Lecture notes ANTH1005 (Semester 2, Block 4) - Social Anthropology - Generations and Gender
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Course
ANTH1005 (ANTH1005)
Institution
University Of The Witwatersrand (wits)
ANTH1005 (S2, B4) delves into the intricate dynamics of Generations and Gender among South African men. These comprehensive class notes amalgamate valuable insights from lectures and readings, providing a nuanced understanding of this captivating field of study.
Topics Covered:
The Concept of G...
Block 4 Anthropology Notes: New Men: Generation and Gender
Lecturer: Dr. Hylton White
WEEK 8: THE CONCEPT OF GENERATIONS
What are generations?
Generations exist because there are sets of people who share experiences of growing up
and coming of age in particular historical, social, cultural, economic, and political
circumstances. In other words, to say it again, generations are created by our social life, as
opposed to our biological existence. That has not to say generation and human biology
have no points of intersection. The way we grow up together under certain social
circumstances will shape a lot when it comes to questions of health throughout our lives, for
instance. However, generally speaking, it is safe to say that generations are social, not
biological.
Generations of African Social Thought
Many African societies, both past, and present have focused on generation as one of the
most important aspects of their members' social identities. There are different ways that
African societies have done this however, one especially common way has been through
practices of initiation that bring groups or cohorts of young people to adulthood at the same
time and through shared experiences and activities.
Though not universal or uniform across the African continent, this focus on making
generational cohorts is a very common theme in the organization of societies here.
Sometimes this has been less important than other features of identity. There is great variety in
the roles that African people have given to generations in social life.
In the last few hundred years, social life in every part of the world has been reshaped by the
creation of bureaucratic states and a capitalist economy. Africa is no exception. These
changes have been brought about across the world through processes that have usually
been very violent. The structures of colonial states (and colonial economies) have continued
to shape social life in African settings long after formal independence.
Generational identities in Africa are often shaped by their relationships to over-arching
political and economic developments. These are generations identified by what was
happening in politics, in relation to colonialism and apartheid, at the time they were coming
of age. Similar points of reference also exist in relation to economic changes. This also shapes
the outlook of the current generation of youth, by comparison with people who came
before them.
,Block 4 Anthropology Notes: New Men: Generation and Gender
Lecturer: Dr. Hylton White
WEEK 9: MANNHEIM ON GENERATIONS
The problem of ‘generations’, in German by the sociologist Karl Mannheim. This version is an
English translation published in 1952
LECTURER ONLINE NOTES
For more notes from the lecturer, take a look at the notes scribbled on the reading pack.
MANNHEIM’S PROBLEM
What is the ‘problem’ that the title of the essay refers to?
• In the first part of the essay, which is not included in the reader, Mannheim reviews
the work of various European thinkers who had made arguments before him about
the nature of a ‘generation’ of people. He argues that these earlier thinkers had
come up with several ideas but had not managed to build a good working definition
of ‘generations’ that would allow social researchers to work more effectively on
questions that relate to the existence of different generations in societies.
• That is the problem, or question, that he wants to address: what is a generation?
When we talk about generations, how are we defining what this term means?
How will he approach the question?
• Mannheim’s approach to this question is very formal. That is why the essay seems so
abstract: it is.
• He does not want to work from particular case studies of the kinds that
anthropologists and historians and other social researchers craft. He wants to come
up with a definition of ‘generations’ that is general enough to apply in a universal
way, but still meaningful enough to add value to the social sciences.
• He says that creating these kinds of universal definitions is the work of sociology in
particular, but of course, sociologists also work on case studies. What Mannheim is
doing here is an example of what we could also call ‘social theory. To show that it has
meant not just for sociology but also for all the social sciences, including
anthropology.
GENERATIONS AS GROUPS
One way to start defining what something is to think through what it is not. That is Mannheim’s
approach here.
• He starts by contrasting generations to what he calls ‘concrete social groups’ like
families, corporations, political parties, or student clubs. there are two kinds of
‘concrete social groups’
, Block 4 Anthropology Notes: New Men: Generation and Gender
Lecturer: Dr. Hylton White
o Community groups: formed by close interpersonal connections, for example,
a family. The people in one family form a concrete social group because their
members are all aware of one another personally.
o Associations: these are groups that exist because they have a founding
document, like a charter or a constitution that defines who is a member and
what the group exists for, for example, the stockholders in a company. They
do not know each other personally, but they have certain rights of
membership based on owning shares in a single entity even if there are
thousands of them who will never meet one another.
Now Mannheim’s point here is that generations are not concrete social groups.
• There may be members of a generation, who form an interpersonal community, and
there may be members of a generation who create associations like clubs, but this
does not exhaust the nature of their being a generation.
• In a large society, not all the members of the same generation will know one another
personally, form concrete communities, nor all belong to a specific association. Yet
they are members of the same generation.
If this is not what a generation is, then what is a generation?
• He says that generations are ‘objective’ facts/ groups.
o Generations exist because of something deeper than the subjective acts of
their members, i.e. subjective acts like knowing one another or forming
associations.
• To help us understand what he means, he says that generations are like economic
classes: workers, investors, etc.
o Members of a class such as the working class do not all know one another.
They may form communities and associations, like trade unions or business
forums, but that is not what defines them as a class.
o What defines them as a class is that they share a certain position, or location,
in the economy. They share that position whether or not they are even aware
of it, and that is what makes these ‘objective’ social groups.
• The word ‘objective doesn’t mean ‘natural’ here. Classes only exist because of the
structure of a particular society. They are social facts, not natural ones. However, they
are objective in the sense that they exist at a deeper social level than the subjective
acts of their members.
• Generations are similar to economic classes in the sense that they have an objective
existence that follows from the structure of a society. However, they are obviously not
exactly the same as classes, because classes include people of different generations
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