RAYMOND FIRTH

 

RAYMOND FIRTH

 

ü  Raymond Firth was born in 1901 in Auckland, New Zealand

ü  Educated in economics at Auckland University, College.

ü  In the mid 1920s Firth moved to London to pursue a Doctorate at the London School of Economics, where he came under the influence of Bronislaw Malinowski.

ü  Malinowski meticulous studies of the Trobriand islanders of New Guinea were among the earliest field work based ethnographies.

ü  This was the time when the basic concepts and approaches of anthropology was being formulated.

ü  French sociology was under the sway of Emile Durkheim

ü  Lucien Levy Bruhl -investigating cultural effects on thoughts and logic

ü  Franz Boas and Alfred Kroeber emphasized the concept of culture a collective system of belief and practice.

ü  British Social anthropologist concerned about society’s functional integration derived from empirical studies of small scale societies.

ü  Their general concern was with social structure rather than culture or mind (contrast with Boas, M. Mead, Ruth Benedict).

ü  British social anthropologist Raymond Firth made a notable divergence from orthodoxy of structural functionalist theory in British anthropology during the post war.

ü  He has also made important contributions in the field of kinship especially the study of Unilineal descent.

 

MAJOR WORKS

 

WE THE TIKOPIA

ESSAYS ON SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

RANK AND RELIGION IN TIKOPIA

ECONOMIC OF THE NEW ZEALAND MAORI (1929)  

Theory: SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

FIELD WORK: (1929, 1949)

Tikopia (Solomon Island))

 

ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

ü  Tikopia is a tribal society where social structure has been relatively constant.

ü  The people of Tikopia Island were studied by New Zealand anthropologist Raymond Firth (1928-29)

ü  The elements of social structure are functional in nature. However Firth found that there is some idea beyond structure and function.

ü  He worked on it and gave the innovative concepts of social organization :

            Kinship organization

            Political organization

            Religious organization

            Economic organization

 

ü  He said that social organization is not a separate concept but it is a part of social structure.

ü  Social structure has certain important relations which are called initial relations.

ü  It means if these relations will change then the structure may also change.

ü  Therefore if we do not want to change the structure then we should use some choices and alternatives so that continuity of the structure can be maintained.

ü  The use of choices and alternatives is temporary and not permanent. If it will permanent then structure will be changed.

ü  Firth distinguished between structure, function and organization. He said social structure has three conditions:

1     Structure is concerned with ordered relations of parts to a whole with the arrangements in which the elements of the social life are linked together.

2     These relations must be regarded as build up upon one another, there are series of varying order of complexities.

3     There must be more than purely momentary significance, some factors of constancy and continuity must be involved in them. 

ü  However Firth critically analyzed other views on structure. He criticized Radcliffe Brown who said that social structure is a complex network of social relationship.

ü  He said that it is beyond that because continuity is important and it will be impossible to distinguish between structure of a society and that of totality of the society.

ü  The second view of E.E. Evans Pritchard who analyzed structure through relations between major groups of the society i.e. clans.

ü  In the clan a persistence of social relations are found.

ü  However Firth says that it includes both person to person relationship and relationship between group, further it is something beyond that.

ü  Finally Firth says that the concept of structure is an analytical tool. It helps in understanding how people behave in their social life.

ü  The essence of this concept is those social relations which seem to be of critical importance, if those relations were not in operation then society may not exist in that form.

ü  He has given the example of African Tribe where Mother’s Brother (MB) and Sister’s Son (ZS) relationship is very important. Sometimes there may not be true MB then there is a person who become stand in i.e. the representative of MB.

 

FUNCTION

Firth had view that every social action has more than one function. He defined social function as the relationship between social action and the system of which the action is a part (means fulfillment of needs)

There is a mean and end scheme which is called function

He favored Malinowski’s concept of function

 

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

 

Firth in his book Elements of Social Organization (1951) emphasizes the necessity to distinguish between social structure and social organization. According to Firth the arrangement of parts or elements constitutes social structure how people in the society get things done constitutes social organization. For clear understanding of the terms social structure and social organization, let us take into consideration the Garo society which is matrilineal tribe inhabiting basically in the state of Meghalaya. The Garos follow matriliny in descent and inheritance and their residence is matrilocal. They also have a distinct dialect of their own. All these features give the Garo society a typical structure. An organizational study on the other hand will encompass the study of the various traditional aspect of Garo life i.e. family types, clan kinship, marriage, political system, educational system, religious beliefs and practices coupled with the significant changes in traditional Garo society due to their conversion to Christianity and contacts with other contemporary Indian societies. The total study of a society including the structural aspect is what we call an organizational study.    

 

WE THE TIKOPIA

The population of Tikopia is about 1200 distributed among more than 20 villages mostly along the coast.

The largest village is Matautu on the West Coast not to be confused with Mata-Utu –the capital of Wallis and Futuna.

Historically the tiny island has supported a high density of  population of a thousand or so.

Strict social control over reproduction prevented further increase.

Unlike most of the Solomon Islands the inhabitants are Polynesians, their language is Tikopian.

They are members of the Samoic branch of the Polynesian language

Tikopian practice an intensive system of agriculture similar in principle to forest gardening and the gardens of New Guinea highlands

For example around A.D. 1600 the people agreed to slaughter all pigs on the island and substitute fishing because the pigs were taking too much food that could be eaten by people.

Unlike the rapidly Westernizing society of much of the rest of Temotu Province Tikopian society is little changed from ancient times.

Its people take great pride in their customs and see themselves as holding fast to their polynesian traditions, while they regard Melanesians around them to have lost most of theirs.

The island is controlled by four chiefs.

Tikopians have a highly developed culture with a strong Polynesian influence including a complex social structure.

Through his field work Raymond Firth showed how the society was divided geographically into two zones and was organized into four clans headed by clan chiefs

At the core of social life was te paito- the house inherited from male (patrilineal) ancestors who were buried inside it.

Relationship with the family grouping of one’s mother (matrilateral) relations were also important.

The relation between mother’s brother and his nephew had a sacred dimension: the uncle oversaw the passage of his nephew through life, in particular officiating at his manhood ceremonies.