Anthropological foundations of human behavior: Malinowski v. Mauss

Anthropological HUMAN BEHAVIOR: Malinowski vs. Mauss

Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942)

"Anthropology is the study of man embracing a woman." Bronislaw Malinowski.



Born in Krakow. Polish origin, he studied Philosophy, Psychology and Economics. 1910, he moved to Britain and studied anthropology. Develop fieldwork in New Guinea and the Trobriand Islands between 1914 to 1916 date Ph.D. in Anthropology. Among his publications: The Indians of Mailu (1915), Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), Crime and custom in savage society (1926), Sex and repression in savage society (1927), a scientific theory of culture (1944 -posthumous) and others. He was a professor at the London School of Economics. Malinowski has a first articulation of his theoretical thinking. In the U.S., is interested in the study of early American cultures. Harvard University named him honorary doctorates. His interest in African culture, who has studied over the years is reflected in the foreword he wrote for Facing Mount Kenya (1938). At the outbreak of World War II, Malinowski took up residence in the United States. There exercised Professor of Anthropology at Yale University. In 1942, Bronislaw Malinowski died suddenly of a heart attack in New Haven, Connecticut. En1944, Valetta Swann (his second wife) posthumously published "A scientific theory of culture?, The most important theoretical work of Malinowski, and" Freedom and civilization? "The dynamics of culture change?.

In 1948, it was the set of essays collected in "Magic, science and religion?. At twenty years of his death, he edited the diaries he wrote in Polish during his two stays in the Trobriands, and appear with the title "A diary in the strict sense of the term?.

The functional theory of Bronislaw Malinowski, 1944, provides yet another model for the development of culture. According to him, development begins in early cultures of human needs aimed at ensuring basic food and shelter, sexual satisfaction and so on. Once these needs are met, other needs arise, and can also arise from the same arrangements have been made to meet the basic needs listed above. For example, cooperation was needed to obtain food, creates a need for common language and a system of mutual exchange of services. Again, these arrangements call for a system of education, administration and law. Thus, the evolution of society continuously creates needs for new arrangements and also for new products. Malinowski criticized studies of primitive law who held the primacy of harmony and a sense of group cohesion and unity as a group and not as the individuals that comprise it. He says that these principles are true only if you take the moments of social life in which the kin group (clan, Frati, half or class) participates in the game against other groups, but at other times, and within the group nearest flower rivalries and selfishness.

The perfect solidarity is, for Malinowski, a concept totally wrong.

Marcel Mauss (1872-1950)

French sociologist and anthropologist. Mauss is one of the leading theorists of French anthropology. It is also considered the main inspiration for French polls because he had done ethnographic fieldwork. This descriptive attention focused on the drafting and analysis of case studies, is heir to the concept of''total''social fact, a unique event in which a society exhibits the integrity of the institutions and their representations, such as the potlatch and the kula. Anthropologist with his work has inspired such diverse minds as the functionalist British-Firth, Radcliffe-Brown, Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard ,...-, French structuralists led by Levi-Strauss, and filósosfos as Bataille. Marcel Mauss began his academic career in 1902 as professor of primitive religion at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris. In 1925 he was one of the founders of the Institute of Ethnology at the University of Paris and was a professor at the College de France during the 1930's. Nephew of Emile Durkheim, one of the founders of modern sociology, was a great intellectual influence, helping him in L'Année Sociologique, a prestigious scientific journal, in which direction would succeed his uncle. Mauss also developed a long political life, actively participating in the defense of the accused during the famous Dreyfus case and working with the French socialist leader Jean Jaurès, whom he assisted in founding in 1904, the newspaper L'Humanité. In a brief autobiographical Marcel Mauss is located in an accurate perspective: before protoestructuralista, was a keen linguist and a meticulous historian of religions, who never tried to pull away from Durkheimian orthodoxy.

Highlighted in Maus represent the feeling of a collective mind, which highest expression was his work: Anne Sociologique, and his step slow and methodical classical sources to ethnography. Among the first highlights contributions of Mauss' Essai sur la nature et la fonction du sacrifice? (1899). His most important work is, however, "Essay sur le don? (1925), a foundational work of modern anthropology. This essay focuses primarily on forms of contract and exchange in Melanesia, Polynesia, and northwestern North America. This work has been considered one of the best examples of ethnographic research, considering specific social phenomenon and study it in its entirety. He also wrote: "Sociology and Anthropology." He also published works, Introduction to Ethnography (1947), Sociology and Anthropology (1950). He died in 1950.

INTERACTIONS AMONG HIGHLIGHTS Marcel Mauss and Malinowski

Malinowski and Mauss maintain a complex and changing relationships, and tensions, which existed between British social anthropology and ethnology Durkheimian French roots. These relationships reflect a history of denials, claims, reviews and mutual misunderstanding, however, prevent us from discerning a remarkable thematic and methodological solidarity. The constant references to the authors exchanged with each other, often critical, shows that started from a common methodological basis, for the essence of the method is its communicability. When Mauss considered constant relationship between the phenomena, where his relationship explanation, Malinowski asks what they are, in order to find a justification. The position broke the previous developments, ushering in a series of statements without scientific value. Malinowski Mauss accept criticism of his notion of pure gifts (gifts that a man does to his wife or children in payment of the relationship you have with your mother). Recognizes that previously did not consider the context and the transaction chain "the right thing would have been system-wide gifts, duties and mutual benefits exchanged by the husband on the one hand, and the wife, children and brother's wife on the other? .

This mandatory system, refusing to return a gift or, where applicable and appropriate way, it puts the individual in a situation outside the social and economic order, an outcast. Each act has a place and should be executed. Example of magic. But this rule of reciprocity, and specifically in primitive law rules, Malinowski criticized the study of primitive law who held the primacy of harmony and a sense of group cohesion, etc ... As we said before, the perfect solidarity is, for Malinowski, a concept totally wrong. Mauss, however, by applying the concept of gift, an archaic form of exchange for which there is a movement of objects together with a movement of people and rights, such movement is not maintained either by bargaining or by purchase or by economic profit, but by the triple obligation deeply imprinted on the human spirit of giving, receiving and return.

INBREEDING

Inbreeding: Rule or preference undertaken by individuals to marry only within their particular kinship group, social or other defined category (local, class, religion, etc). Eg.: Casta. Inbreeding also describes a statistical model intramatrimonio even without explicit rule to that effect. Source: Dictionary of Anthropology, Thomas Barfield. Ediciones Bellaterra.



Inbreeding: Norma restricting marriage to members of the same tribe, village, caste or other social group. Source: Dictionary of Sociology by Henry Pratt Fairchild. Economic Culture Fund.



Inbreeding: The practice imposed by marriage within the social group. Apply negative sanctions to those who marry outside the group. The unit can be an endogamous kinship group, a family ... Source: Dict. Sociology of Salvador Giner, Emilio Lamo de Espinosa and Christopher Torres.



Inbreeding: A term applied to certain customs that are practiced in some societies, for which a member of a community, tribe, clan or social unit marries another of the same social group. In some societies, members are forbidden to marry a person belonging to a different social unit.

Endogamy: Marriage Practice people of common descent and natural in a small town or region. Social attitude of opposition to the inclusion of members outside the own group or institution. Cross between individuals of a race, community or genetically isolated population. Source: Reference Library Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2004.

Endogamous practices are very common in those societies in which the organization is of a stratified, often based on caste (as among the Hindus in India), in the genealogical descent (European royalty), occupation ( in the case of the Masai of? East Africa), in the age groups (among the Australian aborigines) or economic and social (as in the case of different social classes in many countries). The most restrictive of inbreeding was practiced by certain rulers of ancient Egypt or the Inca Empire, who are expected to maintain the purity of the royal blood marrying their sisters only.

Experts disagree as to the benefits of inbreeding as a preservation of supposedly superior or aristocratic lineages. Some maintain that inbreeding favors genetic degeneration of the branch, others, however, argue that hereditary defects are introduced by the marriage outside the group who originate such deterioration. The term inbreeding may also refer to the custom of marrying within a religion or community. Compare exogamy.

The dictionary has three meanings for the term:

1. Marriage law that reduces the components of the same caste, village or other social group.

2. By extension and is also called the union between persons or bodies of the same group, whether social or biological.

3. Figure is the restricted selection of members of a body or professional category. Source: Reference Library Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2004.



Inbred societies, those in search for a partner that is socially empowered in that culture. Characteristic of agrarian societies located securely in one place. If the marriage takes place within that culture the children who may have remain in the workforce and do not go out, as in exogamous societies. Source: Rural Anthropology Professor: Dr. Gabriela Vargas Cetina.

Exogamy

Exogamy: Rule imposed marriage between individuals of different tribal and family. It is the obligation to take women out of the clan to which they belong.

Exogamy: Mating of unrelated individuals (in contrast to inbreeding).

Exogamy: A rule that forces a person to select their spouse out of the group to which it belongs.

Exogamy has three functions:

- Biological: procreation.

- Economy: the woman has an economic value in exchange.

- Symbolic-cultural: they have signed non-aggression pacts, they exchange a few gifts and have parties.

Some cultures / societies that are exogamous, meaning that there is almost a social obligation to find a partner among people outside the community. Exogamy relates gatherer societies and pastoral (nomadic societies) becomes a security alliance, annexation of territory or peace. Source: Rural Anthropology Professor: Dr. Gabriela Vargas Cetina.



Exogamy: Rule or preference in the sense that dismissal only males outside their particular social group or category, the more often his kin. Exogamy rules are a necessary feature of any system of marriage exchange or alliance. Exogamy may also describe a statistical model of foreign marriage in the absence of explicit rule to that effect. There is some controversy about the relationship of exogamy with the incest taboo. Levi-Strauss has pointed out that both are complementary expressions of the same requirements of the exchange. Others argue that both situations are unrelated, have indicated that two types are logically different: the rule of exogamy is a precept while the incest taboo is a prohibition. Also note that the categories of kinship vetoed by the taboo of incest are often more stringent than those excluded by the rules of exogamy. The incest taboo also refers to sexual relations to marriage itself. In the social exchange model examines the trade in goods, services and people to delineate relationships, particularly among groups. Marcel Mauss distinguishes between Present and exchange of financial Transactions (in many cases is not possible to separate ethnographic).

In the case of married women exchange represent a means of exchange between groups even more remarkable. Source: Dictionary of Anthropology, Thomas Barfield. Ediciones Bellaterra.

Exogamy: social or legal standard that requires the individual to marry outside the group or community to which belong. It should be understood as a regulator of relations between descent groups. Their relationship is positive because it allows social relationships with other groups. Inbreeding and outbreeding are not exogenous with respect to certain groups or categories, in Spain inbreeding remains the predominant pattern among the Roma ... Also exists in areas of urban upper classes because the social basis of inbreeding did not disappear is a useful tool for maintaining cultural identity in contact with other groups the economic assets and prevents the disintegration of rural farms. In this sense, some argue that societies dominated inequitable succession tend to be less inbred than where egalitarian inheritance prevail. Source: Dict. Sociology of Salvador Giner, Emilio Lamo de Espinosa and Christopher Torres.



Exogamy: The convention theory or practice of marrying outside the limits of certain bonds of relationship, locally defined: family, clan, race. For some tribes is inviolable rule. Source: Dictionary of Sociology by Henry Pratt Fairchild. Economic Culture Fund.

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES

As to this terminology and after a hard search we found no specific definitions in the dictionaries consulted (including the National Library in Madrid). We decided then, seeking first the terms society and then different terms relating to such companies:

Society: A group of people who have a common culture and to some extent distinguishable, occupying a land area and consider themselves as a separate entity. And that includes all the institutions required to meet basic human needs. Source: Dict. Sociology of Salvador Giner, Emilio Lamo de Espinosa and Christopher Torres.



Society: A term that refers to the totality of relationships between men and women in their various positions and roles in a given geographical area or in the heart of humanity in general.

Sociologists tend to view cultural phenomena as a product of intrasocial events, and therefore subordinates. Anthropologists, meanwhile, give primacy to a set of decisive phenomena of society are not for them but mere parts of culture. Source: Dictionary of Anthropology, Thomas Barfield. Ediciones Bellaterra.

ORIGINAL affluent societies: Anthropologists consider the life of hunter-gatherers (nomadic) of impeccable strength. Laboring from dawn to night with just mere survival time to devote to the formation of a culture, seemed to fit perfectly to the sinister image of primitive man described by Thomas Hobbes. In this situation there is no place for productive work because the fruit thereof is uncertain, unknown face of the earth, we ignore the arts there is no time .... Source: Dictionary of Anthropology, Thomas Barfield. Ediciones Bellaterra.



Primitive societies: a vague way refers to cultures that have a relatively simple technology, a relative cultural homogeneity and relative isolation of the broader cultural influences, whether or not a written language. Source: Dict. Sociology of Salvador Giner, Emilio Lamo de Espinosa and Christopher Torres.

Agrarian societies, appear at the same time that hunter-gatherer societies. Man learns to cultivate the land and preserve the fruits of it. Appear dominant groups: aristocrats, priests and soldiers. Source: Rural Anthropology Professor: Dr. Gabriela Vargas Cetina.



Agrarian societies: They are subordinate classes of state companies engaged in food production through the use of pre-industrial technologies. Farmers in all times and places are structurally lower. Source: Dalton, 1972: 406.

Most people living today are members of one day or another type of peasant classes. Marvin Harris.

The three most important types of farmers are:

a) feudal peasants under the control of a decentralized hereditary ruling class, whose members provide mutual military assistance. The feudal relations are defined as an exchange of obligations, duties, privileges, and mutual rights between master and servant.

b) Farmers State: the state is highly centralized (ancient Peru, Egypt, Mesopotamia and China). Farmers can be directly subject to state control, in addition to or in the absence of a state control, in addition to or in the absence of a control of local aristocratic class. Farmers are subject to frequent agrodirectivos recruits for work teams. In return the state makes an effort to feed its farmers if food shortages caused by drought or other calamities.

c) capitalist farmers (Africa, India and Southeast Asia, which enjoy increased opportunities to buy and sell land, labor and food in competitive markets. The bulk of the peasantry in the world outside the former communist bloc belongs to this category.

COMPANIES (PEOPLE) HUNTER-COLLECTORS

They were the first human groups. Were between 20 and 30 people. They lived in an area until the fruits and game became scarce, moving to another place, in a very small radius. In their confrontations with other groups never dead. The elders had much power of decision because of their experience. Source: Rural Anthropology Professor: Dr. Gabriela Vargas Cetina.



Hunter-gatherers, people who practice subsistence hunting and gathering of wild foods, without developing at all or just some kind of agriculture.

Thousands of years ago, were present throughout the world. Today there are, in some countries, small nomadic groups that live by hunting wild animals and birds, fishing, collecting fruits, seeds and mushrooms, extraction of roots and tubers, and the collection of honey, activities rarely provide more than 50% of their diet. Not in any way constitute a large group, since no environment could withstand intense predation only plants and animals which has around him. The best-known groups: Aboriginal peoples of Australia, the Inuit of Greenland, Canada, Alaska and northern Siberia, and various tribes in the Amazon jungle. Some get most of their subsistence labor wages and social funds. The San of Botswana, Namibia and southern Angola have lost control over most of their lands and now live as unskilled laborers. Thousands of African Pygmies remain active hunters but only gathered plant foods, as they prefer to get their neighbors through the exchange meat or doing some work on their farms. Less well known in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi, in Canada, USA, Brazil, Venezuela and Chile, or Russia, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Find it increasingly difficult to survive practicing their way of life and are under great pressure from governments and the various villages to hand over their territories, join their children in formal education systems, to accept a sedentary lifestyle and reject their religious and cultural traditions in order to integrate into society. Some indigenous and indigenous movements have rebelled against these pressures, sometimes very aggressive, but in most cases have made little progress and the situation generally remains the same. Anthropologists have conducted studies on modern societies of hunter-gatherers, helping to raise public awareness of their unfavorable situation. They have helped to ensure, legally, the ownership of part of their territory. Thanks to this research, we know that such societies have a very supportive nature, are less stratified in the world. These groups do not maintain a marked difference in power, wealth and prestige among its members, as in our society. Has the highest known degree of equality between men and women (the work is divided equally between the sexes) between old and young, between parents and children, between chiefs and subjects, including faith-based initiatives and religious congregations, including skilled and inexperienced, between the strong and the weak.

This equality comes from the great importance to them sharing resources with other members of the community. It aims to find keys to life in these societies, pre pre agriculture and grazing, about 10,000 or 15,000 years. Understand those people who lived in antiquity is a controversial subject communities constantly generate changes in their lifestyle, culture and values. The striking similarities in types of social organization in different places with a very mixed history, seem to confirm that living by hunting and gathering has specific features, not altered by social changes in the respective societies in which they have to live . Thus, the forms of organization discovered among modern hunter-gatherer groups could occur during the period before the advent of agriculture, perhaps added to other forms have now disappeared. Some researchers accept this hypothesis, while others reject it. Source: Reference Library Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2004. © 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation.

Bibliography



In addition to those mentioned throughout the text, we used the following sources:

1. Www.sociologicus.com 2. Www.um.es / gqo / UnIncesto.htm (Article appeared in The Guardian on 16/8/00) Mariano Fernandez Enguita - "no Inbreeding, incest and parthenogenesis? 3. Www.jurid.net / Minerva / juberias.htm 4. Www.theses.ulaval.ca/2003/21210/21210.html/

www.liceus.com / cgi-bin / ACO / ant / Malinowski www.cholonautas.edu.pe / pdf / Malinowski es.geocities.com / antropokrisis / biomalinowski.htm

8. Notes UNED Professor Julian Lopez Garcia 9. "Introduction to general anthropology?. Marvin Harris 10. Malinowski's biography, material has been used for the conceptual definition of endogamy and exogamy. 11. "The sexuality of the Wild West of Melanesia? Edi. Morata 12. http://www.filosofia.org/filomat/dfsis.htm (Philosophical Dictionary) 13. http://es.geocities.com/soloapuntes/primcurs/antropo1/tgant.html Note: What we have termed as agricultural societies and hunter-gatherer societies, it is located well as peoples, as well as communities, as well as societies. Vertices Psychologists - Madrid www.verticespsicologos.esGabinete Capital: C / Caleruega, 88 Cabinet of Las Rozas de Madrid, Avda Lazarejo 106Teléfonos: 91 631 44 93-690 75 85 35 - Email: info@verticespsicologos.es © All rights reserved