Eliade and Levi Strauss

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. 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 the help of "mythemes," which are actually the pairs of opposite concepts discussed earlier. Levi-Strauss's analysis presents a micro-level analysis of culture to ultimately identify the kind of culture that prevails within a particular group or community. Mircea Eliade's cultural analysis is similar with Levi-Strauss's subsistence to structuralism.

In his discussion in "The sacred and the profane," he offers a similar thesis about structuralism, positing that binary opposites determine the nature of human culture. However, what differentiates Eliade from Levi-Strauss is that he formulates his structuralist analysis of human cultures through religion, which he considers as the primary determinant that allows people to identify what is right or wrong, or beneficial or detrimental to them as a community.

He thus argues that religion create a reality for people wherein they live in a society that is determined by "two modes of being in the world, two existential situations." In effect, like Levi-Strauss, human cultures, according to Eliade's analysis, are governed by a world of polarities or dichotomies, allowing them to make decisions in life based on two kinds of knowledge and truth in life, where one is beneficial for people and the other, as harmful and considered deviant to the society.

This is illustrative of his point in the book, wherein he states, " .. we constantly find the same cosmological schema and the same ritual scenario: settling in a territory is equivalent to founding a world." Bronislaw Malinowski, the founder of the field of social anthropology, subsists to a different, yet complementing perspective to.