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Radcliffe Brown
Radcliffe Brown
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).
• 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