Anthropological theory and ethnohistory

Making the “implicit” meanings in other cultures explicit is a dialectical task in which the anthropologist potentially exposes his or her own principles to sociological scrutiny. Because the body of this study is concerned with describing some “implicit” aspects of South Indian society, it is only fair that some of the analyst's own methodological assumptions be made explicit at the outset. These assumptions have influenced my choice of subject (a single South Indian temple), my methodological approach, which is ethnohistorical, and my findings.

The theoretical context for the procedures and arguments of this study is provided by a set of interlocking ideas generated by social and cultural anthropologists in the last two decades. The common element in these ideas is the aspiration to transcend some of the characteristic limitations of functionalism, especially as it was exemplified by Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown. Theoreticians who are otherwise distinct, such as C. Geertz, C. Levi-Strauss, V. Turner, and E. Leach, share this aspiration. It is to various aspects of their thought that I owe my own premises.

Following Clifford Geertz, I take culture to be “an ordered system of meanings and symbols, in terms of which social interaction takes place.” The social system, according to Geertz, is the pattern of social interaction itself.