Why a Social Impact Assessor, Social Planner is an Anthropologist in the Field
Why a Social Impact Assessor, Social Planner is an Anthropologist in the Field Although possessing impressive quantitative analytical skills, a social planner cannot escape being an anthropologist while doing field work. The Founding father Max Weber described sociology as Verstehendesoziologie, which is literally translated as “sociology of understanding”, but which is translated better as interpretive (or interpretative) sociology. The title of this essay should read better as why a social impact assessor or social planner SHOULD BE an anthropologist in the field, because it is never the intention of this writer to employ only an trained anthropologist, but rather train in methods of anthropological field work, every social impact assessor, or social planner. As the subjects of research are humans, complex living units with a group consciousness, exercising a formidable “facticity” over them [more about this later], and cultural artifacts which possess value to a stagger...