What do you think?
Rate this book
Was Evans-Pritchard a Structural-Functionalist?
Essay from the year 2012 in the subject Pedagogy - Science, Theory, Anthropology, 70, University of Cambridge, English, Was Evans-Pritchard a structural-functionalist?
Evans-Pritchard is widely known as a structural-functionalist (Kuper, 1988). What sense does this question make taken by its face-value? Let us understand it as a mathematical exercise. The question asks whether the works of Evans-Pritchard can be described as a subset of the anthropological tradition referred to as structural-functionalism. As I will argue, his works can not – at least in their entirety – both temporally and partially be seen as a subset of structural-functionalism. Especially in his later works, Evans-Pritchard stresses individual agency, the importance of history as well as personality in a way that is not congruent with structural functionalism in its traditional way. But before I am able to assess the congruency of Evans-Pritchard’s work with structural-functionalist imperatives in detail, the latter needs to be expressed in a clear set of statutes. The work of Radcliffe-Brown (Radcliffe-Brown, 1940) and Fortes (Fortes, 1953) can serve as a guideline for this.
Evans-Pritchard is widely known as a structural-functionalist (Kuper, 1988). What sense does this question make taken by its face-value? Let us understand it as a mathematical exercise. The question asks whether the works of Evans-Pritchard can be described as a subset of the anthropological tradition referred to as structural-functionalism. As I will argue, his works can not – at least in their entirety – both temporally and partially be seen as a subset of structural-functionalism. Especially in his later works, Evans-Pritchard stresses individual agency, the importance of history as well as personality in a way that is not congruent with structural functionalism in its traditional way. But before I am able to assess the congruency of Evans-Pritchard’s work with structural-functionalist imperatives in detail, the latter needs to be expressed in a clear set of statutes. The work of Radcliffe-Brown (Radcliffe-Brown, 1940) and Fortes (Fortes, 1953) can serve as a guideline for this.
12 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 28, 2012
1 person is currently reading
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 2, 2021
Genuinely remarkable. There’s almost nothing quite this lucidly structural, conceptually and politically functional, and deeply undeniable in recent work. An intellectual yum-fest with few competitors.
August 10, 2021
Without a maxed out urethral opening, it’s a tiny book as far as I’m concerned. Having said that, the author makes some truly interesting remarks. This reader was intrigued and delighted to discover that JRR Tolkien really was a functioning structuralist.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews