Syllabus: Paper I > 12. Applications of Anthropology > Anthropology of sports
Society and Culture — 2015 Paper I
Question · 2015 · Paper I · 10 Marks
Society and Culture.
Model Answer
VAID ICSApproach
- Demand of Question: Define society and culture and explain their close but analytically distinct relationship.
- Structuring the Response: Contrast social relationships with learned meanings and behaviour, then show their mutual dependence.
- Key Dimensions to Cover: Social relations, institutions, Tylor, learned behaviour, norms, values, material/non-material culture and interdependence.
Model Answer
Introduction: Society and culture are foundational anthropological concepts. Society refers principally to an organized network of social relationships, while culture refers to the learned and shared patterns of behaviour, meanings and values through which those relationships operate.
Society consists of:
- individuals and groups;
- statuses and roles;
- institutions;
- patterned social relationships.
Culture, classically defined by E.B. Tylor, includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and other learned capabilities acquired as a member of society.
Thus:
Society = Network of relationships
Culture = Content and meaning of relationships
Culture may be:
- material — tools, houses, technology;
- non-material — norms, beliefs, language and values.
The two are inseparable in actual life. Kinship, for example, is a social institution, but ideas concerning marriage, descent and appropriate behaviour are culturally defined.
Culture guides social action, while interaction within society reproduces and modifies culture.
Conclusion: Society provides the structural framework of human relationships, while culture provides their learned meanings and rules; each can be analytically distinguished but neither exists independently of the other.
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UPSC Anthropology Optional 2015 — Paper I
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