| Main themes |
This course will approach the most familiar issues in Sociology and Anthropology from the point of view of action analysis. Particular attention is given to the following topics:
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
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| Aims |
Whereas the first year BAC 1 course introduces students to Sociology and Anthropology through social issues typical of modern societies, this second year BAC 2 course aims instead to give students theoretical and conceptual skills (at a mid-level of abstraction and systematicity) in both disciplines.
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.
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