ANTH 303 Anthropological Theory Fall 2018
I acknowledge that St FX is in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People.
Sept 18: READ Durkheim, Emile ([1893]) Excerpts from The Division of Labor in Society: available at http://sites.middlebury.edu/individualandthesociety/files/2010/09/division-of-labor.pdf

Finish Weber
Advantages and disadvantages of Marxist and Weberian frameworks.
How to give a presentation: presentation marking rubric.

Review what students found in anthropological journal articles in terms of the theory used.

The following questions will help guide our discussion as we try to make sense of this, and other, theories. In addition, we will apply the theory to the video shown in the first day of class.

How can this theory be seen as a product of the historical period in which it was created?

What questions does this theory ask?

What information does this theory see as important?

What are other relevant assumptions made by the theory?

How does the theory analyse this information to answer the questions it sees as important?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of this approach?

Some key concepts:
- mechanical and organic solidarity
- collective consciousness – society greater than sum of parts
- relationship between individual and society
- role of law in society
- role of religion in society
- positivist
- function
- social fact
- coercive nature of social facts
- assumes harmony
- anomie
- while recognizes change happens (especially from mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity) has no theory of change

How to apply Durkheimian functionalism to the video:
    - What is the social function of the video? Of the messages it conveys? How does this help society continue?
    - Is this a society based on mechanical or organic solidarity? How are the people involved in producing the video/technology connected to others in the society?