Functionalism in Anthropology: Malinowski's Theory Explained

[00:00:16]hello students welcome to EPG patala I'm Dr KR Ram moan associate professor at Department of anthropology sikim University today we are going to talk a module on functionalism from the paper theories and methods in Social and cultural anthropology so before we go to discuss about this module let us see what are the learning outcomes to understand and build the concepts of functionalism to know about the prominent theorist associated with functionalism to understand various schools of thoughts related to functionalism and to know about the causes behind its decline or its criticisms so before we go on to this important module on functionalism let us know who are The prominent sociologist and other social Anthropologist who have profoundly contributed to this functionalist school of thought starting with sociologist August comt we have hbert Spencer of course the main prominent Anthropologist who have propagated this concept of functionalism is malinowski and we have this sociologist from IM dorum and later other Anthropologist also joined this ban wagon or Bley Brown was modified little bit Pritchard Raymond F Edmund leech Lucy mayor so let us understand what is the main concept of function and functionalism it is considered to be one of the prominent schools of thought in order to understand various aspects of culture and Society so the whole purpose of functionalism is that how did cultures evolve and why cultures are in place so functionalism as a school of thought as a perspective as a reaction to the classical evolutionism and diffusionism in the early 19th century now the basic aspect of functionalism is to look look for what are the functions or the part that is played by several aspects of the culture so that the end product is to maintain a social system so generally it is considered as a framework that considers society as a whole system whose Parts work together to promote social solidarity and stability so this approach of theoretical orientation looks at both social structure and social function and in functionalism social functions are more important rather than the structure so to go in detail about functionalism it describes the interation between several parts of a society for that matter any society or any culture so these parts are the constituent elements of society all social organizations or anything which could be named as Norms Traditions customs and social institutions like major social institutions like economy religion kinship and these parts are interrelated and they're interdependent with one another one part is dependent on this part and this part is dependent on that part that part is dependent on this part so the main proponent of functionalism is brownl malinowski later on L bound has taken to a different approach as malow suggested that individual have physiological needs to put it simply the basic primary needs are food shelter and reproduction now now how these needs are fulfilled yes individuals need food individuals need shelter individuals need to reproduce the offsprings now there should be some mechanism to fulfill these needs and these needs are fulfilled by different social institutions so it is an internal adjustment or an internal arrangement of every culture to satisfy individual needs there should be some social institution so that his behavior can be regularized or it is socially accepted so manowski talked about these as instrumental needs or the four basic instrumental needs and These instrumental needs are channeled through economics social control educational system and political organization also need to reach these individuals and these are the institutional devices so that all the needs are fulfilled now being said that there is some kind of an arrangement to fulfill all these needs so that Society can function on its own and these things come together in every cultural context and it is the ethnographer to look into these institutions and how it has a functional value so manowski is considered to be the proponent of doing extensive field work in an alien land and his famous works is on trand Islanders social life which has culminated into a wonderful book called the argonut of Western Pacific is considered to be the most widely read and enjoyed in anthropological literature so let us look into what is the basic understanding of social function so the term function has several meanings ranging from biological physical and even to social sciences so in the realm of biological sciences the term acquired a definite meaning in terms of relationship between an organism and its parts of the organism like an organism and this concept of function as profusely used by August comt and Herbert Spencer to put it into the sociological realm even Dum has used this word extensively to understand societies now darim has come into two important explanations that it has two components one is the cause of the phenomena why what is the cause of this phenomena for example an institution and how does it function in Social cultural anthropology the term function is used in preference to an end or a purpose what is the end product of this function to satisfy some needs or to get into marriage or get into this thing so darkim described function as so it is the contribution of any part to the larger hole here the larger hole is nothing but a society or a social system and this contribution is to maintain the well-being of the whole for example the body heart is there heart has a function some other part is there lever is there so in that sense and each giving some contributing to the body so that same analogy they wanted to put it to the society so Society is a constituent of social units and each social unit has a function to play and this function is interrelated with other things and thus function has a very positive purpose so the whole concept of functionalism is nothing but Society is like a an an organism a biological organism any biological organism and biological organism has different parts and each part is contributing to the overall maintenance of the body or the organism or we can say organic so here organic life is compared to social life now sometimes there is also a negative way called dysfunction if there is a dysfunction one part leads to another part another part leads to another part and there will be a total collapse of the organization so in this we need to understand there are two concept enomia and dysnomia these are the two conditions of where yomia is the positive condition dysnomia is the negative condition where Society collapse so in the similar ve manowski thought that all customs and institutions in a society are integrated they are interrelated so if one change takes in one aspect it changed the other aspect and there could be a overall change and for this he gives that ethnography could begin from anywhere in a society but eventually get at the rest of the culture so in his famous study of trand Islanders fishing could lead to ethnographer to study the entire economic system say the role of magic how magic is related to fishing how religion is related to the fishing activity what are the myths constructed towards the fishing activity and what kind of trade is taking place towards the fishing activity with this kind of fishing activity what kind of kinship systems they have developed they have established which has a role with the economic activity and see the Beauty here is that all are interconnected and he warns us that if any change takes place in one part of this it will also result in other parts of the system so an ethnographer should always keep it in mind that he has to consider the other parts in this larger hole now the second strand of malow's functionalism as we all know need functionalism so every human being and cultures have a set of universal biological needs and various customs and institutions have come into place in existence to fulfill these needs so manowski looked at culture the need of people thought that the primary role of culture is to satisfy all the individual members needs hence it is called a biocultural functionalism so there is a biological need like hunger like thirst like reproduction and what is the mechanism to reach out these needs so culture facilitates through a particular Institution for example human beings have the need for sex so how once sexual needs are being fulfilled sexual needs are fulfilled through a social institution marriage and marriage leads to family so one has to understand this from this perspective that that there is a biocultural functionalism malski has said that so the the core of aspect of culture is need surviving system hence culture is a system which satisfies needs such as food reproduction security health protection and any other need felt by individual of the society so now that he's stressing more on individual his entire Theory can also be put it as psychological functionalism now let us look into what are the methodologies in this functionalism or functionalist approach yes it has given contributed a lot in in in anthropology now functionalism gave importance to social institutions by considering them as these social institutions are active integrated parts of the social system which functions to maintain social order and social solidarity although functionalism had certain limitations but it had a great methodological contribution how malinowski has stressed the importance of long-term field workor indepth study of a particular society only then the ethnographer can know what are the real features and functioning of the society or a culture without doing long-term field work without knowing the natives language without doing participant observation no ethnographer can come to In terms with what is happening in that culture so this has given a lot of importance in anthropological literature particularly in producing ethnographies and monographs and it also given understanding that a functional relationship between institutions and social structure when we collect a large amount of data so function ISM as a school of thought and an approach in studying cultures and societies the way it works the way it functions and the way it exerts influence on individual members so ethnographers or anthropologists who followed functional approach must do intensive field work be it any society it could be a small simple tribal Society or if it is a semi- rural Society or even an urban Society no matter what Society or which part of geographical location an ethnographer should and must devote all his time and energy in conducting long-term field work conducting long-term fieldwork taking participant observation as a methodological rigor where Anthropologist are Pride for themselves we take credit that anthropology is unique because of long-term fieldwork and participant observation sociology which is a close Allied subject to anthropology also some times boast that we also do field work nevertheless sociology come close to anthropology but it is the unique feature in the discipline of anthropology that we do long-term field work and the credit goes to brownl malinowski who set himself as an example by staying in treland Islanders in a in an alien Land by learning The Language by learning their ways by staying with them and making himself as a member of the society and producing good quality content Rich ethnographies so the Same Spirit the same principle which is laid forth by malinowski from through functionalist mode of understanding assets all the Anthropologist that one must take into consideration one studying any culture or Society to understand the social system with the help of several institutions it is the task of an ethnographer to go in detail of all these several institutions which are Interlink together to have a common end let us see what are the significant accomplishments that functionalist approach would have offered to us now functional no doubt functionalism has had significantly influenced all the Anthropologist to large extent as I reiterate the same Point again for the benefit of taking for a long-term memory that functional approach focuses upon the institutions Customs any other practices not just as a mere as a part of any society but it looks at the functions that these small small units are Parts play an order to maintain social solidarity social cohesion and importantly it maintains a social continuity any society any culture existing because all parts are working together for the common end be it of any any any custom or any law or anything so why do societies have long-term continuity because this is due to the internal C because they are internally coherent because they are interrelated and they are mutually helping each other functionalist understanding gives lots and lots of insights to understanding of society so this school of thought has contributed to the concept of culture that culture plays an important role and it is the only mechanism where individual needs are met through various carefully designed social institutions otherwise there will be no meaning at all take any any example of social institution the individual has to be educated there should be a social institution schools are there individual has the need for food so there is an occupation you get money and you fulfill your needs by taking food individual have sexual needs there is an institution socially accepted institution where society says that yes you are in the in this institution you are permitted to have these sexual relations through marriage through family you have religious needs spiritual needs where do the how do you get satisfied you have an institution of religion where your religious spiritual needs are fulfilled you need to be safeguarded from other people how does this safety needs come through you have certain laws to protect other members from your freedom and equally you protect other members freedom so in this way we can go on and say that these have inter relationship between these parts for the larger whole and the ethnographer's job is to go in detail these smaller units and understand how one thing is connected to another thing how kinship is related to economy how kinship is related to religion how family is related to religion how marriage is been performed according to one's customs and traditions not withstanding the many good things of functionalist to school there are few objections or criticisms metod out for the school of thought though functionalism was popular in 19 50s and 60s but with the time functionalist was got some kind of critique saying that the Anthropologist who work on interactionist frame framework criticize how the complex nature of human societies can be understood through interrelatedness because interactionist Anthropologist are interested how people act out through meanings but functionalism said that culture satisfies the needs through various institutions functionalist theories also been had certain limitations due to because they did not consider the historical processes or the concept of social change assuming that societies are always in the state of balance or equilibrium because all the parts are giving certain things to the larger whole as functionalism considers that functions of the parts to the whole fulfill the needs but why and how these needs have emerged is it necessary that one has to really fulfill these needs for example religious spiritual How does it go lastly functionalism was severely criticized because it is antihistorical and Scholars question the authenticity saying that how can we understand a social process just by a need Theory just by an impulsive Theory because social processes takes lot of temporal and historic I and spatial times alongside functionalist approach also did not take into consideration what were the various ecological factors that have influenced cultures environment how people produced energy what is the process of Technology functionalist manowski could not fully explain these things importantly functionalist school of thought did not go in detail the finer subtities of human beings in a sense the inequalities between races the social inequalities between genders the inequalities between various social classes that were very much responsible for lot of social tension and conflicts in every society it gave only the positive picture of that societ is well like this Society was maintaining as a whole society was coherent Society was in equilibrium but has functionalist answered these questions to summarize functionalism is an important School in anthropological understanding functionalism has its roots from sociological tradition starting from the father of sociology August com then imul Dam then talart Parsons then Robert Martin functionalism is basically understood as culture is a mechanism which facilitates people's needs functionalism says these are instrumental needs and to fulfill these needs there are social institut tion s which catter which makes individuals socially acceptable behavior functionalism maintains a status quo saying that all societies are in the state of equilibrium because the constituent Parts makes the system socially stable socially coherent and importantly these constituent Parts contributing their might to the larger whole makes the system to run for a longer time so hence functionalism took the analogy of biological organisms saying that how an organism survives and sustains for a longer time because of its constituents part Society all also survives and St stabilizes and continues for a long time basing on this biological model hence functionalism is also called biocultural model or biocultural functionalism another aspect is also called that since individual human needs are fulfilled we can also say that it is psychological functionalism despite giving this theoretical insights it proposed a methodology that to understand societies malinowski said that one has to do in-depth long-term Field Works and one has to record IND detail minutely all and each and part because all parts are integrated to the whole world you cannot miss one part so that the meaning is lost and because of this method ological rigor because of this methodological tool of participant observation in long-term ethnographic fieldwork which is unique and Hallmark even today in anthropology made functionalism a significant contribution to anthropological research and anthropologists are Pride for themselves that we are good ethnographers because of participant observation which has been propounded by or which has been taken extensively by Bron SL meowski not withstanding the richest contributions to functionalism it has some kind of weaknesses that it ignored historical process it ignored the social inequalities and it it ignored individual basis