10.10.18 Structural-functionalism and its critics Shift towards Radcliffe-Brown, away from Malinowski into Structural Functionalism There are many ways to approach theory critically - epistemological, philosophical, pragmatic, practical, historical context/causes/effects Which parts of theories are political? Functionalism (continued) . Reaction to and critique of evolutionism . Retains the vision of societies as organisms, but removes interests in history - how the parts function together at one point in time . Experience of reality through social frameworks - Malinowski talked about natives P.o.V within their context. The context gives meaning - random comparison inter-soc not useful. Long term fieldwork in single sites Shift to Structural-Functionalism: · Radicalisation of Durkheim's programme - we can do everything through the notion of the social o The notion of social function is the function of any social fact is to maintain the stability of the social structure ? The function is not so interesting - really talking about structure . "Social anthropology [is] the theoretical natural science of human society" · Structural-functionalists were not simplistic · D'arcy Thompson - biologist - work on structure. Studying the function of an organism misses the point; rather look at the structure of the biological organism . Evolutionism in terms of improvement was a part of the rhetoric of the time · Social structure is made up of "human beings considered not as organisms but as occupying positions in the social structure" Radcliffe-Brown ? You can identify social structure by identifying the form but not its function, content, or process (Nadel 1957) Structure is what remains in the absence o Elements of social structure (R-B): Social roles Dyadic relationships - Social groups . Criticism = Structural-Functionalism lost interest in real people, focused heavily on the form of the social structure rather than its composite parts. o "There is a real and significant analogy between organic structures and social structure" R.B · R-B, society is: structured, amenable to scientific study, tends to persist
into being, belongs to 'kinds' which can be compared (idea inherited from evolutionists), is more than the sum of its parts . 'Kinds' not meaning that they are historic progressions of one another, but that they can be compared in their typologies o This is a major point of criticism · S-F analysis on joking relationships: o R-B takes Tylor's analysis of m-i-I avoidance further o Compares the two to illustrate unusual forms of social action, and asks what does it do for the way that society is structured? Manages difficulties/tensions · M-i-I marriage, familial dynamic difficulties · Managed by transforming certain ways in which relationships are managed o Adapted real familial relationships, transplanted onto social relations with a comparative stranger in order to create new familial ties · Takes lots of parts of behaviour into large comparison. One part of a problem compared between multiple social systems to provide a schema of classification o R-B comparitivism vs Malinowskian holism ? Accusation that S-F was evolutionism turned on its side - i.e Group A and Group B 'stateless-primitive