UNIT- 2

Structural-Functionalism
 RADCLIFFE BROWN
(1881- 1955 )
• In 1906, Brown started
his empirical research
and completed it in 1922.
• Tried to understand the
cultural elements of non-
literate Andaman
Aboriginals.
RADCLIFFE BROWN (1881- 1955 )
• In 1906, he started his research on ‘reconstructing the
history’ of the Andaman Islands of India.
• In the absence of written documents, he depended on
empirical research on their culture.
•He was averse to making hypothetical or conjectural
reconstructions.
•His book on Andaman Islanders, was published in 1922.
 Main Works
• Review of Malinowski’s book “The Family Among the Australian Aborigines
(1914).
• The Andaman Islanders 1922).

• On the Concept of Function in Social Science (1935),

• A Natural Science of Society (1948)

• An Introduction to African System of Marriage and Kinship (ed.1950),

• Structure and Function in primitive society (A Collection of His Published

Essays, 1952).
Radcliffe Brown’s idea of Structural Functionalism

• Radcliffe Brown, a British Anthropologist

introduced/conceptualised the idea of ‘ social structure’ in Social
Anthropology.
• His formulation of Social Structure as a theory and method of
analysis in Sociology and social anthropology emerged as a critique
of the over-emphasised and till that time prevalent theories of
evolution and diffusion.
• His theory and methods are rooted in the analysis of the concept of
Social structure and the various components of the structure.
Theoretical foundation
• In the early years of the 20th century, Radcliffe Brown laid down the
foundation of the structural-functional approach to Social
Anthropology.
• He argued that the evolutionists were relying on conjectural
histories.
• Radcliffe-Brown rejected the historical and comparative methods of
evolutionists and diffusionists.
• Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown developed a ‘synchronic
functional analysis’ of culture, concerned with the present and now.
 The Idea of Social Structure: Concept,
Theory and Method
•Spencer was the first to use the term ‘social structure vaguely.
•Durkheim developed the idea and used it in explaining the social
institutions as parts of the structure which he called the social
organism.
• For Brown, the direct observation reveals to us that these ‘human
beings are connected by a complex network of social relations’.
•Radcliffe-Brown calls this “network of actually existing
relations” a social structure.
•According to Radcliffe-Brown, “Social
structure primarily consists of ‘a
network of actually existing relations’
among individual human beings by
which they are connected”.
Components of Social Structure
Ist phase
• Radcliffe-Brown includes as a part of social structure ‘all social
relations of person to person’.
• In a tribe, social structure is based on a network of person-to-
person relations established through genealogical connections.
2nd Phase
• ‘The differentiation of individuals and classes by their roles’.
• This means differential social positions of men and women.
 Salient features of his idea of social structure.
• Social structure means ‘a network of actually existing relations’. He emphasise on ‘relations from person
to person’ in a dyadic relationship. The relations are not imaginary but real, ‘actually existing’.

• The social structure refers to ‘an arrangement of parts or components related to one another in some sort of
larger unity’ like the structure of human body having different organs, bones, tissues and cells etc. his
notion of social structure is based on an anology between the society (as a social organism) and the
biological organism.

• We can neither study persons except in terms of social structure nor can we study social structure except
in terms of persons who are units of study of social structure.

• These relations are patterned into institutionalised manner. The person to person relations are maintained
due to some adjustment of their interests i.e. purposive. Thus, the interests are determinants of social
relations.
• The units of social structure (the individuals ) may change over a period of time but its form remains.
Thus there is a continuity of the structural form despite changes.
Structure of Social Life
• Existence of Social Groups of all kinds

• Internal structure of groups

• Arrangement into social classes

• Arrangement of Persons in Dyadic Relationship:

• Interactions between Groups and Persons