Social change: Sociological and anthropological moorings

Social change is the universal feature of human societies across time and space. The fundamental principle underlying this statement is the degree, pattern, unit, and direction of change. The objective of the paper is to underline key sociological and socio-anthropological theorizations of social change. The paper begins with conceptual underpinnings of social change and subsequently moving towards classification and typology of social change as evident in major writings. Descriptive and analytical elaboration of Evolution and Diffusion as forms of social change are included in the socio-anthropological scholarship on social change. Cyclical and ‘Cultural Lag’ perspectives form the core of sociological interpretations of social change. Towards the end of the paper, a brief outline of modernization as a form of social change is attempted. The key issues are once again underlined and summarized in the concluding section of the paper.