MEYER FORTES

 

TIME AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE : MEYER FORTES

  ü  British Social Anthropologist

ü  Birth: 25th April 1906

ü  Nationality: South African

ü  Academic Advisor : B Malinowski

 v  Known for his investigation for West African Societies.

v  After studying at the University of Cape Town in South Africa Fortes received his PhD in psychology for London School of Economics.

v  In 1932 he turned from psychology to anthropology and studied under B. Malinowski at the London School of Economics.

Books:

Dynamics of clan-ship among the Tallensi

Kinship and social order

He studied various tribes among them Tallensi and Ashanti are important. Besides that with E.E. Evans Pritchard he studied eight tribes of Africa

State societies                                    Stateless societies

 

ZULU                                                             NUER

NGRETO                                                       TALLENSI

BEMBA                                                          LAGOLI

BANYANKOLE

KEDE

 Book with Evans Pritchard: African Political System

 DEFINITION OF STRUCTURE:

ü  Structure refers to a distinguishable whole (an institutional, a social group, a process, a situation etc.) which is a susceptible of analysis in the light of appropriate concepts and by suitable techniques into parts that have an ordered arrangement in space and time.

 ü  In this manner Fortes analyzed social structure according to time and space.

 ü  Whole in one content may be a part in another content (e.g. education system)

 ü  Education system can be a whole and classroom may be its part while in social structure  education system is a part.

 ü  Determination of part is not important but taking out principle is important which governs the social structure.

 ü  He criticized Radcliffe Brown who did not consider time and space in social structure.

 ü  Meyer Fortes gave importance to time and space. There are three types of time

 Duration time

Continuity time

Genesis and growth process time

 DURATION TIME: It is an outside (extrinsic) factor like any social event. It takes place it its own duration. It does not influence the principles of social structure.

 CONTINUITY TIME: It is an intrinsic factor. It is continuity and change. For e.g. When the lineage Chief dies his son becomes the Chief. It may seem like a big change but it is not because the principles do not change. After the death of tribal chief his son become the chief.

 GENESIS OF GROWTH PROCESS TIME: It is also change within continuity. Growth is more found in unstable societies.

Growth is a product of continuity (conservative forces) and non-reversible modification.

 Growth may appear as simple (increase or decrease in population) and complex (qualitative differentiation in social institutions) - Bride wealth, acceptance of matrilineage)

 Growth may be positive (expansion, accumulation and development of parts) or negative (loss of parts)

 Synchronic study

Diachronic study

Double synchronic study

 SYNCHRONIC : means studying society at a particular point of time and providing an equilibrium model of the society. It is only continuity and change. (R. Brown, Malinowski, Fortes)

 DOUBLE SYNCHRONIC STUDY: studying society at two different point of time and both the time providing equilibrium models e.g. Firth’s study of Tikopia that does not speak about structural change.  It is only continuity and change.

 DIACHRONIC STUDY: studying society for a long period of time and providing a dynamic model of society. It analyses structural change e.g. Levi Strauss, E. R. Leach- Equilibrium model- does not take change and conflict into account or do not give it importance; e.g. R. Brown, Malinowski, R. Firth, E. Pritchard. 

 Fortes contended that social institutions like family or tribes were the building blocks of society and the key to maintaining harmony of the social whole. Through studying those institutions especially their political and economic development he believed that one could understand the development of the society as a whole.

 THE TALLENSI MONOGRAPH   

 ü  The dynamics of clanship-Political building blocks provided by the lineage system

ü  The web of kinship - interpersonal relations between kin on the ground.

ü  The dynamics of the clan-ship states the conventional image of a simple stateless society bound together by lineage solidarity.

ü  Large number of strands and elements whose interrelations make up a very elaborate pattern.

ü  The web of kinship: all kinship institutions have two major facets or functions

ü  They serve as a mechanism or organizing social activities and coordinating social relations

ü  They constitute the primary mould of the individual psycho social development, much futile controversy has turned on a confusion of these two aspects of social relations

ü  Importance of kinship: Sex, procreation and rearing of offspring

 ü  Lineage politics was defined and controlled by men but women especially mothers were at the centre of personal network crisis crossing Tallensi geography

 ü  If the man left to their own devices the kinship ties sustained by a woman in a system of exogamous marriage for the insurance of the existence of interest committed to alliance and conflict avoidance.

 ü  The ancestor cult express this complementary dualism.

 ü  When a man establishes a new shrine for his father he goes to his mother’s lineage to learn the recipe for making the shrine which include many material and immaterial elements.

 ü  When he sacrifices he connects with all the male ancestors in his patriline at the same line to another clan through his mother.

 TIME AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE IN ASHANTI (ASHANTE)

 Study of domestic groupings in the two rural Ashanti townships of Asokore and Agogo

 Structure as an actually existing concrete reality (that is the set of actually existing relations at a given moment which link together certain human beings and

 STRUCTURAL FORM: that is a general or a normal form of a relationship abstracted from the variations of particular instances through taking account of these variations.

 The distinction is associated with the continuity of social structure through time particularly in a relatively stable community.

 The structural form may little change but the actual social structure is constantly being renewed and changed with the birth and death of members and their changing relationship with each other

 Time is by no mean a uniform factor there being at least three separate functions

 Duration

Continuity

Genetic (or growth)

Similarly space may be location, ordered arrangement and controlled movement or change.

 ü  A structure is a distinguishable whole with parts organized in time space that can be studied.

ü  It is not visible in concrete reality

ü  It is discovered by comparison, induction and analysis-langue not parole

ü  Social anthropology may in time evolve from qualitative to quantitative analysis.

ü  Qualitative aspect of social facts are = culture

ü  Quantitative =structure

ü  They are complementary ways of studying the same facts

ü  Ashanti is not a stable or homogeneous society and there appears to be no fixed norms of domestic organization.

ü  Two township 30 miles apart make up the case study. The sample size is 1676 person. Urban contacts are stronger. Men and women are household heads.

 ü  A woman and her children are the indissoluble core. Households are a man and wife or matrilineal :  a mixture of the two.

ü  Male headed households may be patrilocal (with father) avunculocal (with MB) or a mixture of the two; female headed households are either matrilocal ( with the mother) or matrilineal (with a corporate kin group whose members through women only)

ü  Fortes deploys elementary statistical analysis of a very rudimentary kind perhaps in order not to scare off the anthropologist

ü  On a continuum from patrilocal to avunculocal one town is in the middle and the other towards the patrilocal end.

ü  The time factor consists of wives and children

 Domestic organization changes in ways analogous to growth. Since the rule of matrilineal descent and recognition of paternity in law are absolute the gender of household head is crucial.

 Structure is an arrangement of parts brought about through the operation over time of principles of social organization with general validity in a particular society.   

  • Ashanti people are found in the modern country of Ghana.
  • They have been a powerful group in this part of Africa for over 300 years
  • The Ashanti believe that their kingdom was founded with the help of a holy man who produced a golden stool form the heaven and gave it to the first Ashanti King.
  • The Stool came to symbolize Ashanti power and the belief that the kingdom will last as long as the golden stool remains in the hands of the Ashanti King
  • The Traditional Ashanti believe that all living things have souls. They also believe that witches, demons, spirits and fairies have powers in their lives
  • Ancestors are given great respect and there are several family rituals for birth,. puberty, marriage and death.
  • Some Ashanti also practice Christianity and Islam.
  • Organization is matrilineage : claim descent from a common female ancestor.
  • Ashanti believe that every individual is made up of two elements: Blood from the mother and spirit from the father.
  • Paternal descent is also recognized (double descent).
  • Head of the lineage is chosen by its senior men and women. Females are prohibited from the position of head because of menstruation taboos.
 
 


 

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