S.F. NADEL : SOCIAL STRUCTURE

 

S.F. NADEL: SOCIAL STRUCTURE

 

 

v  British Anthropologist

v  Nadel’s major contributions to anthropology lie not in ethnography but in theory

v  He was also familiar with the work of a large number of American cultural anthropology

v  The breadth of Nadel’s theoretical approach makes it difficult to identify him with any particular school

v  His first major work A BLACK BYZANTIUM (1942) dealing with the NUPE presented the theoretical basis of his ethnographic method.

v  In the NUBA (1947) he examined structural constants shared by ten tribal groups.

v  Nadel was a reader in anthropology at the university of the Durham in England (1948-50) and professor of anthropology at the university of Canberra (1950-56)

v  Apart from Nupe Religion (1954) his other works are theoretical and reveal the influence of among other Malinowski and Radcliffe Brown the sociologist Max Weber the philosopher Alfred North, Whitehead and the psychologist Kurt Koffka.

v  The Foundations of Social Anthropology the first of Nadel’s two major theoretical works concerns itself with the logical premises that underlie our knowledge of societies and with the prerequisites, conceptual and technical of any enquiry meant to lead to this knowledge (1951)

 CONCEPT OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE BY NADEL

 

v  Herbert Spencer was the first writer to throw light on the structure of society.

v  He called society as an organism but his view of society was confused.  Emile Durkheim also made a futile attempt to define it.

v  S.F. Nadel “We arrive at the structure of society through from the concrete population and its behavior, the pattern or network (or system) of relationship obtaining between actors in their capacity of playing roles to one another”.

v  Nadel has tried to explain in his definition that structure refers to a definable articulation, an articulation an ordered arrangement of parts. Several parts are put together to form and integrated whole. For example Institution of College: every year final year stuents leave the college, freshers come and join as new members. Some of the faculty member also leave the college after retirement and some new joins. There is something remains unchanged is the structure of the institution or college which remains unchanged while the parts change.

v  It is related to the outer aspect or the framework of society and is totally unconcerned with the functional aspect of society.

v  So he has emphasized that the social structure refers to the network of social relationship which is created among the human beings when they interact with each other according to their statuses in accordance with the patterns of society. 

v  Nadel therefore says that structure indicates an ordered arrangement of parts which can be treated as transportable being relatively invariant while the parts themselves are variable but accoring to the rules of sociey. Ex. The curriculum of college can change, faculty, students can change but the structure does not change. It remains unchageable.  

There are three elements of society

v  A group of people- institutionalized rules according to which members of group interact and an institutionalized pattern or expression of these interactions. 

v  The institutionalized rules or patterns do not change easily and this creates orderliness in society. If we do not follow the rules and changes happens every time it will create havoc. Institutionalised rules should be followed. 

    Why should structure remains the same? Structure leads to some functions. for the members of society to exist it is important that structure remains the same because if every thing keeps changing humans will not survive in society. For example the Institution of marriage, whether it is monogamy or polygamy but it deliever some functions. The function of marriage is procreation, satisfaction of biological urge etc (according to the given society) 

v  These rules determine the status and roles of the individuals. There is an order among these rules and status also which provide an ordered arrangement of human beings.

 

Nadel developed the theory of social structure in his book THE THEORY OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE. In his book Nadel pointed out that the concept of society may be viewed from two angles

 Action such as kinship

Economics and groupings such as family and clans

v  He also says that there are some social and cultural facts which fall outside the social and cultural schemes. These refers to an action autonomous.

v  Nadel held the view that the concept of social structure is still in a sense on trial.

v  The variety of definition lead us to fear that it is a concept the width of whose usages renders it analytically fruitless.

There are two choices

 v  We may remove the concept of structure from the vocabulary of anthropology on account of its lack of precision or

v  We can attempt to narrowly define it by giving a specific and limited connotation

 According to Nadel

v  Structure is the formal relations of parts such as a set of data may be said to exhibit structure in as much as they exhibit a definable articulation an ordered arrangement of parts.

 Three dichotomies

To resolve which are aspects of structure

1                    structure as opposed to function

2                    Structure as opposed to qualitative character

3                    Structure as opposed to process

Unless we resolve these dichotomies we are unable to give a satisfactory account of social structure

 

He has tried to explain

v  Repetitiveness of social phenomena : Ex . if there will be no institution of marriage there will be havoc in society. People just can leave each other, no procreation will take place. So there will be no sturcutre. 

v  Durability of social phenomena: for example the structure of education: we are not stop getting education. Education structure is durable. Even after 50 or 80 years people still educated by these educational institutions no matter what will be the curriculum pattern but they will get education accorting to that particualr given society and its need.  

v  Moving equilibrium: It leads to integration. Members co-exists in harmonious relation due to the pattern of society. 

 Nadel Analysis of Role

Nadel’s theory of social structure is one of the outstanding theoretical works of 20th century social science

Roles according to Nadel

Ø  Modes of action

Ø  Allocated to individuals by the norms of society and lie at the very heart of social structural analysis

Ø  To describe social structure one must consider three aspects of role:

1) The allocation principles that provides actors with roles

2) The degree to which given roles have authority over other roles-the command over action aspect and

3) The degree to which given roles command the various resources and benefits of the social system

ü  Nadel has pointed out that very often different role structures do not mesh with each other so that wider social formations are not integrated through them. For ex. The age older and gender differentiation do not necessarily mesh. However sometimes particular role structures have a role in mediating between others e.g. judiciary, political leadership etc.

ü  Nadel began to see societies not as monolithic entities but rather as a pattern or network (or system of relationships obtaining between actors in their capacity of playing roles relative to one another.

ü  Explaining the importance of the concept of role S.F. Nadel has pointed out its usefulness in simplest terms lies in the fact that it provides a concept intermediary between society and individual.

ü  It operates in that strategic area where individual behavior becomes social conduct and where the qualities and inclination distributed over

ü  According to Nadel The Role concept is basically a type of class concept. It labels and brings together a number of individuals. It always refers to existing real human beings. These human beings are classified broadly according to two types of properties

 ü  CONTINGENT PROPERTIES: include psychological characteristics over which the individual has no control such as sex, age, physiological characteristics etc.

ü  ACHIEVEMENT PROPERTIES: which the individual is free to assume and aim at such as interests, attitudes, proficiencies etc.

 ü  Nadel calls certain roles as Non-roles or near roles or quasi roles-name, status

ü  Most of the writers have accepted that roles and status are complimented concepts. Nadel however does not agree that the two are interdependent.

ü  Role behavior is something translated into action. Role behavior is materialized in interaction setting or situations

ü  Thus explaining the relationship of role and situation Nadel argues that “the relationship between role attributes and situation may be one in all or of one kind but the same role include both kinds of attributes.

ü  The attributes concerning roles according to Nadel may be classified into three main grades

ü  PERIPHERAL ATTRIBUTES: there are attributes whose variation or absence does not affect the perception or effectiveness of the role. Thus they are optional and admit alternatives.

ü  SUFFICIENTLY RELEVANT ATTRIBUTES: these attributes are firmly entailed in the roles their variation or absence makes a difference to the perception or effectiveness of the role by making it imperfect or incomplete

.ü  BASIC OR PIVOTAL ATTRIBUTES: the absence or variation of these attributes change the whole identity of the role and the interaction it world normally provoke. In its absence other attributes appear illegitimate, unexplained or different in meaning

 

 

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