Anthropos: Anthropos, 61.1966

Anthropos, 61.1966

Bibliographic Data

Journal

Structure Type:: Journal

Works URN (URL):: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

Persistent identifier:: BV043334262

Title:: Anthropos

Sub Title:: internationale Zeitschrift für Völker- u. Sprachenkunde

Place of Publication:: Fribourg

Publisher:: Ed. St. Paul

Year of Publication:: 1906

Collection:: Journals and Newspapers > Journals of Ethnology

Domain:: Social and cultural anthropology > General overview

Journal Volume

Structure Type:: Journal Volume

Works URN (URL):: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711748

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711748

Persistent identifier:: 1510221115730

Title:: Anthropos, 61.1966

Year of Publication:: 1966

Call Number:: LA 1118

Collection:: Journals and Newspapers > Journals of Ethnology

Journal Issue

Structure Type:: Journal Issue

Title:: Bd. 61, 1966, Heft 3-6

Collection:: Journals and Newspapers > Journals of Ethnology

Journal Article

Structure Type:: Journal Article

Title:: Cultural Flexibility: Myth and Reality

Other person:: Cook, Edwin A.

Collection:: Journals and Newspapers > Journals of Ethnology

832 Edwin A. Cook Anthropos 61. 1966 extent of tolerance toward non-normative behavior, and the extent of com mittment to organizational principles of grouping (1954:199). Earlier than this, Kroeber referred to variation in social structure as “lability or instability” (1948:396). The SSRC formulation of 1954 dis tinguished between the dichotomies “open-closed” and “flexible-rigid”, the former pertaining to recruitment principles and the latter to the state of the social structure itself (1954:976). In Adam’s analysis of alternative family forms he portrayed flexibility as an organizational potential (1960:41). Pehrson derives his stimulous from Eggan who said that the bilateral type of social organization without cross-cousin marriage appears to be a “flexible adaptation to fluctuating or changing condition” (1955:549), and regards flexibility as alternative relational arrangements, e. g.; “When dealing with other groups a Lapp can invoke a relationship anywhere on a widely ramifying network of kinship and marriage ties” (Pehrson 1957:105). Luomala has used “flexibility” in Diegueno sibs solely to portray, “de viations from recognized rules of exogamy, descent, and residence” (1963:300). The flexible-rigid dichotomy has also been utilized in the analysis of caste in a recent volume of the Cambridge Papers in Social Anthropology. Leach, in his introduction, identifies “flexibility” with “inconsistency between action and idea”, or “deviation from the ideal” (1962:8). This viewpoint is pursued by Yalman in his concern with deviation, in the form of inter-caste marriage from an ideal of endogamy. Yalman attempts to show that this flexibility is present, tolerated, and further, is functionally adaptive (1962:78 passim). For Firth, flexibility is more finely limited, intending deviation from a unilineal principle of descent (1957:5). In particular, Firth refers to ambilateral descent as providing a more “flexible group structure” [ibid.). In a later discussion of generation depth as one of several criteria potentially involved in the delineation of who is, versus who is not, a member of a descent group, Firth utilizes the concept of flexible to mean the absence of a specific rule (1963:26). In Mead’s analysis of kinship in the Admiralties, “flexible” refers to both an individual’s attitude as well as the lack of severity of sanctions attendant upon infraction of a stated rule (1934:315 f.). Schwartz interprets this “flexibility” in terms of functional utility, involving the resolution of conflict in primacy of function. Thus in the Admiralties it is not considered to be as necessary that a particular man marry a particular woman, as the rules so state, as it is that the parties joined are able to fulfill the reciprocal economic obligations involved in marriage. A brief exchange was conducted recently in Bijdragen when Pouwer published a review article (1960) of van der Leeden’s doctoral thesis. In his thesis van der Leeden attempted to establish a theoretical structural model for the Western Sarmi of Irian Barat but encountered numerous difficulties in trying to point out where the model was revealed in the organi zation of the Sarmi themselves. This confusion was perpetuated when Pouwer arrived at an inter

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