societies (Agraria), and industrial societies (Industria).234 To each type of society there corresponds its own sociological paradigm, its own type of culture, a collection of meanings and values, its own motivations and anthropological attitudes, etc. Gellner isolates three basic criteria: cognition, coercion, and production. They are directly connected to one another by diverse relations and comprise a unified matrix, all the parameters of which change from society to society.
The specific character of Gellner’s approach consists of the fact that he emphasizes the discontinuity between these societies, which allows him to consider them as strictly separate sociological concepts. Moreover, Gellner is especially interested in the phase transition from “Agraria” to “Industria,” as he calls the ideal models of the societies distinguished by him.
Gellner’s view of history is not evolutionary, but does not share the relativism of the functionalist approach of Social and Cultural Anthropology. He attributes to the era of the Enlightenment and its science the status of a “universal” methodology, capable of distinctly and objectively reflecting that which other types of society apprehend subjectively and hence with prejudice. The style of Gellner’s books is ideological and aggressive, but extremely clear. Gellner was a firm opponent of the USSR and finished his days as a professor at the Central-European University, founded by the well-known American speculator George Soros.
Gellner is rightfully considered the founder of the constructivist approach in ethnosociology and an indisputable authority in the area of the study of nationalism. His major work devoted to the problem of nationalism, Nations and Nationalism, is a
classic.235
Gellner’s main idea is that the phenomenon of the “nation” is a byproduct of industrial society and was artificially created by the bourgeois for the regulation of politico-social structures under a parliamentary democracy after the destruction of feudal and monarchic class-based regimes (with the peasantry dominant in the sphere of the economy). The concept of the “nation,” Gellner shows, arose in the Modern Era under the circumstances of the rapid development of industrial production, the strengthening of the role of cities, the spread of modern scientific ideas, the secularization of the population, and the transition to rationality, characteristic of industrial society.236 Under the conditions of industrial society, a new model of Social and Political Anthropology formed, based on individual (and not class) identity. This individual identity gradually enveloped more and more layers of society and became the political norm of democracy. At the same time, the mechanisms of class rule fell apart and society began to atomize.
In order to restrain the burgeoning chaos, preserve order, and mobilize the atomized population, the bourgeoisie invented a political instrument, the nation and nation-state, which restrained civil society from dispersion and acted as a surrogate of collective identity, this time artificial and politically imposed. Gellner considers “nationalism,” which, in his opinion, is a neutral phenomenon, serving the bourgeoisie in historical conditions for the consolidation of a new form of political power and the execution of necessary reforms of the economy, social interaction, and mass consciousness to be the method of the nation’s consolidation.
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