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The Creation of a New Discourse of ‘Social Facts’
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Evolutionary theory too speculative: explanation of existing phenomena in terms of ‘survivals’ of an earlier era did not explain WHY they existed today.
Societies too varied to be put into a unilinear framework; there were too many exceptions.
It was more important to study societies from the point of view of the present.
All existing social institutions could be explained in terms of their social function, I.e. the role that they played in promoting social cohesion.
Paralleled the change in colonial administration from direct to indirect rule.
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1858-1917
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Greater specialization as a result of industrialisation did not lead to a breakdown in society, but rather to a different type of social cohesion:
Organic Solidarity: social cohesion that arises as a result of the dependence of unlike segments or units on each other. Characterized by an increase in individualism.
Mechanical Solidarity : social cohesion that emerges from common beliefs, based on the likenesses and similarities between members of a group. Common among pre-agricultural societies.
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All societies were characterised by a moral order;
I.e. a set of collective representations
These collective representations could be studied scientifically:
Shown by their constraints on individuals.
Their externality to the individual.
They were not just psychological, but belonged to a separate realm, the sociological.
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The collective conscience is the totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society that forms a determinate system with a life of its own .
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How are we to define what is social? And how can we study it scientifically?
What is a social fact?
 Description of social facts: . When I fulfil my obligations as brother, husband or citizen, when I execute my contracts, I perform duties which are defined, externally to myself and my acts, in law and in custom. Even if they conform to my own sentiments, such reality is still objective, for I did not create them; I merely inherited them through my education.
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These types of conduct or thought are not only external to the individual but are, moreover endowed with coercive power, by virtue of which they impose themselves upon him, independent of his individual will.
Hence, social facts are defined by:
 Coercion, externality, and generality.
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Coercion, because if I do not submit to the conventions of society, if in my dress I do not conform to the customs observed in my country and class, I provoke ridicule and social isolation.
Externality, because it does not emerge through individual action, but is inculculated through socialization.
Generality, because it is collective, i.e. more or less obligatory, and certainly not collective because it is general. It is a group condition repeated in the individual because imposed on him.
• Difference between collective representations and crowd behaviour: the latter is ephemeral, and does not outlive the life of the crowd event.
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Durkheim studied a variety of social phenomena, bringing to them a new and fresh analysis:
 The division of labour in society:
 Distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity.
• Should be analysed not historically, but in terms of its functions, i.e. to promote solidarity in society.
• Distinction between repressive and restitutive punishment.
 Suicide: an example of anomie, or alienation from the collective conscience of a society.
 Study of classification systems.
 Study of religion (to be discussed on Thursday).
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Durkheim not only established a new theoretical paradigm; he also created a new school, attracting some of the brightest French social scientists to his ‘school.’
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Nephew of Durkheim, he survived WWI.
Wrote influential works on Sacrifice and ‘archaic economies’, entitle ‘The Gift’.
The Gift was very influential for the emergence of economic anthropology.
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In it, Mauss argued that non-market economies were not characterized by a lack, but rather by very different principles.
This logic was the system of gift-giving, which appeared disinterested and voluntary, but was in actuality, obligatory and interested. Governed by reciprocity, which was the obligation to give, receive and repay.
Moreover, gift-giving constituted a total social fact, that combined economic calculations with:
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Spiritual, religious, ritual, social, and kinship elements.
Contrasted the type of economic exchanges found in market economies of industrial capitalism with ‘archaic’ economies. Former were individualized and impersonal; latter were social and personalized.
Comprehensive study of various ‘economic’ exchanges found throughout the world:
• Kula in Melanesia.
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Potlatch in NW Coast America.
• Maori giftgiving and the ‘hau.’
• Ritual prestations between Brahmins and other castes in India.
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