Describe the premises of functionalism.

 Durkheim is not a ‘functionalist’ in the sense in which this term has come to be used for the approach that the British social anthropologists, A.R. RadcliffeBrown (1881-1955) and Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942), have espoused. Durkheim does not use the term ‘functionalism’, although he defines the concept of social function. One comes across in Durkheim’s works a fine coexistence of the diachronic (genetic, evolutionary, and historical) and the synchronic (society ‘here and now’) approaches. For instance, in his celebrated study of religion, he begins with a consideration of Australian Totemism as the most elementary form of religious life, but instead of speculating on origin he is more concerned with the function of totemism and how its study can help us in understanding the place of religion in complex societies. This emphasis on the study of synchronous (or ‘present’) societies exerted a tremendous impact on later scholars.

 

The beginning of the twentieth century witnessed the rise of functionalism and disappearance of evolutionary theory. Adam Kuper (1973) thinks that 1922 was the ‘year of wonder’ (annus mirabilis) of functionalism, for in this year were published two monographs that substantiated the functional approach. One was by Radcliffe-Brown titled The Andaman Islanders, and the other, by Malinowski, titled Argonauts of the Western Pacific. The impact of anthropological functionalism was felt in other disciplines, particularly sociology. Sociologists such as Talcott Parsons were clearly impressed with the writings of functional anthropologists. As a result functionalism emerged as an extremely important approach, holding its sway till the late 1960s and the early 1970s. In its history of about 150 years, first in the positivism of Comte, then in the ‘sociologistic positivism’ of Durkheim, and then, in the works of the twentieth-century functionalists, functionalism has come to comprise a number of variants and fact. Pointed differences exist between different functionalists – in fact, some of them happen to be archrivals, like Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski. Notwithstanding their differences, it seems that all functionalists share the following five propositions:

 

1. 1)      Society (or culture) is a system like any other system, such as solar system, or organic system.
2. 2)      As a system, society (or culture) consists of parts (like, institutions, groups, role, associations, organisations), which are interconnected, interrelated, and interdependent.
3. 3)      Each part performs its own function – it makes its own contribution to the whole society (or culture) – and also, it functions in relationship with other parts.
4. 4)      A change in one part brings about a change in other parts, or at least influences the functioning of other parts, because all the parts are closely connected.
5. 5)      The entire society or culture – for which we can use the term ‘whole’ is greater than the mere summation of parts. It cannot be reduced to any part, or no part can explain the whole. A society (or culture) has its own identity, its own ‘consciousness’, or in Durkheim’s words, ‘collective consciousness’

Subcribe on Youtube - IGNOU SERVICE

For PDF copy of Solved Assignment

WhatsApp Us - 9113311883(Paid)