V. Structural Functionalism, Functionalism, and Structuralism

The theory of Structural Functionalism was developed by A.R. Radcliffe-Brown. Structural Functionalism analyzes particular social systems in a wider context of many different societies. Radcliffe-Brown was concerned with what keeps societies from falling apart. He identified similar customs in different societies and compared them in order to discover the customs’ inherent functions. Through this comparative method, he attempted to explain underlying principles that preserve the structure of each society.

Radcliffe-Brown used his structural-functional model to Social Anthropology for explaining the social structure to discover the social laws.

The theory of Functionalism claims that no culture traits are/was functionless. They consist of a body of institutions related to adaptive needs of man. Functionalism claimed to study those institutions (economic, political, law, educational, religious etc.) to understand the function of culture. The theoretical school of Functionalism considers a culture as an interrelated whole, not a collection of isolated traits. The Functionalists examined how a particular cultural phase is interrelated with other aspects of the culture and how it affects the whole system of the society. One of the first key functionalists in social anthropology and ethnography was the Polish-born social anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski. He helped propound the idea of functionalism and how we can perceive societies from a functionalist perspective. The method of functionalism was based on fieldwork and direct observations of societies. The anthropologists were to describe various cultural institutions that make up a society, explain their social function, and show their contribution to the overall stability of a society. At the same time, this functionalism approach was criticized for not considering cultural changes of traditional societies.

Structuralism assumes that cultural forms are based on common properties of the human mind. The goal of Structuralism is to discover universal principles of the human mind underlying each cultural trait and custom. This theoretical school was almost single handedly established by Claude Levi-Strauss (the father of structuralism). The theoretical basis of Structuralism came from linguistics. All of us know how to use our languages even though we are not aware of the grammatical and phonetic rules. The job of a linguist is to discover these unconscious principles of languages. In the same fashion, the Structuralists tried to design a systematic method to uncover this underlying structure of cultures.