Bronislaw Malinowski and Radcliffe Brown put forward their own respective theories of functionalism. Their respective arguments , similarities and differences.
Arguments by Malinowski
- According to Malinowski, functionalism is the study of the natural aspects of the cultural phenomenon through the concept that “human institutions, as well as partial activities within these, are related to primary, that is, biological, or derived, that is, cultural needs.” . Thus, his main argument was that culture exists just so that it can satisfy our biological needs. i.e the culture was a concrete reality and it was the main focus in his theory. Culture cannot exist without institutions as all institutions have functions for the society. For example, the family is an institution and its function in society is to produce children. Each institution has structures and even though the structures may remain the same, the rituals and the techniques may differ.
- Malinowski also informed us about the importance of artifacts, which are material objects, which are used by humans to communicate with each other, either by speech or by symbolism. For example, a Hindu woman wears artifact that shows their commitment to their husbands i.e ‘bindi’ on her forehead and ‘ sindoor’ to show that they are married.
- He also mentions the importance of language as when an infant is born into a family, the function of the kinship is “to provide the infant with a sociological control of its environment through articulate speech.”
Arguments by Radcliffe Brown
- According to Radcliffe Brown, Social Anthropology deals with the study of human society and the investigation of social relations amongst human beings.
- Brown also used the term ‘Social structures’ to denote the complex network of social relations that include all interpersonal relationships, and also the division of individuals and groups based on their social role.
- He also mentions some social phenomena such as morals, laws, education etc. and that they play a very important role in the existence of social structures.
- He also uses the body as an analogy to describe the continuity of social structure – “Throughout the life of an organism its structure is being constantly renewed; and similarly, the social life constantly renews the social structures” ,thus, social structures to be stable and never-ending.
- Brown considered Social Anthropology to be a branch of natural sciences. Brown also attempted to explain it through the methods of natural science. We get to know this when he explains as different branches of science deal with certain kind of structures, such as atomic physics deals with the structure of atoms, there will be a branch of natural sciences “which will have for its task the discovery of the general characteristics of those social structures of which the component units are human beings.”
- He also compares humans to animals when referring to associations or relations as he gives the example of a beehive and understands the relation between the queen bee, the workers and the drones.
- This idea becomes clearer when Brown gives us the term ‘social evolution’, in which evolution means the emergence of new forms of structures while explaining with the example of how an African culture came in contact with an European or Western culture and then produced Western African culture.
- He also uses the example of Latin as a language that affect the relations between groups of people.
- He regards social structures as a concrete reality and refers to culture as only a vague abstraction. Thus, social structures were more important than culture.
Similarities in the theories put forward by Brown and Malinowski.
- Both Malinowski and Brown and trying to develop a universal understanding of functionalism in which they are trying to attain a method which will be applicable and useful when comparing different phenomena throughout the world. This is especially true for Malinowski as he talks about his theory being used for the comparative analysis of phenomena in various cultures.
- Another similarity is that they are using language as a foundation to explain their theories
There are also many differences in their theories.
- The most visible is their view on the theory of culture. For Malinowski, the function of culture was to satisfy the biological needs of the individual and on the other hand, Brown considered culture to be abstract and claimed culture only played a role in maintaining the society and not to satisfy individual needs.
- Brown also only considered society as a whole and thus considered individuals as irrelevant or replaceable, in contrast to Malinowski, who emphasizes the importance of individuals.