Structural Functionalism (anthropological)

Category: Theoretical approaches

Structural functionalism is compromised of two similar anthropological approaches that share the majority of their methodological and theoretical postulates. The first approach originates with Bronislav Malinowski, who called his theory “functionalism” and the other was pioneered by Alfred R. Radcliffe-Brown who named his theory “structural-functionalism”.

There are several shared assumptions between the two approaches. The first assumption is that society should be seen through the metaphor of the organism – the body has organs and cells, while society has institutions and individuals. Both societies and biological organisms have to sustain themselves and reproduce. The second assumption is that societies and cultures tend to be stable and in a state of “homeostasis”, and the impetus for the change has to come from outside. The third assumption is that anthropologists should reject historical and evolutionary speculation on the development of cultures and societies and focus on a synchronic view of society. The fourth assumption is that institutions form an interconnected and stable whole. The fifth assumption is that the goal of the anthropologist is to understand the function that some or all institutions have in maintaining the whole.

Malinowski's Functionalism

Polish-British anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski championed „participant observation“ and what he called „thick description“, both of which focus on the contemporary context of researched society and not on its (speculative) historical development, as the best ethnographic method. The theoretical basis of his functionalism draws from Durkheim and his view that societies are sui generis phenomena, which should be studied in their totality. Starting from the viewpoint of methodological individualism, Malinowski builds his theory of culture as a system that exists to satisfy individual human needs. Human needs are based on innate biological heritage which influences all world cultures. He divides needs into primary (only based on biology) and derived (secondary) that are formed in the interplay of culture and biology.

There are seven pairs of primary needs and their corresponding cultural responses. Basic needs are: 1) metabolism, 2) reproduction, 3) bodily comforts, 4) safety, 5) movement, 6) Growth, 7) Health; and the cultural responses are 1) commissariat, 2) kinship, 3) shelter, 4) protection, 5) activities, 6) training, 7) hygiene. Family is the universal form for satisfying primary (reproduction) and secondary (education) needs. He wants to understand how custom is used in the present and how it fits together with others to form an integral society. Language is also universal, and function is what determines the form, as with all the other cultural patterns.

He sees his approach as a „scientific theory of culture“ and the key and necessary concept in that theory is „institution“, and every institution is defined by the biological need that it satisfies. All the institutions form the integrated and interconnected whole, where every institution, or its change or absence, directly influences all the others. Malinowski's view of culture and institution is individual, utilitarian, integralist, and instrumental. Every institution has six aspects: charter, personnel, norms, material apparatus, activities, and function. He explains the relationship between different aspects of the institution this way: „Organized on the charter, acting through their social and organized cooperation, following the rules of their specific occupation, using the material apparatus at their disposal, the group engages in the activities for which they have organized“ (Malinowski, 1944a: 53). It is important to note that several institutions can serve the same need, while single institution can serve to satisfy several different needs.

Malinowski's functionalism enables anthropologists to understand the behavior of the „primitive“ subject, because, although some of their behavior can seem irrational to the modern onlooker, that behavior functions to serve some, on the surface, hidden need. Magic, for example, serves to help the individual cope with his or her uncertainty or fears. Complex systems of kinship and lines of kinship (usually stemming from totemic animal or plant) also serve to arrange and regulate relations between individuals and families. Similarly, myth has the function to strengthen tradition giving it a sacred and supranatural aura. Religion also uses opulence and ceremonies to sanctify cultural customs and beliefs.

Radcliffe-Brown and Structural-functionalism

British anthropologist Alfred R. Radcliffe-Brown (1881-1955) rejected an individualistic approach to the function of the institutions. According to him, institutions serve to fulfill the structural needs of society and culture. The theoretical approach he developed – structural-functionalism – was influenced by the theories of Émile Durkheim and Kropotkin. From Durkheim, Radcliffe-Brown borrowed the organic analogy, where society is viewed as a biological organism, positivism, and the view of society as composed of juridical roles, statuses, and norms that govern individual’s behavior and are independent of them. From Kropotkin Radcliffe-Brown took the idea of society as self-regulating system and the view that society should be studied through methods of natural sciences. Radcliffe-Brown focused on empirical investigations of social structures as a method for discovering the laws governing society. In order to do so social anthropology has to become the “natural science of human society”. In his view, social anthropology is a nomothetic inquiry that employs inductivist and empiricist approach to seeks for laws and generalizations. The ultimate goal is to build a single unified social science.

Structural-functionalism states that maintaining the social structure, which is composed of social institutions and relations, is the primary function of society, and that social structure has theoretical and explanatory priority over cultural patterns and individuals. For him, the most important information was how people behaved and how social structure shaped that behavior, and not what people believed or thought. The social structure is a network of “actual social relations” so the focus should be on the observable social facts rather than abstract ideas. Structural-functionalism explains social norms in the context of the interrelatedness of different social institutions in areas of economy, kinship, religion, and politics.

Following Rivers and Haddon, who instilled in him the importance of fieldwork for making cross-cultural comparisons, Radcliffe-Brown devised fieldwork questionnaires focused on determining the interrelations of different areas of society. This allowed him to make comparisons between different societies to determine universal relations and “general structural forms” in them.

Radcliffe-Brown discarded other theoretical approaches that try to reconstruct cultural history, like diffusionism and evolutionism, as a “conjectural history.” He saw the concept of “culture,” as a mere abstraction, that is subordinate to social structure. Structural-functionalism uses the notion of “function” to designate a “recurrent activity, which makes for structural continuity”. In this approach, all elements and customs in a society have a distinct function and are interconnected in an integrated coherent whole. Societies usually exist in equilibrium, but when a change happens in one part of a social structure it causes a ripple effect and changes other parts of that structure. In the end, social structure re-adjusts itself and returns to a static state.

Other Notable Structural-functionalists

Other important representatives of both strains of functionalism are Edward E. Evans-Prichard (1902-1973), Raymond Firth (1901-2002), Fortes Mayer (1906-1983), Monica Wilson (1908-1982), and Jack Goody (1919-2015). Evan E. Evans-Pritchard was influenced in his early career by the structural-functionalism of Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown. In the book Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande (1937), Evans-Pritchard studies witchcraft, sorcery, and magic in the Azande population. He rejected Malinowski’s approach to magic and argued that social structures influenced the functions that magic has in some societies. The Azande used practical technical knowledge in raising crops and other everyday tasks, and only in the instances where that everyday practical knowledge failed, did the Azande people turn to the magical way of thinking. Failing crops were often, and illnesses and death were almost always, attributed to conscious sorcery or unconscious witchcraft. There were two types of magical influences. First was witchcraft, which relied on a patrilineally transmitted force named mangu, which was an unconscious supernatural power used to attack others. Another type of magic was sorcery, and it relied on conscious manipulation of materials and formulas, for both beneficial and detrimental uses.

Witchdoctors and oracles were used to determine who was a witch that caused misfortune. Both women (who constitute a larger proportion of the accused) and men could be witches, and the ones identified were supposed to undo the witchcraft. If the outcome of the process was unsuccessful blame could be put on a fraudulent witchdoctor, bewitched or unclean oracle, or the fault may be on the victim itself due to his or her own witchcraft. The only consistent thing relating to every outcome of this whole process was that all explanations of outcomes were related to the core belief in magical influences. Not all Azandes were satisfied with these witch-trials, as kings, princes, and other powerful and privileged individuals were the majority of accusators while most accusations fell on privilegedless and helpless individuals. Evans-Prichard showed that these apparently irrational beliefs could be understood in rational terms of historical power relations between Azandes.

He also argued that anthropologists, in order to fully comprehend other cultures have to accurately translate and understand the concepts that are used in those cultures. To do so anthropologists have to learn the languages, ideas, and concepts of the people they are researching. The dialogue that takes place between people and researcher, and between subjects of research themselves, is the focus of the analysis of knowledge and beliefs of the researched population. While the analysis of Malinowski and Radcliffe- Brown depended more on researchers' “objective” conclusions about researched peoples, Evans-Prichard placed more value on informants’ own subjective beliefs, thoughts, and values.

References:

Evans-Pritchard, E. Edward. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (1937);

- The Nuer (1940);

Firth, Raymond. We the Tikopia (1936);

- (ed.) Man and Culture: An Evaluation of the Work of Bronislaw Malinowski (1957);

Fortes, Mayer. The Web of Kinship Among the Tallensi (1949);

- Oedipus and Job in West African Religion (1959);

Fortes and Evans-Pritchard (eds.). African Political Systems (1940);

Goody, Jack. The Development Cycle in Domestic Groups (1958);

Malinowski, Bronisław. The Family Among the Australian Aborigines (1913);

- Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922);

- Crime and Custom in Savage Society (1926);