COMPUTER EVALUATION of ANTHROPOLOGICAL CENSUS DATA by Rex Richard Hutchens a Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT O
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Computer evaluation of anthropological census data Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Hutchens, Rex Richard, 1942- Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 04/10/2021 14:15:50 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/318606 COMPUTER EVALUATION OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL CENSUS DATA by Rex Richard Hutchens A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ORIENTAL STUDIES In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 1 9 7 2 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This thesis has been submitted in partial ful fillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this thesis are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for per mission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be ob tained from the author. SIGNED: APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR This thesis has been approved on the date shown below 4i 3-U-7X. _ J. M. MAHAR Date Professor of Oriental Studies , ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many hands have helped produce this work. Thanks are due Dr. J. M. Mahar whose generosity in pro viding access to the fruits of his years of research and field work made the project possible. His incisive criticism and demanding standards are everywhere evi dent. Thanks are also due Mr, Allen Ferber whose patient cooperation and late-night efforts in writing the neces sary computer programs saw the project through to com pletion. The drudgery of coding and card punching was accomplished in a large measure by my wife Cheryl, who is also responsible for considerable editorial assistance and the final typing. A special word of thanks is also due Mr. James A. Younkins and family of Pittsburgh, Penn sylvania, without whose timely financial assistance my life would doubtless have taken a very different turn. My contribution is solely the idea, the organization and the errors. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS , , , , . „ , . , . , vii LIST OF TABLES . , . 1 „ . viii ABSTRACT ix I. INTRODUCTION 1 Computer Applications . 4 The Problem Areas . , 5 II. THE SETTING . ......... ........ 8 III, DEVELOPMENT OF THE CODE . , . , . , . 16 Examination of Data . 18 Selection of Categories ......... 20 Category Coding 20 N a m e ............ , 20 Caste 21 Khandan 21 Generation .......... 21 Father’s Birth Sequence .. 21 Individual’s Birth Sequence ..... 21 Sex/Family Position . 22 A g e .................... 22 Education Level ... , , 22 Residence/Job Locale ........ 22 Occupation ............. 22 Villages .............. 23 Land 24 IV. SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT AND DESIGN ........ 25 System Flow: Explanation . 26 Preparation of Data ......... 26 Input of Data to Updata and List P r o g r a m .......... , . 26 Program Output .......... ..... 27 Statistical Analysis Programs .... 27 System Flow: Input Requirements .... 27 Program Explanation 27 iv V TABLE OF CONTENTS--Continued . Page V. STATISTICAL TESTING AND RELATED CONSIDERATIONS . „ , >. .. 38 . Hypothesis Development . , , . .. 39 Axiom, Theory and Hypothesis , . 40 The Null Hypothesis , , , . , „ . , » 42 Sampling ................ 44 Random Error . * . 45 Some Statistical Tests 47 Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient (r). .48 Thp Ph i - Coefficient . .. ... 51 The Chi-Square Test , . , , . , 52 Data Matrices ......... 54 Statistical Subroutines , , . 56 VI. the METHODOLOGY OF DATA ASSESSMENT ... 59 Data Shortage and Data Evaluation . , . 62 Selection of Variable Sets . , 63 Determination of Associations . Among Variables ... .... , 64 , Age-Grade Variables , , . 64 Dichotomous Variables > . 66 . Single Variable Analysis , . 6t7 Marriage Reciprocity . .... , , , 70 The Formation of Generalizations . 72 The Meaning of Model . .... 73 VII. SOME FINAL CONSIDERATIONS . ... 77 General Data Problems .......... 77 Specific Data Problems ......... 79 Suggestions for Further Analysis .... 83 Implications for Culture Change Quantification. 85 Conclusions . , . .... 86 APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR KHANDAN STUDY . ............ 87 TABLE OF CONTENTS--Continued Page APPENDIX B: DUPLICATE EXAMPLE OF ORIGINAL CENSUS DATA . ......... 91 APPENDIX C: CARD FORMAT AND CODES ...... 101 Card Format . , . , . 101 Miscellaneous Codes............ 102 Caste Code .......... 104 Occupation C o d e .......... ............ 105 APPENDIX D: MARRIAGE RECIPROCITY MATRIX . 114 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY . .... ... , 125 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page c* JL » J. 1 i. VL J- CL 0 9 9 9 O 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 0 2-2. Saharanpur and Muzaffarnagar Districts 0 9 10 4-1. Rankhandi Data Base System Flow Dl a g r a m . # . 9 0 28 4-2. Basic Program Flow Chart » . , . , 9 9 33 6-1. Flow Chart of Data Assessment Method. O « 60 6-2. Age-Grade Distribution of Brahmin School Children . , , . , . 65 6-3. Age-Grade.Distribution of Brahmin Females Enrolled in School . , . 69 LIST OF TABLES Table Page 2-1. The Population of Rankhandi, 1954 ............. 14 4-1. Example of Data Shortage Output . ....... 30 4-2. Example of Basic Data Output . , , , . 31 V viii ABSTRACT Statistical analysis, as well as computer use, is becoming increasingly popular in anthropology. This study provides a series of suggestions for dealing with essen tially unordered data of the nature found in a census through the use of statistics and the computer. The resul tant mathematical relationships may be analyzed and integrated by the ethnographer in the construction of statistical models to explain social situations and effec tively predict future situations. Suggestions for coding data are given and illustrated with census data from Rankhandi, a North Indian village. As well, a discussion of the computer system development and design used in this study provides a basic understanding of the programs developed for ordering, analyzing and storing of data. A review of some statistical tests furnishes the basic ground work for an understanding of the framework of data assessment employed in this study. Due to the inability to correct the data shortage and inaccuracy uncovered by the computer, the actual model building could not be undertaken however, the study illustrated quite clearly that the computer is of inestimable worth in evaluating large quantities of unprdered data„ . IX CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The representation of anthropological data and theory by mathematical symbolism seems to be enjoying increasing popularity. Even the more advanced areas of mathematics, such as topology, are beginning to be viewed as areas capable of giving insight to some of the problems of anthropology. One of the most persis tent and enthusiastic proponents of the use of mathe matics in anthropology is Edmund Leach: . , .we can learn a lot by starting to think. about society in a mathematical way. Considered mathematically a society is not an assemblage of things but an assemblage of variables (1961:7). My problem is simple. How can a modern social anthropologist . embark upon general ization with any hope of arriving at a satisfying conclusion? My answer is quite simple too: it is this: By thinking of the of g an iz at ion a1 ideas that are present in any society as constituting a mathematical pattern (1961:2). And further, Sherif and Sherif, implying a level of abstraction not at all adverse to the "mathematical pattern" of Leach, state that the "sociocultural level of analysis takes as its units the human group, insti tutions, kinship systems, systems of production and distribution and cultural values" and that: "it is not 1 /' ' imperative that the behavior of particular individuals involved in them be included in the analysis" (1969:10). Additional support comes from Herskovits who wrote: There is little doubt that culture can be studied without taking human beings into account. Most of the older ethnographies, descriptions of the ways of life of given peoples, are written solely in terms of institutions. Most diffusion studies --those that give the geographic spread of a given element in culture--are presented with out any mention of the individuals who use the objects, or observe given customs. It would be. difficult even for the most psychologically oriented student of human behavior to deny the value of such research, It is essential that the structure of culture be understood, first of all, if the reasons why a people behave as they do are to be grasped; unless the structure of custom is taken fully into account, behavior will be meaningless (1967:21). The above points are well taken, but a major problem in eliciting "the structure of culture" is doing so from data as nearly error free as possible. Such data can often be found in census records. The division of mathematics that would seem appropriate for the evaluation of census data is statistics. Although Harold Driver has pointed out the general limitations of the statistical approach (1961:310-311), it would seem that these limitations do not pose a problem for census data evaluation as the data tends to be highly quantitative, : : ■ . ■ ' ■■ . ; ' • ; " - . ' 3 To be sure, statistics is not the only mathe matical approach to anthropology. This has been aptly demonstrated by such works as Frederick Barth's "Segmentary Opposition and the Theory of Games t A Study . of Pathan Organization" and Harrison White’s Anatomy of Kinship: Mathematical Models for Structures of Cumulated Roles, which use game theory and matrix algebra respectively. The nature of census data is that it tends to be troublesome at the point of evaluation due to the sheer bulk of facts.