Sociology and Anthropology II
[COPS1213]
[60h] 6 credits
This course is taught in the 1st semester.
Teacher(s): Olivier Servais, Luc Van Campenhoudt
Language: French
Level: First
Aims
In particular, students are expected to develop:
- an understanding of the major theoretical issues in Sociology and Anthropology: power, culture, economics, social integration, socialisation, change etc
- an ability to analyse social action on a number of (micro, meso, macrosociological) levels
- a basic ability to place the concepts within a wider range of possible theories.
Main themes
1. action within interpersonal interaction
- social construction of space (frontstage, backstage, barriers)
- social construction of time (time lived, temporal metrics, speaking turns, etc.)
- role adoption and self-presentation
- meetings, shared knowledge, context
2. Group action:
- birth, sexuality, kinship, marriage, death
- socialisation: learning the rules, habitus, relationship between culture and personality etc.
- Organisational theories: strategies, power (legitimacy and processes), identity (professional, family, etc.), regulation
- Technical mediation
- conformity, deviance, stigmatism
3. Social action:
- social structures: classes, social status, social stratification
- technical relations to nature and division of labour
- Theories of economic exchange: gifts, markets, distribution, exploitation, embedding
- Theories of the state (stateless societies, forms of legitimacy, elitism, pluralism, etc.)
- Theories of culture and religion (myths, totemism, standard sociological theories of the phenomenon of religion, etc.)
- social change: class struggles, social movements
- theories of history (evolutionism, diffusionism, historical particularism, etc.)
4. Epistemology:
- the debate on explaining vs. understanding (broad outline)
- the defining features of Sociology and Anthropology as compared to other disciplines
- sociological and anthropological paradigms
Content and teaching methods
1. widen students' understanding of socio-anthropological culture by giving non-Western and non-modern examples, and encouraging them thus to adopt a comparative approach
2. show that sociological and anthropological approaches offer multiple explanations
3. demonstrate a simple approach to tackling epistemological questions, the methodologies being the subject of specific courses in BAC 2 and the metatheoretical debate of a specific course in BAC 3.
4. introduce basic concepts used in Anthropology within a sociological perspective, without encroaching on the contents of the specific Cultural Anthropology course given in BAC 2
At least one ECTS will be devoted to theoretical text reading related to the subjects studied in the course.
Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)
Evaluation: The course will be examined through an oral examination.