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Compare two cultures using two sociological concepts/perspectives

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Joseph Burrows: 17/10/2014 Compare culture and social organisation in any two societies, making reference to at least two different sociological theories and key concepts associated with them. Within every society, and every community or settlement across the globe, there is undoubtedly one thing that they have in common; we identify this as ‘culture’. “Culture is a design for living” (Clyde Kluckhohn, cited in Halambros et al, 2013: 5), it describes the norms, values, beliefs, and practises of a people. The economic base and division of labour, political structure, religion, and strata of the Nama Tribe …show more content…

In contrast, England is an individualist society promoting self-reliance and independence and was referred to by Edmund Adamus as a; ‘selfish and hedonistic wasteland’ (Telegraph, 2014). This relates to the theory of social mobility, and is again intertwined in capitalism. The political structure is a representative democracy, which in contrast to the Nama communities involves the option for the population voting for a party who’ll make decisions on their behalf; the majority vote will determine who is awarded power for a period of four years. Often the party in power will make decisions that, due to the nature of representative democracy, have not been made on a formed consensus, these decisions can be made in favour of the upper classes or the wealthy, neglecting the needs of the poor, this ties in with Marx’ theory of class struggle and could be seen as Oligarchy. In England social stratification is more complex than that of the Nama, and can be identified by a class system. In the epoch of Queen Victoria (1837-1901) - the times of the industrial revolution and The Communist Manifesto - England was believed to have a ‘functionalist’ (Durkheim) class system operating very much like that of a beehive, where all had their role. The class system arguably still resides, and is simplified to Upper, Middle, and Working class. This social stratum is generally identified by income. The Nama are a homogenous, mono cultural people. Although they have, over

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