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Locate the "Kinship and Social Organization Tutorial" page on-line at:
http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/kintitle.html

1) Read Kin Funadamentals: Introduction, Kinship: themes&variations, Kinship Diagrams--basic elements, Answers, Bilateral Kindred, Lineal & Collateral Kin, Matrilineal & Patrilineal Kin.

2) Read Systems of Descent, Unilineal Kinship&Descent: patrilineal, matrilineal, dual, and Descent Group structures.

3) "Structure 2"--[click on] and read: lineages, clans, moieties.

4) Go to "Unilineal Kinship & Descent" page (begining step 2 above) and
click on "Case Studies."

5) WRITE a 2 page (double-spaced) essay comparing the lineage organizations of the Akan with those of the Turkish vilage. Be sure to include a comparison of the structures and functions of these lineage organizations.

Assignment 2:

Write a 2 page discussion on social stratification in Dani society and how it is connected to the structure and functions of domestic groups and other Dani institutions (of marriage, subsistence and economy).

1) Go to the Kin Tutorial (above).
2) Select DANI from the "Case Studies" list.
3) Read the sections on Dani Marriage, Gender, Subsistence, Economy, and Stratification.
4) Write essay--consider, for example, gender relations, household form, how stratification relates to these institutions and subsistence and economy.

Assignment 3: In Victor Turner's essay "Symbols in Ndembu Ritual" we have one of the foremost explanations of the ethnographic interpretation of rituals as social process. Turner states, that to understand ritual as "a system of meanings," we achieve depth and richness if we see the "system" as "itself constituting a sector of the Ndembu ritual system, as interpreted by informants and as observed in action" (Turner in: McGee and Warms 1996:457). In this view, symbols become the focal points of social interaction, groups mobilize around them. 

Szatmary's "Rockin In Time" presents a history of rock music in which the themes of African-American civil rights, economic conditions, national political climate, changing technology and "baby-boom" demographics all intertwine. Szatmary states, he attempts to show how "rock-and-rollers who have reflected and sometimes changed the social fabric" (Szatmary 2000:xiv). 

For fun, let us consider rock music performance as "ritual." How might you employ Turner's analysis of ritual to extend and deepen Szatmary's commentary on the social contexts of rock music?
 

Reading Response Paper #1: DUE Feb. 25

At the start of Chapter 4--Statement Circulation--Lindstrom alerts reiterates that culture can be thought of as a "conversational marketplace" which is not neutral. It is a discursive practice or set of procedures that establishes the "a patterned deployment of knowledge among people, and that regulates the exchange of statements in conversation." These procedures "work to make culture both shared and unshared" (Lindstrom 1990:105). Those people best able to command knowledge and talk seriously both restrict access to their knowledge and broadcast statements widely.

How then do alternative knowledge statesments make their way into the market and breach the reigning regimes of truth? How are the relations of conversational domination changed?

Joan Moore, in her book Going Down to the Barrio introduces us to the past an contemporary perspectives on youth gangs. She too is asking questions about society and culture change.. In specific, Moore is asking: how do gangs as groups evolve and how their "fate is linked to changes in a larger system" (Moore1991:9)?

Write a 2-3 page essay discussion of how Lindstrom and Moore each, differently, approach this question of how social groups form and change. 
At the end of your essay, assess how Lindstrom's discursive conversational marketplace model of culture might be applied to Moore's question of the whether gangs are "deviant groups" (that evoke a "moral crisis").

Reading Response Paper #3--DUE April 8.

David Szatmary takes a descriptive approach in his social history of Rock 'n Roll music. We are informed about the specifics of various musicians, bands, record companies, within a broad framework of social change. Andy Bennett, Chris Gibson and Peter Wade present a different understanding of society, youth and music. 
In a 3 page essay, explain the different theorizing of society, music and culture given by Wade, Gibson and Bennett.

Reading Response Paper #4--DUE April 22

Julie Fisher's Non-Governments and Arturo Escobar's Encountering Development take us to a global level of social organization examining both the interrelations between the global and the local in both local Third World GSROs and the dominant First World development organizations.

The goal in this paper is to connect these two readings with each other, and (bringing it full-circle) with Lamont Lindstrom's analysis of society on Tanna, Vanuatu.

In 1 1/2-2 pages: Describe Escobar's analysis of international development organizations and their ways of organizing the world. Compare Julie Fisher's approach to the emergence and autonomy of GSROs and GROs in the Third World.

Term Research Paper: See your course requirements (page 2 of course description hard copy).
Due: April 29.
Your paper is based on your own research. This may be either library research; or, primary research ("field" participant-observation; and interviews) combined with library research.
The objective is to research a particular kind of social group, and write an analysis of the group as a "group," as set of relationships between between people which establishes meaning for them (its members) and identitiy.
You must organize your analysis around a particular social theory used in this class, such as those used by the authors of your texts and readings.

You have two options here: 1) research a group (organization, association, club) you may belong to, or can easily enter or obsserve; b) research a group (from another place and culture, for example) using library materials--especially scholarly journal articles. 
 

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