Conceptualising Functionalism and Its Application to the Study of African History

An old analogy pictures human society as a giant organism composed of many structures, all functioning in an integrated way to maintain the whole system, just as our livers, lungs, kidneys and other organs function to maintain the vitality of our entire body. Therefore, for anyone to understand any given structure, one must determine its function in society. This has given rise to what is known as the structural-functional school of sociology or more briefly, as functionalism. In the same vein, the main stream of history has to do with human development. Throughout history, man has had to meet challenges such as earning a living, dwelling together in harmony with fellow-men, establishing a just and efficient government, expressing his creative talents, and achieving a satisfactory spiritual life. The present has grown out of the past, and if we want to understand our contemporary world, we shall have to look at its roots in history. This paper, therefore, is an attempt at reconciling these symbiotic concepts – History and functionalism and showing how indispensable they are in the Contemporary African Society. To this end therefore, this paper shall focus on the theory of functionalism in various perspectives and its application to African history.