Final answer:
Malinowski's concept of functionalism focuses on how culture fulfills the biological, derived, and integrative needs of humans. Cultures, even those deemed primitive, have complex systems in place for this purpose. Despite its insights, functionalism has been criticized for its inability to explain social change and its somewhat circular reasoning.
Step-by-step explanation:
Bronislaw Malinowski, a pivotal figure in anthropological functionalism, posited that culture functions to satisfy human needs, including biological, derived, and integrative needs. Need satisfaction and functionalism, according to Malinowski, are intrinsic to cultural development and maintenance. Cultures are elaborately engineered to meet these needs: basic ones such as food, clothing, shelter, derived ones like organizing work, distributing resources, shaping family structures, and gender roles, and lastly, integrative needs like providing guiding values through religion, law, and ideologies.
In Malinowski's view, what sets his approach apart is the idea that even societies perceived as primitive have complex cultural systems to fulfill all human needs. This is demonstrated in his extensive ethnographic work among the Trobriand people. Functionalism in anthropology, influenced by Emile Durkheim and later Herbert Spencer's comparison between society and the human body, regards society as an interlinked structure serving to meet individuals' needs through various social institutions.
However, functionalism has faced criticism for being ahistorical and not accounting for social change. Critics argue that the theory assumes repetitive behaviors always have functions, disregarding dysfunctions that may continue without fulfilling any clear function. Thus, while functionalism has lost some traction as a macro-level theory, it retains relevance in more focused mid-level analyses.