Functionalism which has been considered one of the prominent schools of thoughts in order to understand various aspects of culture and society. Functionalism arose as a reaction to evolutionism and diffusionism in early twentieth century. Functionalism looks for the function or part that is played by several aspects of culture in order to maintain a social system. It is a framework that considers society as a system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability.
This approach of theoretical orientation looks at both social structure and social function. It describes the inter-relationship between several parts of any society. These parts or the constituent elements of a society could be named as norms, traditions, customs, institutions like economy, kinship, religion etc. These parts are interrelated and interdependent.
Functionalism was mainly led by Bronislaw Malinowski and A.R. Radcliffe Brown. Both were purely functionalists but their approach slightly differed as Malinowski is known as functionalist but Radcliffe-Brown is mainly known as Structural Functionalist. Malinowski suggested that individuals have physiological needs (reproduction, food, shelter) and these needs are fulfilled by the social institutions. He talked about four basic “instrumental needs” (economics, social control, education, and political organization), that require institutional devices to get fulfilled. While Radcliffe-Brown focused on social structure rather than biological needs. He considered society as a system. He looked at institutions as orderly sets of relationships whose function is to maintain the society as a system. Radcliffe-Brown was inspired by August Comte who was also a functionalist.
Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942): He was one of the founding fathers of British social anthropology. He did his honours in subjects like mathematics, physics and philosophy and in 1910 he enrolled in the London School of Economics to study anthropology. With Radcliffe-Brown, Malinowski pushed for a paradigm shift in British Anthropology that brought a change from the historical to the present study of social institutions. This theoretical shift gave rise to functionalism and established fieldwork as the constitutive experience of social anthropology. Malinowski’s functionalism was greatly influential in the 1920s and 1930s. As applied methodology, this approach worked, except for situations of social or cultural change.
However, Malinowski made his greatest contribution as an ethnographer. He also considered the importance of studying social behaviour and social relations in their concrete cultural contexts through participant-observation. He considered it essential to consider the observable differences between what people say they do and what they actually do. His detailed descriptions of Trobriand social life and thoughts are among the well known ethnographies of world and his Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922) is one of the most widely read works of anthropology. He was one of the leading Functionalists of 20th century.
Main schools of functionalism: Two versions of functionalism developed between 1910 and 1930: Malinowski‟s functionalism; and Radcliffe-Brown‟s structural-functionalism.
Malinowski’s Functionalism
Malinowski was an anthropologist from Poland and is one of the most famous anthropologists of 20th century. Malinowski at times is also known as father of Ethnography due to his extensive fieldwork in Trobriand Islands. He was strongly functionalist. This can be understood in following two ways:
- He believed that all customs and institutions in a society are integrated and interrelated so that, if one changes the other would change as well. Each then is a function of the other. For example: Ethnography could begin from anywhere in a society but eventually get at the rest of the culture. A study of Trobriand fishing could lead to the ethnographer to study the entire economic system say role of magic, religion, myths, trade and kinship etc as all these institutions are interconnected. A change in any of the part of society would ultimate affect the other. So in order to do a holistic study the ethnographer might have to consider other parts of the whole also. – Theory of Unity.
- The second strand of Malinowski‟s Functionalism is known as needs‟ functionalism‟. Malinowski (1944) believed that human beings have a set of universal biological needs and various customs and institutions are developed to fulfil those needs. The function of any practice was the role it played in satisfying these biological needs such as need of food, shelter etc. Malinowski looked at culture, need of people and thought that the role of culture is to satisfy needs of people. Malinowski identified seven biological needs of individuals. Due to the emphasis on biological needs in Malinowski’s approach, his functionalism is also known as Bio-cultural Functionalism.- Theory of Basic Needs.
Malinowski said,’ culture is a need surveying system’. Culture is a system which satisfies needs such as food, reproduction, security, health, protection etc. As Malinowski gave importance to individual needs so his functionalism is also known as “Psychological Functionalism” The most basic needs are the biological, but this does not imply any kind of reductionism, because each level constitutes its distinct properties and needs, and from the interrelationship of different levels that culture emerges as an integrated whole. Culture is the kernel of Malinowski’s approach. It is ‘uniquely human’, for it is not found to exist among subhumans. Comprising all those things – material and non-material – that human beings have created right from the time they separated from their simian ancestors, culture has been the instrument that satisfies the biological needs of human beings. It is a need-serving and need fulfilling system. Because of this role of culture in satisfying biological needs that Malinowski’s functionalism is also known as ‘bio-cultural functionalism.’
The difference between Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski may be noted here. A concept fundamental to Malinowski – the concept of culture – is a mere epiphenomenona (secondary and incidental) for Radcliffe-Brown. He believes that the study of social structure (which for him is an observable entity) encompasses the study of culture; therefore, there is no need to have a separate field to study culture. Further, whilst social structure is concerned all about observations, what anthropologists see and hear about the individual peoples. Radcliffe-Brown wants to make social anthropology a branch of natural science, which would be possible when there is an empirically investigable subject matter.
The basis of Malinowski’s approach is a theory of ‘vital sequences’, which have a biological foundation and are incorporated into all societies. These sequences number eleven, each composed of an ‘impulse’, an associated physiological ‘act’, and a satisfaction which results from that act (see Table 1).
| Impulse | Act | Satisfaction |
|---|---|---|
| Drive to breathe; gasping for air. | Intake of oxygen | Elimination of CO2 in tissues |
| Hunger | Ingestion of food | Satiation |
| Thirst | Absorption of liquid | Quenching |
| Sex appetite | Conjugation | Detumescence |
| Fatigue | Rest | Restoration of muscular and nervous energy |
| Restlessness | Activity | Satisfaction of fatigue |
| Somnolence | Sleep | Awakening with restored energy |
| Bladder pressure | Micturition | Removal of tension |
| Colon pressure | Defecation | Abdominal relaxation |
| Fright | Escape from danger | Relaxation |
| Pain | Avoidance by effective act | Return to normal state |
Permanent Vital Sequences Incorporated in All Culture
For instance, the impulse of somnolence accompanies the act of sleep, resulting in satisfaction by ‘awakening with restored energy (Malinowski 1944: 77; Barnard 2000: 68). Malinowski follows this eleven-fold paradigm with a set of seven biological needs and their respective cultural responses (see Table 2).
Table 2
| Basic Needs | Cultural Responses |
|---|---|
| 1.Metabolism | Commissariat |
| 2.Reproduction | Kinship |
| 3.Bodily comfort | Shelter |
| 4.Safety | Protection |
| 5.Movement | Activities |
| 6.Growth | Training |
| 7.Health | Hygiene |
For example, the first need is of food, and the cultural mechanisms are centered on the processes of food getting, for which Malinowski uses the term ‘commissariat’, which means the convoy that transports food. Similarly, the second need is of reproduction (biological continuity of society) and the cultural response to which is kinship concerned with regulating sex and marriage. From this, Malinowski goes on to four-fold sequences, which he calls the ‘instrumental imperatives’, and associates each one of them with their respective cultural responses. The four-fold sequence is of economy, social control, education, and political organisation. From here, he shifts to the symbolic system – of religion, magic, beliefs and values – examining its role in culture.
