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FUNCTIONALISM
6/26/17
Sources: I.C. Jarvie (1973) Functionalism. Minneapolis, Minn: Burgess.
Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942)
Malinowski was the first anthropologist to describe his method of analysis as
functionalist in his magnum opus, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, published in
1922.
This work takes as its central task the explanation of the kula exchanges.
"The kula is thus an extremely big and complex institution...It welds
together a considerable number of tribes, and it embraces a vast complex
of activities, interconnected, and playing into one another, so as to form
one organic whole" (Malinowski 1922: 83).
Malinowski’s Functionalism.
1. Currently existing societies could not be treated as living fossils,
preserved specimens of earlier forms of social life (No "Stone Age" societies in
New Guinea)
2. Any living society is viable, but it is not the only viable society. (Mal and
R-B ignore this point...why this functional solution as opposed to any other?
Maybe Boas has a better solution than either of them)
NOTE: Analogy with elements of randomness & order in dreams
3. Survival shows fitness, not the greatest possible fitness..."Hence, that a
society knitted together by the kula is fit, does not show that it is the fittest
possible." Jarvie 1973: 10
Notion of “surplus repression” (Marcuse)
Notion of “sick societies” (Edgerton)
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A.R. Radcliffe-Brown (1881-1955)
The Andaman Islanders (1922) , seeks to describe and account for the myths
and rituals of the Andamanese of the Indian Ocean .
[NOTE: It is interesting to note that the two works which launched
functionalist analysis in anthropology both examined fundamentally
expressive, rather than instrumental, features of the societies in
question. This ties in with the overall emphasis on latent rather
than manifest functions]]
R-B began his fieldwork with the notion of reconstructing the history of
Andaman society, but he abandoned that effort (partly because the lack of
historical sources left him only with the alternative of speculation).
Eschewing historical analysis R-B turned instead to examining the function or the
significance of the religious beliefs and practices he beheld rather than ponder
their remoter origins.
R-B came to the conclusion that, in Jarvie's words, "Society is not the way it is
because of religious ideas; religious ideas are what they are because of
society" (Jarvie 1973: 7)
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Society depends for its existence on a system of
sentiments which regulate the conduct of the
individual in accord with the needs of society.
Religious ceremonies are a means of giving
collective expression to these sentiments, hence
reinforcing them and transmitting them from one
generation to the next. Hence their "social
function" is their effect on the solidarity or
cohesion of the society." Jarvie 1973: 7
 a theory both of how social order is maintained
 The assumptions here are, first, that there exists
social harmony and social continuity and, second,
that its is these that have to be explained
 R-B rejected Malinowski's brand of functionalism:
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For example, the case of the relationship
between ritual and anxiety
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R-B on Taboo
"...taboos relating to the animals and plants used for food are means of
affixing a definite social value to food, based on its social importance. The
social importance of food is not that it satisfies hunger, but that...an
enormously large proportion of ...activities are concerned with the getting
and consuming food, and that in these activities, with their daily instances
of collaboration and mutual aid, there continuously occur those
interrelations of interests which bind the individual men, women and
children into a society." R-B 1952: 151.
But why is pork prohibited? or dog? or kangaroo?
Society as an Organic Whole
Hence social features appeared peculiar only on first sight; upon closer
inspection (especially or ideally through fieldwork) they could be seen as integral
parts of the whole social system...What such a scientific approach disclosed was
that there were underlying patterns of principles in each social organization.
Such unchanging patterns of relationships he came to call the social
structure. It was his hypothesis that if the social structures of societies were
compared it would be possible to classify them into a small number of groups
and discover the general principles governing their operation. These would be
the laws of a scientific anthropology. The main area of anthropology in which he
attempted this was kinship...solidarity of the lineage and solidarity of the sibling
group." Jarvie 1973:12
A Functionalist Game:
Find a custom that is seemingly odd and pointless and demonstrate how it
actually is somehow crucial to maintaining ongoing social life.
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Later Advances in Funcitonalism
E.E. Evans-Pritchard [1902-1972(?) ] (1940) The Nuer
"The main problem in the book is how Nuer society holds together although
segments of it are constantly fueding and there are no chiefs. E-P's argument is
that the exten of feuding is strictly regulated by kinship ties, which ensure that it
never gets out of hand and becomes a war of all against all. The clue lay in
lineages." Jarvie 1973:13
Principle of Segmentary Opposition
Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore (1945) "Some Principles of Stratification"
American Sociological Review 10: 242-247.
"...social stratification is a functional necessity because not all the
tasks that need to be performed in a society are equally pleasant,
equally easy, equally important to social survival. Roughly,
stratification, or a system of status and rewards, is a filter to help
ensure that the right people get into the right jobs and that they are
then given social rewards for doing them properly. Stratification is,
of course, only one form of reward: there are others, such as
wealth, power, greater sexual opportunity, and so on." Jarvie 1973:
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Contrast with Marx's analysis of social stratification
The Ted Kennedy/Dan Quayle Effect (key to why Ted stuck up for Dan)
Merton, Robert K. (1957) "Manifest and Latent Functions" In Social Theory
and Social Structure. Glencoe: The Free Press.
"...a custom or institution could have two analytically distinct
functions: overt or manifest, such as the function of marriage to
beget children, of films to provide entertainment, of welfare to
alleviate poverty; and covert or latent, such as the function of the
kula to bind together achain of islands, or of the pork taboo to
encourage the integrity of the pastoralist way of life, or of the Nuer
lineage in maintaining social cohesion in a feuding society, or the
function of social class in ensuring that those most suited to them
will get the crucial jobs in society.
Anthropologists are mainly interested in latent functions
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NOTE: Spiro's further elaboration to include psychodymanic as
well as sociological functions. E.g, Burmese Monkhood as a
Culturally Constituted Mechanism of Defense. A custom can serve
both psychodynamic and sociological functions simultaneously.
Kingsley Davis (1959) "The Myth of Functional Analysis as a Special
Method in Sociolgoy and Anthropology" American Sociological Review 24:
757-772
High water mark of functionalism in sociology.
In Davis's presidential address to the American Sociological
Association he arguemnt that there is no special and homogeneous
method called functionalism. Although it began as a distinct
doctrine, it had become coterminous with the disciplines of social
anthropology and sociology. "Such special features as it is alleged
to have are merely the features of scientific method in general."
Jarvie 1973: 15.
In other words Functionalism is Sociolgoical Explanation.
Walter Goldschmidt (1966) Comparative Functionalism. Berkeley: UC
Press.
"Repudiating as too limited the sociological functionalism of R-B, he
opts for viewing social systems as adaptive mechanisms for
coping with both social and biological human needs. What
anthropology must do is seek the universal imperatives of human
sand social existence. these functional requisites need to be
postulated and then tested for. They can then be used to explain
the particular forms societies take." jarvie 1973: 16
Criticisms of Functionalism:
Jarvie lists some of the criticisms leveled at Functionalism:
At one time or another Functionalism has been accused of...
1. reifying abstractions;
2. stressing the static rather than the dynamic aspects of society;
3. confusing cause with effect;
4. introducing teleology or purpose;
5. serving colonialism;
6. being uncritical or unscientific;
7. being anti-individualistic
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Functionalism as Theory, Functionalism as Method
"Because he was weak at this level of theory, Mal's influence tended to wane
once fieldwork was over. Once the anthropologist was back in his study
digesting, writing-up and trying to explain what he had observed, the thought of
R-B came into its own."
In other words R-Bs functionalism provided a guide to writing that Mal's lacked.
Look at what people do, not what they say.
"....functionalism was not exhausted by its docrinre: it was also, if you ike a
practice or mewthod, and this aspect of it was far less often subject to criti\cism
than the theories that apparently underpinned that method." Jarvie 1973: 1973.
Perhaps this is no longer true two decades after Jarvie wrote this observation.
POMO in many ways seeks to attack functionalism as method as well as theory.
Alexander Lesser " Is history to be impugned because of the errors in a particular
conception of its nature?" In (1935) "Functionalism in Anthropology" AA 37: 386393.
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Ernest Gellner's Views
E.A. Gellner (1958) "Time and Theory in Social Anthropolgy" Mind 67: 182202.
"Gellner has maintained...that as a doctrine functionalism is mistaken, as a
method it is salutary." jarvie 1973:24
Degrees of Funcitonal Importance
"...(functionalism as practiced) has obscured the even more important
truth that some things are far more functional than others. Even the
organisms on analogy with which so much functionalism turns, have
functionless tails and appednices. It needs no great leap of imagination to
think that soicties might have such redundant parts as well. to suggest
that all socities are finely tuned and completely functional is grotesque; to
say that many things in society connectup with many others in
complicated and unexpected ways is obvious. Sojewhere between
absurdity and trivial truth the interesting tyruth must lie, but funcitonalism
is sem-vacuous bercause it fails to say just where. Moreover when the
exteeme forumulation is adopted social change vbecomes not only
inexpicable, but unimaginable, unless exogenously induced."
E.A. Gellner (1962)
"Gellner concludes (1962,1967) that functionalism is best regarded as a method
of seeking non-superficial causal explanations of social phenomena, and
that this method happens to have been framed in a rather overstated
doctrine mainly bcause of the debates that were taking place in anthorpolgoy at
the time it was formulated.."
"Gellner points out that if functionalist explanations are read backwards, they
become pefectly respectable attempts at causal explanation. To say of the kula
that it promotes the cohesionof widely scattered island socities, is simply to give
an explanaiton of that cohesion. In its turn the kula will be explained by other
institutions which function to maintain the kula." jarvie 1973: 25.
Gellner argues for a moderate functionalism, funcitonalism lite.
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Carl G. Hempel (1959) "The Logic of Functional Analysis"
Argues for functional alternatives and against the notion of functional
indispensabiltiy.
"Hempel argues that a cuatious predictionof the kind that states, "if system s
functions adequately, then there must be a trait or traits satisfying each of its
necessary conditions," is about all that funcitonalsim can muster.
Problem is socities don't die.
Hempel's approach to the problem of teleology.. Human behavior is purposive.
Functional for What System Exactly?
Ernest Nagel (1961) The Structure of Science
"...in biology functional explanations presuppose a system and a state of the
system which is maintained. Usually the system is an organism, the state
maintained is life. But societies are difficult to demarcate as systems, and
moreover they may disappear, but they don'ts die (or get sick). If survival is
merely the continuance of some humans in some groups then functionalism is
compatible with any form of organization and hence is tautologous." Jarvie
1973:28.
What constitutes a society? How bounded is one?
World Systems Theory...the whole world is the system.
"Nagel concludes that specificationof the relevant system and the relevant state
of thesystem is essential--but also difficult. Functionalism will be untestable
unless, when a function is attributed to a particular variable, say the kula
ceremony, the Nuer lineage, or to magic, that function is made relative to a
particular system
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jarvie, I.C. (1973) Functionalism. Minneapolis, Minn: Burgess.
Turner, Jonathan H. and Alexadra Maryanski (1979) Functionalism. Menlo Park,
CA: The Benhamin/Cummings Publishing Company
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