Basic Concepts | ISC Class 11 Sociology Notes

This note covers the basic concepts of sociology: the individual and society, the definition and characteristics of society, rural and urban society with their features, problems and differences, socialisation and its agencies, natural selection, social selection and heredity, nature versus nurture and the feral cases of Anna, Genie, and Amala and Kamala, culture and its characteristics, norms, folkways, mores, customs and values, material and non-material culture, culture lag, culture conflict and traditional practices such as sacred groves, johads and eris.

How is the individual related to society?

A central task of sociology is to explore the interplay of society and the individual. Individuals do not float freely in society. They are part of collective bodies like the family, tribe, caste, class, clan and nation.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle described the human being as by nature an animal that lives in a community. Sociologists express the same idea by calling man a social animal: a person becomes fully human only by living with others.

Status and role: the individual's place in society

Every individual occupies positions in society. A status is simply a position in society or in a group, with defined rights and duties. A role is the dynamic or behavioural aspect of status: status is occupied, but roles are played.

In a modern society an individual occupies many positions at once, called a status set. A school student may be a student to the teacher, a customer to the grocer, a passenger to the bus driver and a patient to the doctor.

An ascribed status is occupied because of birth or assumed involuntarily, for example on the basis of age, caste, race and kinship. An achieved status is occupied voluntarily through personal ability, achievements, virtues and choices, such as educational qualifications, income and professional expertise.

Does society control the individual completely?

Society shapes individuals, but individuals are not passive. Roles and status are often wrongly seen as fixed and unchanging. In fact individuals create and negotiate roles through an ongoing process of social interaction.

People make efforts to fight against discriminatory roles and status, for example those based on caste, race or gender. At the same time some sections in society oppose such changes, and individual violations of roles are often punished.

So the relationship is two-way. Society makes the individual through upbringing and control, and individuals, acting together, can change society to an extent.

What is society, and what are its characteristics?

A defining feature of human life is that humans interact, communicate and construct social collectivities. In every society, whether ancient, feudal or modern, Asian, European or African, human groups exist, but the types of groups differ from society to society.

MacIver and Page described society as a web of social relationships that is always changing. Society, in this sense, is not a crowd of people but the pattern of relationships among them.

Definition: Society. A web of social relationships among people who interact continuously, share a culture and common norms, and have a sense of belonging together.

Any gathering of people does not necessarily constitute a social group. Aggregates are collections of people in the same place at the same time who share no definite connection, such as passengers waiting at a railway station or a cinema audience.

Characteristics of society

• Society is abstract: it is made of relationships, which cannot be seen or touched, though people and their actions can.
• Persistent interaction: members interact persistently, and these interactions form a stable pattern. This regular, repetitive pattern is called social structure.
• Likeness: members share a sense of belonging, a "we" feeling, and accept common norms and values.
• Differences: people differ in age, sex, ability and occupation, and these differences produce a division of labour in which each performs different tasks.
• Interdependence: because tasks are divided, people depend on one another to meet their needs.
• Co-operation and conflict: members work together for shared interests but also compete and clash; sociologists debate whether society is essentially harmonious or conflict ridden.
• Culture: every society has its own way of life, which it passes on to new members.
• Social control: society uses formal means, such as law and the state, and informal means, such as ridicule or praise, to keep members in line.
• Dynamic: society keeps changing; even who belongs and who does not changes with time and social context.
• Continuity: society outlasts its individual members, who are born, live and die while the society continues.

Two broad views exist. Functionalists compare society to an organism whose parts each have a function for the maintenance of the whole. Conflict theorists, influenced by Marxism, see society as essentially conflict ridden.

What are rural and urban societies?

Classical sociologists contrasted the old traditional and agrarian way of life with the new modern and urban one. They saw simple, small-scale and traditional societies as marked by close, face-to-face interaction, and modern, large-scale societies by formal interaction.

Rural society

A rural society is a society living in villages, in which agriculture and related occupations are the main source of livelihood. Its main characteristics are:

• Agriculture-based economy and closeness to nature, with life following the seasons.
• Small size and low density of population.
• Homogeneity: people share similar occupations, beliefs and ways of life.
• Primary relations: relationships are face-to-face, personal and enduring.
• Strong family and kinship, often with joint families and the authority of elders.
• Informal social control through family, religion, kinship and public opinion.
• Ascribed status matters more; caste and kinship shape a person's position.
• Slow social change and attachment to tradition.

Villages also draw lines between insiders and outsiders. While carrying out a census in Rampura in 1948, M.N. Srinivas heard villagers describe recent immigrants, almost contemptuously, with an expression meaning 'came yesterday or the day before', and old immigrants with one meaning 'came long ago'.

Urban society

An urban society is a society living in towns and cities, in which most people work in industry, trade and services. Its main characteristics are:

• Large size and high density of population.
• Heterogeneity: people of different castes, religions, languages and regions live together.
• Secondary relations: relationships are formal, impersonal and goal oriented.
• A complex division of labour and specialisation of occupations.
• Formal social control through law, the police and other agencies of the state.
• Achieved status and greater social mobility.
• Individualism and smaller, often nuclear, families.
• Rapid social change.

The sociologist A.R. Desai noted that "Modern industries brought into being modern cities honeycombed with cosmopolitan hotels, restaurants, theatres, trams, buses, railways." In these places people of all castes mixed, though he warned that it should not be supposed that caste had vanished.

How do rural and urban societies differ?

Sociologists described the contrast using two pairs of terms. A community refers to relationships that are highly personal, intimate and enduring, as in the family or a close-knit group. 'Society' or 'association' refers to the apparently impersonal, superficial and transitory relationships of modern urban life.

Commerce and industry require a more calculating, rational and self-interested approach to dealings with others. In the city, we make contracts or agreements rather than getting to know one another.

A parallel can be drawn between the community and the primary group, a small group connected by intimate, face-to-face association, and between the association and the secondary group, which is relatively large, formal and impersonal.

A complete contrast is probably not an accurate description of reality. Interaction among members of a formal group can, over time, become close and 'just like family and friends'. Villages also change, and cities keep many village ties.

Note: The rural and urban types are tools, not exact pictures. Concepts are keys to open locks to understand society; if a key does not fit, sociologists modify it.

What problems do rural and urban societies face?

Both rural and urban societies face problems that are not just personal troubles but public issues rooted in social structure.

Problems of rural society

• Poverty and indebtedness: small, fragmented landholdings and low incomes push many families into debt.
• Unemployment and underemployment: farm work is seasonal, so many people have work for only part of the year.
• Dependence on the monsoon: failure of rains can ruin crops.
• Illiteracy and poor access to schools, health care and sanitation.
• Caste discrimination: even today acute caste discrimination exists, though discriminated castes increasingly assert their democratic rights.
• Migration: lack of opportunities drives people, especially the young, to cities.

Problems of urban society

• Overcrowding and slums: rapid migration outruns housing, so many live in slums.
• Pollution of air and water, and heavy traffic.
• Inadequate civic services, such as water supply, drainage and waste disposal.
• Unemployment and insecure, informal work.
• Crime and deviance, linked to anonymity and weak informal control.
• Loneliness and stress, because secondary relations replace close ties.
• Persistence of discrimination: in a mill there may be no open discrimination, but private interactions can still show caste prejudice.

These problems are linked. Rural distress feeds migration, and migration adds to urban crowding, so the two must be understood together.

What is socialisation?

Socialisation is the process by which an individual learns the culture of a society, its norms, values, language and roles, and so becomes a functioning member of it.

Definition: Socialisation. The lifelong process of social learning through which a person internalises the norms, values and roles of society and develops a social self.

Through socialisation, individuals internalise social roles and learn how to carry them out. A child learns to behave in accordance with how her behaviour will be seen and judged by others. This is called role taking and role playing.

Man as a social animal

A newborn human has biological needs but no culture. Without care and interaction, it cannot learn to speak, walk upright in the usual way, or follow the rules of social life. The feral cases discussed below show this clearly.

The human being is also a rational being, able to think, plan and choose. Socialisation teaches people to use reason together with others, for example in co-operating to manage water, forests and farmland, as traditional practices show.

Characteristics of socialisation

• It is a process of learning through interaction with others.
• It is lifelong: it begins at birth and continues as people take on new statuses, such as worker, parent or grandparent.
• It transmits culture from one generation to the next.
• It shapes the self and personality.
• It varies from society to society and from one period to another.
• It works through sanctions: rewards for expected behaviour and punishments for deviance.
• It involves agency: humans are not simply passive subjects waiting to be instructed or programmed.

Socialisation can also produce role stereotyping, a process of reinforcing some specific role for some members of society. For example, men and women are often socialised in stereotypical roles, as breadwinner and homemaker respectively.

What are the agencies of socialisation?

An agency of socialisation is a group or institution through which socialisation takes place. Agencies are usually divided into primary and secondary agencies.

Primary agencies

Primary agencies work through close, face-to-face relationships, mostly in early life.

• Family: the first and most important agency. The child learns language, habits, manners, values and its earliest roles here. Family is also an agency of informal social control.
• Peer group: a kind of primary group, usually formed between individuals of similar age or in a common professional group. Peer pressure is the social pressure exerted by one's peers on what one ought to do or not, for example about dress, music or films.

Secondary agencies

Secondary agencies work through more formal and impersonal relationships, mostly later in life.

• School: a secondary group that teaches knowledge and skills, and also discipline, punctuality, competition and co-operation.
• Religion: teaches beliefs, moral rules and rituals, and acts as an agency of informal social control.
• Mass media: newspapers, television, films and the internet spread ideas and lifestyles. Marketing strategies and advertisements, for instance, target teenagers and pre-teens.
• Society and community: neighbours, the wider community and reference groups whose lifestyles people emulate. In the colonial period many middle-class Indians aspired to behave like proper Englishmen.

What do natural selection, social selection and heredity mean?

Human beings are shaped both by biology and by society. Three terms describe how traits are passed on or favoured.

• Natural selection is the process, described by Charles Darwin, by which organisms better adapted to their environment survive and reproduce, passing their traits to the next generation.
• Social selection is the process by which society, through its norms, values and institutions, favours some individuals or traits over others, for example through rules about whom one may marry or through selection for education and jobs.
• Heredity is the transmission of physical and some mental traits from parents to children through genes, such as skin colour, height or blood group.

In caste societies, for example, rules of endogamy (marriage within the group) are a form of social selection, because society, not nature, decides who may marry whom.

Nature versus nurture

The nature versus nurture debate asks whether human behaviour is shaped more by heredity (nature) or by environment and socialisation (nurture).

• Nature refers to inborn, biological inheritance, such as physical features and some aptitudes.
• Nurture refers to everything a person learns from family, school, peers, media and the wider culture.

Sociologists stress nurture, because language, values, manners and roles are all learnt. Most scholars today hold that nature and nurture interact: heredity provides potential, and socialisation decides how far and in which direction it develops.

The feral cases support this view. Children with normal human heredity who were denied social contact did not develop normal human speech or behaviour.

What do feral children show about man as a social being?

Feral children are children who grew up with little or no human contact, either isolated by adults or, it is claimed, living among animals. Their cases show what happens when socialisation is missing.

The case of Anna

Anna was found in 1938 in Pennsylvania, USA, at about six years of age. Because she was born outside marriage, she had been kept alone in a room and given little more than milk to survive.

When found, she could not walk, talk or feed herself, and showed almost no response to people. The sociologist Kingsley Davis studied her case.

With care in a special home, Anna learnt to walk, feed herself, keep herself clean and say a few words. She died in 1942, at about ten years of age, with the abilities of a much younger child.

1. Isolation: Anna was cut off from normal interaction for her first years.
2. Discovery: she was found unable to walk, talk or feed herself.
3. Re-socialisation: with care and contact she began to learn basic human skills.
4. Limited recovery: she learnt only a little before her early death.
5. Lesson: human abilities depend on social interaction, not on biology alone.

Genie, and Amala and Kamala

Taken together, these cases show that being human is not given by birth alone. A person becomes a social being through socialisation.

What is culture, and what are its characteristics?

The anthropologist E.B. Tylor defined culture as that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.

Definition: Culture. The whole way of life of a society, including its knowledge, beliefs, values, norms, customs, language and material objects, which is learnt and shared by its members.

Characteristics of culture

• Culture is learnt: it is acquired through socialisation, not inherited biologically.
• Culture is shared: it belongs to a group, not to one person.
• Culture is transmitted: it passes from one generation to the next, mainly through language and symbols.
• Culture is social: it exists only in society and through interaction.
• Culture satisfies needs: it gives ways of meeting needs for food, shelter, order and meaning.
• Culture is adaptive: it helps people adjust to their natural and social environment.
• Culture is integrated: its parts, such as beliefs, customs and technology, are linked.
• Culture is dynamic: it changes over time, sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly.
• Culture varies: each society has its own culture, so what is normal in one may be strange in another.

Culture is also a main source of identity, the distinctive character of a person or group that relates to who they are and what is meaningful to them. Gender, nationality or ethnicity and social class are among its main sources.

What are norms, folkways, mores, customs and values?

Every culture guides behaviour through rules and ideals. These are the building blocks of culture.

Norms and sanctions

Norms are rules of behaviour which reflect or embody a culture's values, either prescribing a given type of behaviour or forbidding it. Norms are always backed by sanctions of one kind or another, varying from informal disapproval to physical punishment or execution.

A sanction is a mode of reward or punishment that reinforces socially expected forms of behaviour. Actions that do not conform to the norms or values held by most members of a group are called deviance. What counts as deviant varies widely across cultures and periods.

For example, a woman choosing to become an astronaut may be considered deviant at one time, and be applauded at another time, even in the same society.

Folkways, mores, customs and values

• Folkways, a term made famous by W.G. Sumner, are everyday, customary ways of behaving, such as greeting elders or table manners. Breaking them brings only mild disapproval.
• Mores are norms with moral importance, considered vital for the welfare of the group, such as the ban on theft or on cruelty to children. Breaking them brings strong punishment.
• Customs are long-established, socially accepted practices passed down the generations, such as the rituals of festivals and weddings.
• Values are ideas held by individuals or groups about what is desirable, proper, good or bad, such as honesty or respect for elders.

Norms are enforced through informal social control, such as smiles, frowns, body language, criticism, ridicule and laughter, and through formal social control, such as law and the state.

What are material and non-material culture, culture lag and culture conflict?

Material and non-material culture

• Material culture consists of the physical objects that people make and use, such as tools, houses, clothes, machines and roads.
• Non-material culture consists of the ideas, beliefs, values, norms, knowledge and language of a society.

The two are linked. A plough is material culture, but the knowledge of when to plough, and the beliefs attached to the harvest, are non-material culture.

Culture lag

Culture lag, a term introduced by W.F. Ogburn, is the gap that arises when material culture changes faster than non-material culture. Technology changes quickly, but laws, values and habits take longer to adjust.

For example, new communication technology can spread faster than the norms and laws needed to govern its use.

Culture conflict

Culture conflict is the tension that arises when groups with different norms and values come into contact, or when old and new values clash within one society.

It can occur when migrants meet the culture of a new place; migrants are often considered an out-group. It can also be seen in the colonial period, when Indian men often wanted to dress and dine like British men but wanted Indian women to remain 'Indian' in their ways.

How did past traditions unite material and non-material culture?

Many past traditions in India show a close understanding of how material and non-material culture work together with the local environment. Here human beings act as rational and social partners in caring for nature.

Sacred groves

Sacred groves are patches of forest protected by local communities because they are dedicated to a deity or ancestral spirit. Cutting trees or hunting there is usually forbidden.

The belief (non-material culture) protects the trees, springs and wildlife (material environment). In this way religion and custom conserved biodiversity long before modern conservation laws.

Johads

Johads are traditional earthen check dams or ponds built in Rajasthan to collect rainwater. They show both engineering knowledge and community co-operation. A johad works in steps:

1. Villagers build a crescent-shaped earthen embankment across a slope.
2. Monsoon rainwater running down the slope collects behind the embankment.
3. The stored water slowly seeps into the ground, recharging groundwater.
4. Wells in the area fill up, and water is available after the rains end.
5. The community shares the water for drinking, cattle and irrigation, following agreed rules.

Eris

Eris are the traditional water tanks of South India, especially Tamil Nadu. They store rainwater for irrigation, help control floods and recharge groundwater. Their upkeep was traditionally a shared village responsibility.

Crops in harmony with the seasons

Farmers traditionally chose crops to suit the local soil, rainfall and seasons. In India, kharif crops such as rice are sown with the monsoon, and rabi crops such as wheat are sown in winter.

Farm knowledge, festivals tied to sowing and harvest, and rules for sharing water all formed a non-material culture that fitted the material environment. These traditions show culture as an adaptive whole.

Glossary

• Society: A web of social relationships among people who interact persistently, share common norms and have a sense of belonging.
• Social group: A collection of continuously interacting persons who share common interest, culture, values and norms within a given society.
• Aggregate: A collection of people in the same place at the same time who share no definite connection, such as a cinema audience.
• Community: Human relationships that are highly personal, intimate and enduring, as in the family or a close-knit group.
• Association: The impersonal, superficial and transitory relationships typical of modern urban life, based on contracts and agreements.
• Socialisation: The lifelong process through which individuals learn and internalise the norms, values and roles of their society.
• Peer group: A kind of primary group, usually of individuals of similar age or in a common professional group.
• Heredity: The transmission of physical and some mental traits from parents to children through genes.
• Social selection: The process by which society's norms and institutions favour some individuals or traits over others, as in marriage rules.
• Culture: The learnt and shared way of life of a society, including knowledge, beliefs, values, norms, customs and objects.
• Norms: Rules of behaviour which reflect a culture's values, prescribing or forbidding behaviour, always backed by sanctions.
• Mores: Norms with moral significance, considered vital for group welfare, whose violation brings strong punishment.
• Sanction: A mode of reward or punishment that reinforces socially expected forms of behaviour.
• Culture lag: Ogburn's term for the gap when non-material culture fails to keep pace with changes in material culture.
• Culture conflict: Tension that arises when different sets of norms and values come into contact or clash within a society.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: Any crowd of people is a social group. Correct: An aggregate, such as passengers at a bus stop, shares no definite connection; a social group needs persistent interaction, a sense of belonging and common norms.
• Misconception: Socialisation ends with childhood. Correct: Socialisation is lifelong; people keep learning new roles as workers, parents and grandparents.
• Misconception: Individuals simply take on roles exactly as society defines them. Correct: Individuals exercise agency; they create and negotiate roles through ongoing social interaction.
• Misconception: Folkways and mores are the same. Correct: Folkways are everyday manners with mild sanctions; mores carry moral weight and strong sanctions.
• Misconception: Culture lag means a society has no culture. Correct: Culture lag is the gap that appears when non-material culture changes more slowly than material culture.
• Misconception: Rural and urban societies are completely opposite. Correct: A complete contrast is probably not accurate; formal groups can become close, and villages and cities share many features.
• Misconception: The peer group is a secondary agency of socialisation. Correct: The peer group is a kind of primary group, based on close interaction among people of similar age or occupation.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. What is an aggregate? Give one example. [2 marks]

1. An aggregate is a collection of people who are in the same place at the same time but share no definite connection with one another.
2. Passengers waiting at a railway station, or a cinema audience, are examples of aggregates.

Q2. Define culture lag and name the sociologist who introduced the term. [2 marks]

1. Culture lag is the gap that arises when non-material culture, such as values, laws and habits, changes more slowly than material culture, such as technology.
2. The term was introduced by the sociologist W.F. Ogburn.

Q3. Distinguish between folkways and mores, giving an example of each. [4 marks]

1. Folkways are everyday, customary ways of behaving, while mores are norms with moral significance for the group.
2. Folkways are matters of convenience and manners, while mores are seen as essential to group welfare.
3. Breaking folkways brings mild disapproval, such as ridicule or a frown, while breaking mores brings strong punishment.
4. Table manners or ways of greeting are folkways; the ban on theft or cruelty to children is an example of mores.

Q4. Riya, aged 15, changes the way she dresses and the music she listens to so that her friends will approve. Identify the agency of socialisation at work and explain its role with four points. [4 marks]

1. The agency at work is the peer group, a kind of primary group formed among individuals of similar age.
2. Riya is experiencing peer pressure, the social pressure exerted by one's peers on what one ought to do or not.
3. The peer group teaches tastes, styles, slang and values shared by people of the same age, often different from those of the family.
4. It also gives a sense of belonging and identity, and its approval or disapproval acts as a sanction that shapes behaviour.

Q5. Explain the nature versus nurture debate. [4 marks]

1. The debate asks whether human behaviour is shaped more by heredity (nature) or by environment and socialisation (nurture).
2. Nature refers to inborn biological inheritance, such as physical features and some aptitudes passed on through genes.
3. Nurture refers to everything learnt from family, school, peers, media and culture, including language, values and roles.
4. Most scholars hold that the two interact: heredity provides potential, and socialisation decides how it develops, as feral cases show.

Q6. Explain any seven characteristics of society. [7 marks]

1. Society is abstract, because it is a web of social relationships that cannot be seen or touched.
2. Members interact persistently, and these interactions form a stable pattern called social structure.
3. Society is based on likeness: members share a sense of belonging and accept common norms and values.
4. Society also involves differences of age, sex and ability, which create a division of labour.
5. Because tasks are divided, members are interdependent and rely on one another for their needs.
6. Society involves both co-operation and conflict, as members work together yet also compete for resources.
7. Society is dynamic and keeps changing, yet it continues beyond the lives of its individual members.

Q7. "Man becomes human only through society." Discuss this statement with reference to socialisation and the case of Anna. [7 marks]

1. Socialisation is the lifelong process through which a person learns the norms, values, language and roles of society.
2. A newborn has biological needs but no culture; it must learn to speak, behave and follow rules through interaction.
3. Anna was found in 1938 in Pennsylvania, USA, at about six years of age, after being kept alone in a room because she was born outside marriage.
4. When found, she could not walk, talk or feed herself and showed almost no response to people.
5. With care in a special home, she learnt to walk, feed herself, keep herself clean and say a few words.
6. She died in 1942, at about ten, with the abilities of a much younger child, showing how much isolation had cost her.
7. The case shows that human abilities depend on social interaction, not biology alone, so man becomes human only through society.

Q8. Compare rural and urban society on any seven bases. [7 marks]

1. Occupation: rural people mainly practise agriculture, while urban people work in industry, trade and services.
2. Size and density: rural society has a small population and low density; urban society has a large population and high density.
3. Composition: rural society is homogeneous, while urban society is heterogeneous.
4. Relations: rural society is marked by community and primary groups; urban society by association and secondary groups.
5. Social control: rural society relies on informal control through family, religion and kinship; urban society on formal control through law and the state.
6. Status: ascribed status matters more in rural society, while achieved status matters more in urban society.
7. Change: rural society changes slowly and values tradition, while urban society changes rapidly.

Key takeaways

• Individuals are part of collective bodies like family, caste, class and nation; society shapes them, yet they can negotiate roles and change society to an extent.
• Society is a web of social relationships marked by persistent interaction, likeness, difference, interdependence, co-operation and conflict, culture, social control and change.
• Rural society is small, homogeneous and agricultural with primary relations; urban society is large, heterogeneous and industrial with secondary relations.
• Rural problems include poverty, indebtedness, underemployment and caste discrimination; urban problems include slums, pollution, crime, loneliness and inadequate civic services.
• Socialisation is the lifelong process of learning a society's norms, values and roles; family and peer groups are primary agencies, and school, religion and media secondary ones.
• Natural selection, social selection and heredity explain how traits are favoured or passed on; nature and nurture interact in shaping human behaviour.
• The feral cases of Anna, Genie, and Amala and Kamala show that without social interaction children do not develop normal human speech and behaviour.
• Culture is learnt, shared, transmitted and dynamic; norms, folkways, mores, customs and values guide behaviour, backed by sanctions.
• Culture lag and culture conflict describe tensions within culture, while sacred groves, johads and eris show material and non-material culture in harmony.

Test yourself

What is the difference between a status and a role?

A status is a position in society with defined rights and duties; a role is its behavioural aspect. Status is occupied, but roles are played.

What are the two main types of social control?

Formal social control, through codified mechanisms such as law and the state, and informal social control, through smiles, frowns, ridicule and criticism.

Name two primary and two secondary agencies of socialisation.

Primary agencies include the family and the peer group; secondary agencies include the school, religion and the mass media.

What is social selection?

The process by which society's norms, values and institutions favour some individuals or traits over others, for example through marriage rules or selection for jobs.

What did the case of Genie suggest about language?

Genie learnt many words after her rescue at 13 but never fully mastered grammar, suggesting a critical period in childhood for learning language.

Give one example each of material and non-material culture.

A village water tank is material culture; the rules and beliefs about how its water is shared are non-material culture.

What is a johad?

A traditional earthen check dam or pond in Rajasthan that collects monsoon rainwater and recharges groundwater for the community's use.

What are eris?

The traditional village water tanks of South India, especially Tamil Nadu, used to store rainwater for irrigation, control floods and recharge groundwater.