ABSTRACT
This chapter offers insights regarding Robert Merton’s adaptation and expansion of Durkheim’s views of anomie. It discusses Merton’s typology of different ways in which people respond to anomie, and how strain theory expands anomie to deal with deviance in a homogeneous culture. The chapter also reviews anomie and strain theory to deal with distinctive groups of peoples. It describes the usage of anomie and related concepts to deal with social and psychological dys-function among indigenous, ethnic, and rural peoples. Merton provides a crucial advance by focusing upon a wide array of possible responses to anomie and cultural strain. This typology is useful even if those being examined are not members of the mainstream culture. In such cases, people are asked to abandon or disregard their cultural traditions or heritage in order to embrace another competing system that might be exerting significant economic, social, or political leverage.
