The 10 Most Important Theories in Social Science | Part 1 

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Thanks for posting, Cheddar. And we appreciate the feedback. With regard to the overall style, we're in a throw everything at the wall and see what sticks phase, so it's definitely helpful.

Hey Nora! That makes my day! Thanks so much for posting.

So glad that you found it helpful!

Thanks so much, Егор. Part two should be up shortly after Christmas!

Thanks so much, Santiago! That makes my day. I hope that it's helpful.

You are so welcome! Thanks for posting.

Thanks so much, Ann. Very glad you find the video helpful! There are tons and tons of great books out there; but, for my money, if I were only going to recommend one that's really useful for a good historical survey of social science theory, I would recommend Alan Barnard's History and Theory in Anthropology. It's not short(!), but it'll cover all the bases you would need, with great referencing, and a excellent international focus.

@@ArmchairAcademics and the I'm

Hey Alex! Very glad it was helpful!

Thanks for the very thoughtful comment, Bill. I was way behind this month due to a series of unfortunate coincidences, but fortunately nobody in my immediate circle was ill. And, in point of fact, part two of the top ten series just went up on the channel :) I love the idea of doing some work on the Zapatistas, as well. Thanks for the suggestion. That's an area of social/political theory that I was really engaged with as an undergrad and it would be lovely to re-engage with the literature at this point on my career. When I do, I'll be sure to give you a shout out. All the best.

Thanks James! Sharp eyes. We put a correction up in the comments.

Thanks for posting, Jadenslain. You raise a good point. For a lot of intellectual historians, Lacan actually occupies a kind of liminal space (a bit like Foucault) with one foot in structuralism and one foot in post-structuralism. Foucault, for example, often rejected the 'post-' label and called himself "the last structuralist" from time to time in interviews, while his work is often read posthumously as essentially post-structuralist. Similarly, Lacan continued the structuralist project in a number of ways, but his writing is very much post-Saussurian and his psychoanalytic lens was heavily influenced by postmodernists in parallel fields, like Clifford Geertz, for example; but he also borrowed heavily from authors like Roman Jacobson, who is very much in the structuralist camp. Looking back, I do think I bull-dozed a bit of that complexity in my discourse and could have done a better job representing liminal authors like Lacan and Foucault. Thanks very much for raising the issue! It's a great point.

No you did great overall, very insightful comparison of the different schools. Thanks for clearing that up about Lacan and Foucault!

Hey, @IkeOkerekeNews. Great question! Now that you mention it, I realize that should have covered that in the episode. In short, I think that criticisms of post-structural anthropology can be broken down into two camps. The first is a kind of reactionary rejection of post-structuralism due to its affiliation with broader post-modern authors and literary critics (foucault, derrida, spivak, etc.). That's generally something that emerged from right wing and traditional conservative voices in academia. And, for better or for worse, their critiques are often remarkably shallow and, for that reason, often go unmentioned. The second major body of criticism is, I think, much more relevant and emerged as a part of a broad 'post' post-modernist movement in anthropology in the late 90s and 2000s. These authors (and I include myself in this camp) are critical of the lack of 'meaning' in a lot of post-structural anthropology. Let me explain... One of the side-effects of post-structural influences in anthropology was that many ethnographers abandoned cultural comparisons entirely and leaned into a kind of radical ethnographic subjectivity. If you read ethnographies from the early 80s and 90s, a lot of them double down on thick description and through emic contextualization of indigenous culture. But they rarely attempt to build a theoretical framework that explains or attempts to account for the culturally informed behavior that they are studying. The result was a body of incredibly sensitive and insightful ethnographic publications... that, unfortunately, did little more than describe the thoughts and behaviors of their subjects in emic terms. Now, I want to stress that that's a very shallow explanation and the discourses built around post-structuralism are much more complex than what I've written above. But the 'post' post-structuralist vibe is very pronounced in the literature and creates a kind of tension in the field that you can still feel in conferences and public debates today.

Hey there, Pathumanuradha. Some of the concepts I discuss in the video were definitely instrumental in the development of anthropology. Functionalism and structuralism, for example, were major influences in the first half of the 20th century -- as was Marxist theory in a different part of the world. But, if you're talking about the early development of anthropology (in the late 19th century through early 20th century), then there were other theoretical concepts that would be more relevant. To name just a few: unilinear cultural evolution, humanism, early linguistic anthropology, Marcel Mauss's theories of magic and witchcraft, and early work on kinship were all enormously influential (even if many of them are not taken seriously today). Just keep in mind that socio-cultural anthropology is a pretty diverse field. Even in its early days it was eclectic and heterogenous. And the first generation or two of ethnographers who began building our theoretical vocabulary drew from an diverse, interdisciplinary body of literature, which makes it difficult to pin down one or two specific theories that were the most influential. I hope that helps!

@@ArmchairAcademics wow sir, what an answer really interesting indeed, it is a lot than I expected . Definitely I need to follow more about these theories i really appreciate your kind responses that have for the students .your lectures were feel like being in the lecture hall at the University . So we are Waiting for the new lessons like history of anthropology through both urope and north America.

Thanks for posting. A number of sharp eyed viewers have pointed that out as well. Thanks. It's an unfortunate typo. There's a correction marked in the pinned comment at the top of the comment section.

Whoops! Thanks for posting, Egor. Quite right -- and good eyes! 👍 Hopefully that's the only typo (but somehow I doubt it!).

@@ArmchairAcademics later on in the list the dates were correct though

Hey, Amber! Thanks for posting. We actually do have a short discussion of symbolic interactionism in Part Two of this video. That might be helpful. Goffman and Dramaturgy almost, almost made that list(!) as well and is a fantastic topic for a video in the near future. I'd have to do a bit of reading to talk cohesively about deontology, but it's something I'll put on the list for later this year :) Thanks for the suggestions! We'll be back from paternity leave in July and I'll see if we can squeeze Goffman and a bit of deontology into the schedule!

@@ArmchairAcademics Thanks so much for your kind reply! Looking forward to watching more of your videos. Enjoy your paternity leave :)

There's now an 81.2% chance that I'm going to mine the Muppets for theory jokes XD Not sure about Sam, but using individual Muppets as avatars for social science theories might just be brilliant.