Comparative Approach • Based on the idea that a society or a social system cannot be fully understood without comparing with other societies or systems • The main limitation of this perspective is that societies differ in so many ways and therefore may not always be compared meaningfully Historical Approach • This methodology involves taking an archaeological site that has historical accounts relating to recent periods of occupation and then excavating it to establish continuity back into prehistoric times. • The historical data then becomes the basis of analogy and homology for the study of the prehistoric communities at both the particular site and other sites in the region. • The main issue with the approach is that in many parts of the world there is no direct continuity between historically documented communities and the prehistoric occupants of the region. Functionalism • each of the institutions, relationships, roles, and norms that together constitute a society serves a purpose, and each is indispensable for the continued existence of the others and of society as a whole. • The approach gained prominence in the works of 19th-century sociologists, particularly those who viewed societies as organisms. • Other writers have used the concept of function to mean the interrelationships of parts within a system, the adaptive aspect of a phenomenon, or its observable consequences. • In sociology, functionalism met the need for a method of analysis; • In anthropology it provided an alternative to evolutionary theory and trait-diffusion analysis. • A social system is assumed to have a functional unity in which all parts of the system work together with some degree of internal consistency. • Functionalism also postulates that all cultural or social phenomena have a positive function and that all are indispensable. • Distinctions have been made between manifest functions, those consequences intended and recognized by participants in the system, and latent functions, which are neither intended nor recognized. STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM • Talcott Parsons introduced a structural–functional approach • This approach employs the concept of function as a link between relatively stable structural categories. • Any process or set of conditions that does not contribute to the maintenance or development of the system is said to be dysfunctional. In particular, there is a focus on the conditions of stability, integration, and effectiveness of the system. • He advocated a structural-functional analysis, a study of the ways in which the interrelated and interacting units that form the structures of a social system contribute to the development and maintenance of that system. Interpretive Approach • “Interpretive anthropology” refers to the specific approach to ethnographic writing and practice interrelated to (but distinct from) other perspectives that developed within sociocultural anthropology during the Cold War, the decolonization movement, and the war in Vietnam. • It is a perspective that was developed by Clifford Geertz as a response to the established objectivized ethnographic stance prevalent in anthropology at the time, and that calls for an epistemology (“culture as text”) and a writing methodology (“thick description”) that will allow an anthropologist to interpret a culture by understanding how the people within that culture are interpreting themselves and their own experiences. • Geertz, following Paul Ricoeur, suggested that “a” culture—any culture—is a complex assemblage of texts that constitutes a web of meanings. These meanings are understood by actors themselves (the “natives”) and are subsequently interpreted by anthropologists in the way in which parts of a text are understood by literary critics—by incorporating into the analysis the attendant contexts that make meaning possible for everyone involved in the act of interpretation. CRITICAL APPROACH • Critical theory is a school of thought that stresses the reflective assessments and critique of society and culture by applying knowledge from the social sciences and the humanities.