Eliade and Levi Strauss Term Paper

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Functionalism & structuralism in the works of Levi-Strauss, Eliade & Malinowski

The functionalist and structuralist approaches to understanding human culture in the works of Claude Levi-Strauss, Mircea Eliade, and Bronislaw Malinowski

The development of anthropology as the study and analysis of human cultures necessitated the formulation of theoretical frameworks and models in which social relations among humans as well as their artifacts, traditions, customs, and beliefs are further understood. Developments in the social sciences in the twentieth century demonstrate the advancement in anthropological studies, wherein diversity and awareness of other human societies have encouraged studies and research on Western as well as Eastern cultures (i.e., countries from the Asian, African, and Middle Eastern regions).

It is in this context that the theories on cultural analysis by Claude Levi-Strauss, Mircea Eliade, and Bronislaw Malinowski are developed, changing the way anthropological methods and analysis were conducted for research purposes. In this paper, the researcher argues that Levi-Strauss and Eliade introduced the structuralist theory of analyzing cultural traditions and customs in human societies, while Malinowski's research had led to the development of social anthropology, which subsists to the functionalist perspective of cultural analysis. A comparative analysis between Levi-Strauss and Eliade's and Malinowski's theories is conducted, wherein the finding that both theoretical foundations complement each other in reiterating the fact that myths within cultures serve to create meaning in the lives of people as a community, sharing similarities in terms of history, language, artifacts, customs, and beliefs.

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Levi-Strauss's subsists to the structuralist perspective in explaining the emergence and development of various cultures in human society. His theory posits that cultures can be best described through the myths that prevail in them, arguing that myths are composed of pairs of units or concepts that are held together by rituals and traditions of the society. Furthermore, Levi-Strauss argues that these pairs of concepts are often contradicting or opposites in their nature, which ultimately determines the structure in which that particular culture is based. In his book "Mythologies," he elucidates on his method of analyzing human cultures and the nature of each, stating, " ... since the study of language in general and of the particular languages which have existed or still exist is an endless task, their common properties will never become encapsulated in a final set of rules. If and when universals are reached, their framework will remain open so that new determinations can be adduced while earlier ones may be enlarged or corrected." This passage reflects the fact that structuralism made possible the determination of a culture's nature through….....

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