Functionalism | UPSC Mains 2016 Anthropology GS 1

Model answer

Introduction

Functionalism explains a custom by the present job it does for persons or for the social whole. It was the British school’s answer to speculative history.

Body

Two wings

Malinowski’s biological functionalism: culture meets seven needs, from metabolism to growth, as in Trobriand gardens and kula.
Radcliffe-Brown’s structural functionalism: institutions maintain social structure, as Andaman rites keep solidarity.

Yield and limit

Fieldwork replaced armchair stages. Every rite was asked: what does it do now?
Evans-Pritchard later said the Nuer need history, not only function.
Conflict, inequality, and change look like noise if function is only harmony. Gluckman put conflict inside function.

Flow diagram

flowchart TD
  F[Functionalism] --> MAL[Malinowski needs]
  F --> RB[Radcliffe-Brown structure]
  F --> LIM[History conflict]

Conclusion

Functionalism made ethnography a study of living uses. Malinowski served needs; Radcliffe-Brown served structure. History and conflict must still be let back in.

Students also ask

Is functionalism the same as function in ordinary English?

It is a theory: present use explains the custom’s existence, which critics call circular.

Did it ignore the past?

It postponed conjectural history. Later work put archives and oral history back.

When UPSC asked this

Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.

Critically discuss the controversies related to fieldwork of Bronislaw-Malinowski and Margaret Mead.

Functionalism (Malinowski)

Malinowski’s Trobriand fieldwork founded participant observation and the kula monograph. The 1967 diaries exposed racist and sexual private speech, prompting reflexivity, not a simple cancellation of Argonauts. Mead’s Samoa argued that adolescence is culturally shaped. Freeman’s 1983 attack overstated hoax and ignored time and sample. Shankman and others restored a more careful Mead. Both controversies teach positioned method, not the death of ethnography.

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Q1(c) · UPSC Mains 2022 · Anthropology GS 1 · 10 marks

Radcliffe-Brown's ideas on status, role and institution