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The Development of Functionalism in Sociology and Anthropology
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Functionalism
In this course, Professor John Holmwood (University of Nottingham) explores functionalism as an approach within sociology. In the first lecture, we think about the emergence of functionalist ideas in the work of Émile Durkheim and their influence in anthropology. In the second lecture, we consider Talcott Parsons’ efforts to create a more systematic functionalist method within sociology, and how Parsons sought to overcome the issue of agency within functionalism. In the third lecture we look at some of the criticisms of functionalism. Next, we look at how Robert Merton attempted to create a new approach which could address these criticisms. In the fifth and final lecture, we explore the ways in which functionalism can help us to understand society and politics through the example of feminism and the family.
The Development of Functionalism in Sociology and Anthropology
In this lecture, we think about the early development of functionalism as an approach within sociology and anthropology, focusing in particular on: (i) Émile Durkheim’s early functionalist method, particularly his understanding of society as sui generis, and his explanation of the reproduction of practices and institutions in terms of the functions they serve; (ii) some of the key criticisms of Durkheim’s approach, such as its neglect of individual agency and its alleged conservatism; (iii) Durkheim’s comparative functionalist method, which argued that there are universal functions which all societies across the world need to perform and which create similar practices and institutions that can be analysed comparatively; (iv) the influence of Durkheim’s approach in anthropology.
Hello. I'm John Homewood, professor of sociology at the University of Nottingham.
00:00:06And today I'm going to be talking about functional ism
00:00:10as a special approach within anthropology and sociology.
00:00:14Functional is, um,
00:00:18is most closely associated with the French sociologist Emile Durkin,
00:00:19who at the end of the 19th century wrote a book, Rules of Sociological Method,
00:00:25in which he set out how to approach sociological topics and, in particular,
00:00:32functional ism as a mode of analysis.
00:00:38In dark times terms,
00:00:42Functional ism is strongly associated with the idea of sociology
00:00:44as being concerned with the social,
00:00:49something he regarded and called a suey generous
00:00:52level of reality by city generous.
00:00:56He meant a level of reality in its own right,
00:01:00distinguished from what might be associated with individual phenomena.
00:01:03So he made a strong distinction between psychology and sociology approaches,
00:01:09arguing that
00:01:15psychology dealt with psychological facts,
00:01:17facts associated with individual conscience,
00:01:20whereas sociology dealt with social facts associated with social phenomena,
00:01:23social conscience, collective collective phenomena, as he called it.
00:01:31He also distinguished sociology from economics as a discipline.
00:01:37Economics, he felt, was too closely defined by individualism
00:01:41and in particular with an emphasis upon
00:01:47individual self interest, rational choice and so on.
00:01:50Now, in dark concerns,
00:01:56what functional ISM was concerned about was the reproduction
00:01:57that is the stability over time of practises
00:02:02and, uh, social institutions.
00:02:07And he sought to explain the continuity or the reproduction of such
00:02:11phenomena by the function that it served its benefits to the group.
00:02:16And this
00:02:23is a
00:02:24peculiar
00:02:26kind of approach.
00:02:27From the point of view of what might be called standard causal analysis.
00:02:28We normally think of a cause
00:02:32as something that becomes before
00:02:34the effect that it gives rise to. If we think of
00:02:38a ball being struck
00:02:42by the foot, the movement of the ball is caused by the striking of the foot on the ball.
00:02:45The cause proceeds it
00:02:51in functional is, um, the explanation. Look as if it's reversed.
00:02:53You are explaining something. By the consequence, it has
00:02:58not by
00:03:02a cause that precedes it.
00:03:04Obviously, Durkin was aware that this was a peculiar
00:03:06mode of analysis. And so what he said was, Well,
00:03:11what functional is, um, explains, is why a phenomenon is reproduced,
00:03:14not the originating cause of that phenomenon
00:03:20for the originating cause of that phenomenon.
00:03:23We
00:03:26look for a separate explanation. But if we're interested in why
00:03:28the phenomenon continues and is maintained over time, then we look to the function
00:03:33that it's, uh,
00:03:40that it serves the positive function for society
00:03:41or for the social group that it serves
00:03:45now. Critics of functional is, um, have often seized upon
00:03:49that aspect of what it looks like.
00:03:54An illegitimate Teeley ology is what they would call it. That is where
00:03:58the function calls forth the
00:04:02the cause
00:04:06and have also been concerned that what functional is, um, does is to neglect agency
00:04:08and rectifies that is, places particular emphasis
00:04:14upon a level of society
00:04:19independent of individuals or the collective over the individual.
00:04:21And they've also wanted to argue that
00:04:26functional ism is inherently conservative in its orientation.
00:04:30What I want to suggest you in the course of this talk is
00:04:36that these arguments are worth reconsidering and
00:04:41particularly in the light of neo liberal
00:04:43neoliberalism
00:04:48and ideological claims that there are is no such thing as society very dark.
00:04:50I'm very clearly believes that there's such a thing as society,
00:04:55and he is an implacable critic of neoliberalism that is of extreme individualism.
00:04:59So we when sociology in the 19 sixties and 19 seventies was criticising.
00:05:07Functional is, um, it was doing so in a very different political context to our own.
00:05:14What appeared conservative then potentially looks quite
00:05:19radical and challenging to existing understandings now.
00:05:24So what I got to say a little bit is something
00:05:30about functional ism in anthropology as well as in sociology.
00:05:34In dark times times,
00:05:39there was no clear distinction between anthropology and sociology,
00:05:41and Durkin took all his examples from many different societies.
00:05:46He wasn't concerned to build up different typology of society.
00:05:51He was interested in the nature
00:05:55of a particular case kind of social phenomenon,
00:05:57say punishment, which was various across different kinds of societies.
00:06:00What was the common element to punishment in all societies,
00:06:05and then also asking the question. And how did punishment
00:06:10differ
00:06:14in its manifestation of those common elements? So what, Dirk, I'm is really
00:06:16setting up is
00:06:22a comparative analysis
00:06:24of different societies.
00:06:27And how do we conduct a comparative analysis when, after all,
00:06:28we are members of one particular
00:06:32society and that's where Durkin saw some of the advantages of functional ism
00:06:35is enabling us to stand outside our own society as
00:06:41well as have a comparative approach to other societies.
00:06:46So Durkin was keen to avoid the ethno centre prism of applying Western standards
00:06:51of our concepts
00:06:57based upon Western
00:06:59ideas
00:07:01of the individual.
00:07:02And so, although Durkin is very much a figure of his time, he is quite unusual
00:07:04in his time
00:07:09of being hostile to
00:07:10ideas of progress associated with European superiority
00:07:13and so on. And it's very significant
00:07:18that one of his later books, The Elementary Forms of
00:07:22Religious Life, goes to look at the early forms of religion
00:07:25in amongst indigenous people in Australia.
00:07:30And Dirk, um, does that not in order to demonstrate
00:07:34the superiority of our understanding
00:07:37comparison with what indigenous people in Australia believed
00:07:40but to show what was common to them
00:07:44and to ourselves.
00:07:48And this was regarded in his own time as quite radical, with other people believing
00:07:49that there might be some kind of
00:07:55different mentality associated with earlier societies.
00:07:57Dark I'm
00:08:02was clear that the mentality of human beings was the same across societies.
00:08:03But it does raise a question. How do we understand
00:08:10meanings and beliefs which are alien to our own?
00:08:14For example, the belief in witchcraft or even
00:08:17practises of cannibalism where
00:08:20communities might consume
00:08:23the bodies of people who have died.
00:08:25The tendency is to represent them
00:08:30as irrational or non rational,
00:08:33somehow unintelligible from the point of view of our superior standards.
00:08:36And this is not the kind of approach that Dirk I'm is recommending,
00:08:43or one that is taken up by
00:08:47anthropologist writing
00:08:49shortly after Dirk Hammond building upon his ideas,
00:08:52anthropologists like Malinowski and Radcliffe Brown.
00:08:56The idea, central to functional, is, um,
00:09:00is that all societies have to develop practises and
00:09:03institutions to deal with the same societal problems.
00:09:07These may be issues of subsistence.
00:09:12How do you make a living, what kinds of agriculture and
00:09:14economic practises do you engage in sexual reproduction
00:09:19institutions and practises associated with birth, marriage and death,
00:09:24For example.
00:09:29Lots of communities,
00:09:30their rituals and practises associated with death are similar
00:09:31to their practises associated with birth. And there is a good
00:09:36functional
00:09:41explanation for that. The individual who dies
00:09:42is being reborn
00:09:45into the realm of ancestors,
00:09:47and also
00:09:51there's a function of the organisation of effective decision making or
00:09:53political authority.
00:10:00How does a community organise decision making within the group?
00:10:01So these are all functions, and they represent kinds of entry points
00:10:07into other cultures. Other communities, in order to under understand them,
00:10:12give a brief example.
00:10:18It's one that comes up in the literature, and that is the, uh,
00:10:21North American indigenous people, the Hopi.
00:10:26They engage in a rain dance.
00:10:31It's associated with the seasons for growing crops,
00:10:33but the hope he don't engage in the rain dance in order.
00:10:40Instrumentally, too, bring the rains.
00:10:44And the question is, what is the function of the rain dance?
00:10:47And one of the features of the hope is that they are scattered across a wide area,
00:10:52tending crops
00:10:58in different areas across river beds and river valleys.
00:10:59And what the rain dance does is bring all the members of the Hopi. Together
00:11:04they engage in the rain bats
00:11:10and in a functional list
00:11:12argument. What the rain dance does is serve
00:11:14the solidarity of the group.
00:11:18It binds the members of the group to each other,
00:11:20reminds them of their common membership as Hopi,
00:11:22and what might be presented otherwise has an irrational
00:11:26dan associated with their belief that the
00:11:31dance might bring rain
00:11:34is in sense
00:11:36to be understood differently
00:11:38as an affirmation of their common identity
00:11:39of the bonds that bring them together. A group of what defines them
00:11:42as Hopi
00:11:47
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Holmwood, J. (2021, August 23). Functionalism - The Development of Functionalism in Sociology and Anthropology [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/functionalism/the-development-of-functionalism
MLA style
Holmwood, J. "Functionalism – The Development of Functionalism in Sociology and Anthropology." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 23 Aug 2021, https://massolit.io/courses/functionalism/the-development-of-functionalism