Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown was born in Birmingham, England, on January 17, 1881 as Alfred Reginald Brown. He later changed his name by deed poll to the sexier sounding Radcliffe-Brown. Radcliffe-Brown died on October 24, 1955 in London, England. His overall theoretical work involved developing strategies to study kinship systems and transformed modern social anthropology.
Radcliffe-Brown’s first anthropological field work was in 1906 in the Andaman Islands; he would return to this area when he published he first book (The Andaman Islanders, 1922) incorporating his structural ideas on society. He conducted fieldwork in Australia from 1910 to 1912 to study with native Australians, and published Social Organization of Australian Tribes (1931). This book applied his structural functional paradigm to Australian kinship systems and analyzed the way they related to social organization.
Radcliffe-Brown taught at a number of universities around the world. He was a professor at the University of Capetown, South Africa, from 1920 to 1925; the University of Sydney, Australia, from 1925 to 1931; the University of Chicago from 1931 to 1937; and held his longest position at Oxford University (1937 to 1946). Radcliffe-Brown also taught in China, Brazil, and Egypt.
Radcliffe-Brown is widely associated with the concept of sociological functionalism, which is based on the work of Émile Durkheim. Radcliffe- Brown's work focused on kinship; with a functionalist perspective that attempted to define kinship structures as a system of adaptations, fusions, and integrations. "Kinship" is loosely defined as the relationship between persons either through marriage or by blood. All human societies recognize these relationships as descent from a common ancestor. However, in some societies the concept of kinship can extend beyond the family into groups or clans through which blood kinship is metaphorical.
"A.R. Radcliffe-Brown." NNDB Database. http://www.nndb.com/people/318/000099021/
"Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred Reginald (1881–1955)." AnthroBase Dictionary. http://www.anthrobase.com/Dic/eng/pers/radcliffe-brown_alfred_r.htm
Written by: Students in an Introduction to Anthropology Class, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Edited by: Lisa Mayer, 2007
Edited by: Emily Hildebrant, 2007