brenn witt: How do you analyze a Indigenous society as a social system?

Issue:

How is the structure and functions build up in this kind of society?

What should I look for? Because those indigenous societies are so different from the modern societies of today.
My homework is to analyze this society, I just need to know how you analyze it!

I don?t ask for you guys to do it for me, just please give me some key words.

Question :

How do you analyze a Indigenous society as a social system?

Best Solver (Answer):

Answer by Glo?
First you need to understand the question. I think that may be where your problem is.
Society:
The totality of social relationships among humans.
A group of humans broadly distinguished from other groups by mutual interests, participation in characteristic relationships, shared institutions, and a common culture.
The institutions and culture of a distinct self-perpetuating group.
An organization or association of persons engaged in a common profession, activity, or interest: a folklore society; a society of bird watchers.
The rich, privileged, and fashionable social class.
The socially dominant members of a community.
Companionship; company: enjoys the society of friends and family members.
Biology A colony or community of organisms, usually of the same species: an insect society.

social system:
Social structure is a term frequently used in anthropology, sociology and social theory to refer to enduring relationships or bonds between individuals or groups of individuals.

In a general sense, the term can refer to:
entities or groups in definite relation to each other,
relatively enduring patterns of behavior and relationship within a society, or social institutions and norms becoming embedded into social systems in such a way that they shape the behavior of actors within those social systems. The notion of social structure as relationships between different entities or groups or as enduring and relatively stable patterns of relationship eemphasizes the idea that society is grouped into structurally related groups or sets of roles, with different functions, meanings or purposes. One example of social structure is the idea of ?social stratification?, which refers to the idea that society is separated into different strata, according to social distinctions such as a race, class, disability and gender. Social treatment of persons within various social structures can be understood as related to their background.

The notion of structure as embedded institutions or norms that shape the actions of social agents is important, as structural determination may occur as the actions of people and oorganizations are guided partially by the underlying structures in the social system. This approach has been important in the academic literature with the rise of various forms of structuralism, and is important in the contemporary organizational context as organization structure may determine an organization?s flexibility, capacity to change and many other factors, and is therefore an important issue to management.

Social structure may be seen to uunderlie important social systems including the economic system, legal system, political system, cultural system, and others. Family, religion, law, economy and class are all social structures. The social system is the parent system of those various systems that are embedded in the social system.

Indigenous:
The term indigenous peoples can be used to describe any ethnic group of people who inhabit a geographic region with which they have the earliest known historical connection, alongside immigrants which have populated the region and which are greater in number. However, several widely accepted formulations, which define the term indigenous peoples in stricter terms, have been put forward by prominent and internationally recognized organizations, such as the United Nations, the International Labor Organization and the World Bank. Indigenous peoples in this article is used in such a narrower sense.

Other related terms for indigenous peoples include aborigines , aboriginal peoples, native peoples, first peoples, first nations, Amerigine, and autochthonous (this last term having a derivation from Greek, meaning ?sprung from the earth?). Indigenous peoples may often be used in preference to these or other terms, as a neutral replacement where these terms may have taken on negative or pejorative connotations by their prior association and use. It is the preferred term in use by the United Nations and its subsidiary organizations.

So first you would choose the ingidgenous society of people you are choosing to research. I would suggest a group you find interesting and would like to learn more about.
Then look at the religion, folkways,etc. Their way of life, how they interact with one another, how they survive, did they hunt and gather, etc. Good luck. I hope this is helpful.