History and Prospects of the Structural-Functional Method in Ethnology: Implementation in Family Rituals, Street Art and Activities of Local Artistic Communities

The purpose of the article is to establish which structures should be considered the most characteristic and typical for the founders of the structural and functional analysis in ethnology – C. Lévi-Strauss, A. Radcliffe-Brown, E. Leach, V. Turner, V. Propp. The researcher singles out the main structure for each of them and demonstrates its functional capabilities. For Radcliffe-Brown, in the author’s opinion, the structure of the tribe and family relations between its members in one of the areas of Western Australia is fundamental. From the scientific heritage of Lévi-Strauss, the structure of the division into components of the ancient Greek myth about Oedipus stands out. Characteristic for Leach is the structure of “condensation”, in which two interconnected functions give rise to a third one, usually based on symbols and metaphors. A structure characteristic of Turner is a diagram of the spatial symbolism of a certain ritual of one Central African tribe. As an example of Propp’s structuralism, the division of a folk tale according to the functions of the characters is given, where each of the functions has a conventional designation, and as a result, we get the formula of the fairy tale plot. The author concludes that the possibilities of the structural and functional method are far from exhausted. Thanks to the examples presented in the article, it was possible to establish that the method of structural and functional analysis, initiated in the middle of the last century, can be successfully used in the latest research, in particular, the study of Ukrainian national rites of the family cycle, as well as street art and activities of artistic communities.