Importance Of Functionalism In Anthropology

Anthropology is concerned with human learned behavior, it studies the way individuals have devised to cope with their natural setting and their social environment. Essentially, they study the way of life of a people, which is composed in an organized aggregate of individuals who follow a given norms, in other words a society. There are different theories to understand this. British social anthropologist argued that it should be understood as a system of interdependent parts, similar to an organic system. They believed that there are specific functions that must be met in all social systems. This theory known as functionalism, is the “theoretical orientation that looks for the function that a certain aspect of culture or social life plays in

The human body has many organs that each have certain functions to keep to maintain individuals alive. The heart doesn't just pump blood for its own sake; its “function” is to bring blood to the rest of the systems in a body so that they can stay alive. In the same manner, the lungs don't just process oxygen for their own sake, there “function” is interconnected with the rest of the organs. Similarly, functionalism asserts that the function of all aspects of culture, or the learned behaviors and ideas that are characteristic of a particular people group, is to keep its people and its society successful. For example, from a functionalist perspective, religion is just a man-made part of culture that functions to keep a society together. Therefore, as a part of culture, religion's function, is one of the many institutions that help maintain the society in which it

Even though he thought a society was composed of parts, he did not think it was merely the sum up of its individuals, but the relationships those people formed. Therefore, according to him, we exist as individuals, but to understand a society we must eliminate the individual and focus on their relationships with others. Even though Durkheim established the fundamentals for functionalists, he was very clear that explaining the function of a phenomenon, does not mean it has been explained, which was something that many functionalist anthropologist fell in the habit of doing. He went as far as saying