Integration became more relevant when after the Second World War several newly emerged Asian countries began to engage in nation- building exercises. These countries, for example, China, India, Japan and Indonesia, directed all their efforts to attain the status of a nation after their liberation.
The task of nation-building could not have been fulfilled without going through the process of integration. The process also became important in India when the recommendations of the States Reorganization Commission were implemented. Let us look at the conceptual meaning of integration.
If we look at the structure of culture, we see that it is automatically integrated. At a superficial level culture appears to be haphazard. Historically, the origin of integration is what Lowie calls a “thing of shreds and patches” or a “plan less hodge-podge”.
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However, there is some kind of organic unity in a culture. Culture has a power of persistence. It always changes, but slowly, to suit the reformer. Every nation or tribe has its conservative party, whether it is so labelled or not.
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Theoretically, culture has a great speciality. In a culture there are different culture traits. These traits maintain their identity and autonomy. But, functionally, they contribute their share to the attainment of the society’s aims and objectives. Thus, each culture has its functional purposes and these are fulfilled by the culture traits.
According to Herskovits, integration has two approaches: functional and con- figurational. The functional approach relates to the interrelationship among various elements in a culture. The configurationally approach represents the psychological approach to cultural integration. Explain- irig these two approaches of culture, Herskovits write:
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For the moment, we need to bear in mind that the problem of cultural integration presents two faces.
One, the functional view attempts to study the interrelation between the various elements of a culture; the other, the configurationally view represents the psychological approach to cultural integration, and seeks to discover the thread of aim, of satisfactions that give to the institutional unity the particular quality, the special ‘feel’ that everyone senses when he compares one culture with another.