Resumen

MARCIAL, Rogelio. Cuando la estructura tomó su función en la teoría social. El estructural funcionalismo de A. R. Radcliffe-Brown. Intersticios sociales [online]. 2012, n.3. ISSN 2007-4964.

The present text tries to approach to the structural-functionalist thought produced in the first half of the XXth century by Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown. In order to do this, the intellectual (Anthropology as science) and political context (the British colonialism) that reigned when Radcliffe-Brown built its proposal are presented briefly. In turn, it tried to locate the concept of structure and its origin in the postulates of the functionalist theory. The paper locates this author, his influences and his works; taking as axis the concepts, very important in my opinion, of his proposal: the possibility of social change (inseparable from his idea about history), structure (very close to the function concept), and culture (that couldn’t be understand without going through what he understood for evolution and adaptation). Later on, the text raise another central concept of the proposal of Radcliffe-Brown: the relationship, which endowed Anthropology with methodological theoretical scaffolding; revising the questions referred to the lineage and the successions according to the patriarchy or matriarchy communities studied by the author. Finally the text closes with the analysis of Radcliffe-Brown proposal, its limitations and the influence exerted on different thinkers attached to different branches of Social thought.

Palabras llave : A. R. Radcliffe-Brown; structural functionalism; anthropological theory.

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