Sodality (social anthropology)

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In social anthropology, a sodality is a non-kin group organized for a specific purpose (economic, cultural, or other), and frequently spanning villages or towns [1]. Sodalities are often based on common age or gender, with all-male sodalities more common than all-female. One aspect of a sodality is that of a group "representing a certain level of achievement in the society, much like the stages of an undergraduate's progress through college [university]" [2]. In the anthropological literature, the Mafia in Sicily has been described as a sodality [3]. Other examples include Masai war camps, and Crow and Cheyenne military associations, groups that were not much unlike today's Veterans of Foreign Wars or American Legion.^[1]

The term was coined by Elman Service, as part of his band-tribe-chiefdom-state model for the progression of political integration. It defined an organization that occurred across bands, and therefore was a part of a tribe, rather than a band, which was composed of only kin.^[2]