Table of Contents

Functionalism..................................................................................................................................3
Cultural Materialism......................................................................................................................19
Structuralism..................................................................................................................................30
Postmodernism and Its Critics.......................................................................................................35
History and Theory of Feminism...................................................................................................48
Religion and Anthropology (E.B. Tylor).......................................................................................69
Functionalism
By Eric Porth, Kimberley Neutzling and Jessica Edwards

BASIC PREMISES
Functionalists seek to describe the different parts of a society and their relationship by means of
an  organic analogy. The organic analogy compares the different parts of a society to the organs
of a living organism. The organism is able to live, reproduce and function through the organized
system of its several parts and organs. Like a biological organism, a society is able to maintain
its essential processes through the way that the different parts interact. Institutions such as
religion, kinship and the economy were the organs and individuals were the cells in this social
organism. Functionalist analyses examine the social significance of phenomena, that is, the
function they serve a particular society in maintaining the whole (Jarvie 1973). Functionalism, as
a school of thought in anthropology, emerged in the early twentieth century. Bronislaw
Malinowski and A.R. Radcliffe-Brown had the greatest influence on the development of
functionalism from their posts in Great Britain and elsewhere. Functionalism was a reaction to
the perceived excesses and deficiencies of the evolutionary and diffusionist theories of the
nineteenth century and the historicism of the early twentieth (Goldschmidt 1996:510). Two
versions of functionalism developed between 1910 and 1930: Malinowski’s biocultural (or
psychological) functionalism; and structural-functionalism, the approach advanced by
Radcliffe-Brown.
Malinowski suggested that individuals have physiological needs (reproduction, food, shelter) and
that social institutions exist to meet these needs. There are also culturally derived needs and four
basic “instrumental needs” (economics, social control, education, and political organization),
that require institutional devices. Each institution has personnel, a charter, a set of norms or
rules, activities, material apparatus (technology), and a function. Malinowski argued that uniform
psychological responses are correlates of physiological needs. He argued that satisfaction of
these needs transformed the cultural instrumental activity into an acquired drive through
psychological reinforcement (Goldschmidt 1996:510; Voget 1996:573).
Radcliffe-Brown focused on social structure rather than biological needs. He suggested that a
society is a system of relationships maintaining itself through cybernetic feedback, while
institutions are orderly sets of relationships whose function is to maintain the society as a system.
Radcliffe-Brown, inspired by Augustus Comte, stated that the social constituted a separate
“level” of reality distinct from those of biological forms and inorganic matter. Radcliffe-Brown
argued that explanations of social phenomena had to be constructed within the social level. Thus,
individuals were replaceable, transient occupants of social roles. Unlike Malinowski’s emphasis
on individuals, Radcliffe-Brown considered individuals irrelevant (Goldschmidt 1996:510).

POINTS OF REACTION
As a new paradigm, functionalism was presented as a reaction against what was believed to be
outdated ideologies. It was an attempt to move away from the evolutionism and diffusionism that
dominated American and British anthropology at the turn of the century (Lesser 1935, Langness
1987). There was a shift in focus from the speculatively historical or diachronic study of customs
and cultural traits as “survivals” to the ahistorical, synchronic study of social “institutions”
within bounded, functioning societies (Young 1991:445).
Functionalists presented their theoretical and methodological approaches as an attempt to expand
sociocultural inquiry beyond the bounds of the evolutionary conception of social history. The
evolutionary approach viewed customs or cultural traits as residual artifacts of cultural history.
That is, the evolutionist school postulated that “an observed cultural fact was seen not in terms of
what it was at the time of observation but in terms of what it must stand for in reference to what
had formerly been the case” (Lesser 1935:55). From the functionalist standpoint these earlier
approaches privileged speculative theorizing over the discovery of facts. Functionalists believed
the motive force of events was to be found in their manifestations in the present. Hence, if events
were to be understood, it was their contemporary functioning that should be observed and
recorded (Lesser 1935:55-56).
Consequently, this led some to interpret functionalism as being opposed to the study of history
altogether. Radcliffe-Brown responded to this critique by stating that functionalists did not
believe that useful historical information could be obtained with respect to primitive societies; it
was not history, but “pseudo-history” to which functionalists objected (Harris 1968:524).
In the “primitive” societies that were assigned to  social anthropology for study, there are few
written historic records. For example, we have no written record of the development of social
institutions among the Native Australians. Anthropologists, thinking of their study as a kind of
historical study, fall back on conjecture and imagination; they invent “pseudo-historical” or
“pseudo-casual” explanations. We have had innumerable and sometimes conflicting pseudo-
historical accounts of the origin and development of the totemic institutions of the Native
Australians. Such speculations have little place in serious anthropological discussion about
institutions. This does not imply the rejection of historical explanation, but quite the contrary
(Radcliffe-Brown 1952:3).
However, it is equally important to point out the criticisms of this “pseudo-history” reasoning for
synchronic analysis. In light of readily available and abundant historical sources encountered in
subsequent studies, it was suggested that this reasoning was a rationalization for avoiding a
confrontation with the past. Such criticism may have led to efforts to combine diachronic and
synchronic interests among later functionalist studies.

LEADING FIGURES
E.E. Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973) studied history at Oxford and anthropology at the University
of London. He was considered one of the most notable British anthropologists after the Second
World War. While Evans-Pritchard’s research includes numerous ethnic groups, he is best
remembered for his work with the Nuer, Azande, Anuak and Shilluk in Africa. His publication
Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande (1937) was the first ethnography of an African
people published by a professionally trained anthropologist. Equally influential was his work
among the Nuer, who presented him with the opportunity to study the organization of a society
without chiefs. In addition to his work on political organization, his work on kinship aided in the
shaping political theory. Later in his career, Evans-Pritchard emphasized the need for the
inclusion of history in the study of social anthropology. In opposition to Radcliffe-Brown,
Evans-Pritchard rejected the idea of social anthropology as a science and viewed it, rather, as a
comparative history. Though he contributed greatly to the study of African societies, his work
neglects to treat women as a significant part of the social whole. Although he began as a
functionalist, Evans-Pritchard later shifted to a humanist approach (Beidelman 1991).
Sir Raymond Firth (1901-2002) was a social and economic anthropologist. He became
interested in anthropology while doing his post-graduate work at the London School of
Economics. Firth conducted research in most areas of social anthropology, in addition to
intensive fieldwork in Tikopia. Perhaps his greatest contribution to the functionalist paradigm is
his distinction between social structure and social organization (see Principal Concepts for a
definition of the distinction between the two) (Silverman 1981, Watson-Gegeo 1991:198).
“Firth’s most significant contribution to anthropology is his development of a theoretical
framework emphasizing choice, decision, organization and process in social and institutional
behavior” (Watson-Gegeo 1991:198).
Meyer Fortes (1906-1983) was originally trained in psychology and was working in London as
a clinical psychologist when he met Seligman and Malinowski at the London School of
Economics in 1933. They persuaded him to undertake psychological and anthropological
fieldwork in West Africa. His writing is heavy with theoretical assertions as he argued that
empirical observation and analysis must be linked if social anthropology was to call itself a
science (Barnes 1991).
Sir Edmund Leach (1910-1989) was very influential in social anthropology. He demonstrated
the complex interrelationship of ideal models and political action within a historical context. His
most influential ethnographic works were based on fieldwork in Burma, Sarawak and North
Borneo (Sabah), and Sri Lanka. Although his initial theoretical approach was functionalist,
Leach then shifted to processual analysis. Leach was later influenced by Claude Levi-Strass and
adopted a structuralist approach. His 1962 publication Rethinking Anthropology offered a
challenge to structural-functionalism (Seymour-Smith 1986:165).
Lucy Mair (1901-1986) received her degree in Classics in 1923. In 1927 she joined the London
School of Economics in the Department of International Relations. Mair’s fieldwork was in
Uganda and her first studies focused on social change. She was an advocate of applied
anthropology and argued that it was not a separate branch of the anthropological discipline. Mair
was very concerned with public affairs, including the contemporary processes of colonization
and land tenure (Davis 1991).
Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942) was one of the founding fathers of British social
anthropology. He received his doctorate with highest honors in mathematics, physics and
philosophy from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. However, Malinowski’s interests turned
to anthropology after reading Frazier’s The Golden Bough. In 1910 he enrolled in the London
School of Economics to study anthropology. With Radcliffe-Brown, Malinowski pushed for a
paradigm shift in British anthropology; a change from the speculative and historical to the
ahistorical study of social institutions. This theoretical shift gave rise to functionalism and
established fieldwork as the constitutive experience of social anthropology (Kuper 1973, Young
1991). Malinowski’s functionalism was highly influential in the 1920s and 1930s. As applied
methodology, this approach worked, except for situations of social or cultural change. While
elements of Malinowski’s theory remain intact in current anthropological theory, it has changed
from its original form with new and shifting paradigms (Young 1991:445).
However, Malinowski made his greatest contribution as an ethnographer. He emphasized the
importance of studying social behavior and social relations in their concrete cultural contexts
through participant-observation. He considered it crucial to consider the observable differences
between norms and action; between what people say they do and what they actually do. His
detailed descriptions of Trobriand social life and thought are among the most comprehensive in
world ethnography and his Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922) is one of the most widely
read works of anthropology. Malinowski’s enduring conceptual contributions lay in the areas of:
kinship and marriage (e.g., the concept of “sociological paternity”); in magic, ritual language and
myth (e.g., the idea of “myth as social charter”); and in economic anthropology (notably the
concept of “reciprocity”) (Young 1991:445).
Robert K. Merton (1910-2003) attempted to clarify the concept of function by distinguishing
latent and manifest functions. Latent functions are those objective consequences of a cultural
item which are neither intended nor recognized by the members of a society. Manifest functions
are those objective consequences contributing to the adjustment or adaptation of the system
which are intended and recognized by participants in the system (Kaplan and Manners 1972:58).
Talcott Parsons (1902-1979), a sociologist who contributed to the structural-functionalist school
conceptualized the social universe in terms of four types and levels of “action systems,” (culture,
society, personality, and organismic/behavioral) with each system having to meet four functional
needs (adaptation, goal attainment, integration, and latency). He analyzed the operation and
interchanges of structures and processes within and between system levels taking into
consideration these basic requisites (Turner and Maryanski 1991).
A.R. Radcliffe-Brown (1881-1955) was a founding father of functionalism associated with the
branch known as structural-functionalism. He attended Cambridge where he studied moral
science, which incorporated philosophy, economics and psychology. It was during this time that
he earned the nick-name “Anarchy Brown” because of his political interests and affiliations.
After completing his degree in 1904, he conducted fieldwork in the Andaman Islands and
Western Australia. Radcliffe-Brown’s emphasis on examining the contribution of phenomena to
the maintenance of the social structure reflects the influence of French sociologist Emile
Durkheim (Winthrop 1991:129). He particularly focused on the institutions of kinship and
descent and suggested that, at least in tribal societies, they determined the character of family
organization, politics, economy, and inter-group relations (Winthrop 1991:130).
Audrey Richards (1899-1984) conducted her ethnographic research among the Bemba and in
Northern Rhodesia. Her major theoretical interests included economic and political systems, the
study of colonial rule, and anthropological participation, social change and the study of ritual
(Seymour-Smith 1986:248).

KEY WORKS

 Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1940. The Nuer. Oxford. One of the first ethnographic works

written by a professional anthropologist. Describes the livelihood of a pastoral people and
examines the organization of a society without government and legal institutions.
 Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1950. Social Anthropology and Other Essays. London. Contains a
critique of Radcliffe-Brown’s functionalism from the perspective of historicism.
  Firth, Raymond. 1951. Elements of Social Organization. London. Notable for the
distinction between social structure and social organization
 Firth, Raymond. 1957. Man and Culture, An Evaluation of the Work of Bronislaw
Malinowski. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Provides biographical information, a
chronological presentation, and interpretation of Malinowski’s works.
 Goldschmidt, Walter. 1966. Comparative Functionalism, An Essay in Anthropological
Theory. Berkeley: University of California Press. An excellent evaluation of the
functionalism paradigm after it had fallen out of favor. Doomed in its effort to revive it.
 Kuper, Adam. 1977. The Social Anthropology of Radcliffe-Brown. London: Routledge
and Kegan Paul. Provides biographical information, a chronological presentation, and
interpretation of Radcliffe-Brown’s works.
 Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1922. Argonauts of the Western Pacific, an Account of Native
Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. London. A
landmark ethnographic study during the beginning of the development of functionalist
theory.
 Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1926. Crime and Custom in SavageSociety. London: Routledge.
 Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1935. A Study of the Coral Gardens andtheir Magic. 2 vols.
London: Allen.
 Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1944. A Scientific Theory of Culture. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press.
  Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1945. The Dynamics of Culture Change.New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
 Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1948. Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays. Glencoe,
Ill. Provides his conception of religion and magic as means for making the world
acceptable, manageable and right.
 Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. 1922. The Andaman Islanders. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. A classic
ethnographic written during the beginning of the development of functionalist theory.
 Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. 1924. “The Mother’s Brother in SouthbAfrica.” South African
Journal of Science, 21:542-55. Examines the contribution of the asymmetrical joking
relationship between the mother’s brother and sister’s son among the Bathonga of
Mozambique to the maintenance of patrilineages
 Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. 1950. African Systems of Kinship and Marriage. London: Oxford
University Press.
 Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. 1952. Structure and Function in Primitive Society. London:
Cohen and West. The exemplary work of structural-functionalist theory.
 Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. 1957. A Natural Science of Society.Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

PRINCIPAL CONCEPTS
The primary starting points of Malinowski’s theorizing included: 1) understanding behavior in
terms of the motivation of individuals, including both rational, ‘scientifically’ validated behavior
and ‘irrational’, ritual, magical, or religious behavior; 2) recognizing the interconnectedness of
the different items which constituted a ‘culture’ to form some kind of system; and 3)
understanding a particular item by identifying its function in the current contemporary operation
of that culture (Firth 1957:55).
The inclusiveness of Malinowski’s concept of culture is apparent in his statement:
“It obviously is the integral whole consisting of implements and consumers’ goods, of
constitutional charters for the various social groupings, of human ideas and crafts, beliefs and
customs. Whether we consider a very simple or primitive culture or an extremely complex and
developed one, we are confronted by a vast apparatus, partly material, partly human and partly
spiritual by which man is able to cope with the concrete specific problems that face him”
(Malinowski 1944:36).
Essentially, he treated culture as everything pertaining to human life and action that cannot be
regarded as a property of the human organism considered as a physiological system. In other
words, he treated it as a direct manifestation of biologically inherited patterns of behavior.
Culture is that aspect of behavior that is learned by the individual and which may be shared by
pluralities of individuals. It is transmitted to other individuals along with the physical objects
associated with learned patterns and activities (Firth 1957:58).
Malinowski clearly states his view of a functionalist approach to understanding culture in his
posthumously published text, The Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays:

1. Culture is essentially an instrumental apparatus by which man is put in a position to

better cope with the concrete, specific problems that face him in his environment in the
course of the satisfaction of his needs.
2. It is a system of objects, activities, and attitudes in which every part exists as a means to
an end.
3. It is an integral in which the various elements are interdependent.
4. Such activities, attitudes and objects are organized around important and vital tasks into
institutions such as family, the clan, the local community, the tribe, and the organized
teams of economic cooperation, political, legal, and educational activity.
5. From the dynamic point of view, that is, as regards the type of activity, culture can be
analyzed into a number of aspects such as education, social control, economics, systems
of knowledge, belief, and morality, and also modes of creative and artistic expression”
(1944:150).

Malinowski considered institutions to be examples of isolated (in the sense of ‘bounded’)

organized behaviors. Since such behavior always involves a plurality of persons, an institution in
this sense is therefore a social system, which is a subsystem of society. Though functionally
differentiated from other institutions, an institution is a segmentary cross-section of culture that
involves all the components included in Malinowski’s definition of culture (Firth 1957:59).
Malinowski believed that the central feature of the charter of an institution is “the system of
values for the pursuit of which human beings organize, or enter organizations already existing”
(Malinowski 1944:52). As for the concept of function, Malinowski believed it is the primary
basis of differentiation of institutions within the same culture. In other words, institutions differ
because they are organized to serve different functions. He argued that institutions function for
continuing life and “normality” of an organism, or an aggregate of organisms as a species (Firth
1957:60). Indeed, for Malinowski, the primary reference of the concept of function was to a
theory of the biological needs of the individual organism:
“It is clear, I think, that any theory of culture has to start from the organic needs of man, and if it
succeeds in relating (to them) the more complex, indirect, but perhaps fully imperative needs of
the type which we call spiritual or economic or social, it will supply us with a set of general laws
such as we need in sound scientific theory” (Malinowski 1944:72-73).
Malinowski’s basic theoretical attempt was to derive the main characteristics of the society and
its social systems from a theory of the causally pre-cultural needs of the organism. He believed
that culture is always instrumental to the satisfaction of organic needs. Therefore, he had to
bridge the gap between the concept of biologically basic needs of the organism and the facts of
culturally organized behavior. His first major step was to set up the classification of basic needs
which could be directly related to a classification of cultural responses which could then in turn
be brought into relation to institutions. Next, he developed a second category of needs (derived
needs) which he inserted between his basic needs and the institutional integrates of collective
behavior (Firth 1957:63).
SYNOPTIC SURVEY OF BIOLOGICAL AND DERIVED NEEDS AND THEIR SATISFACTION IN CULTURE
Basic Needs Direct Responses Instrumental Responses to Symbolic and Integrative Needs Systems of
(Individual) (Organized, i.e., Needs Instrumental Thought and
Collective) Needs Faith
Nutrition Commissariat Renewal of Economics Transmission of experience by means of Knowledge
(metabolism) cultural precise, consistent principles
apparatus
Reproduction Marriage and        
family
Bodily Domicile and dress Characters of Social control    
comforts behavior and
their sanctions
Safety Protection and     Means of intellectual, emotional, and Magic
defense pragmatic control of destiny and chance Religion
Relaxation Systems of play Renewal of Education    
and repose personnel
Movement Set activities and        
systems of
communication
Growth Training and Organization of Political Communal rhythm of recreation, Art
Apprenticeship force and organization exercise and rest Sports
compulsion Games
Ceremonial
(SOURCE: Malinowski’s Basic Human Needs as presented in Langness 1987:80)
Radcliffe-Brown’s emphasis on social function is derived from the influence of the French
sociological school. This school developed in the 1890s around the work of Emile Durkheim
who argued that “social phenomena constitute a domain, or order, of reality that is independent
of psychological and biological facts. Social phenomena, therefore, must be explained in terms
of other social phenomena, and not by reference to psychobiological needs, drives, impulses, and
so forth” (Broce 1973:39-40).
Emile Durkheim argued that ethnographers should study the function of social institutions and
how they function together to maintain the social whole (Broce 1973:39-40). Radcliffe-Brown
shared this emphasis of studying the conditions under which social structures are maintained. He
also believed that the functioning of societies, like that of other natural systems, is governed by
laws that can be discovered though systematic comparison (Broce 1873:40). It is important to
note here that Firth postulated the necessity of distinguishing between social structure and social
organization. Social structure “is the principle(s) on which the forms of social relations depend.
Social organization refers to the directional activity, to the working out of social relations in
everyday life” (Watson-Gegeo 1991:198).
Radcliffe-Brown established an analogy between social life and organic life to explain the
concept of function. He emphasized the contribution of phenomena to maintaining social order.
However, Radcliffe-Brown’s disregard for individual needs was apparent in this analogy. He
argued that as long as a biological organism lives, it preserves the continuity of structure, but not
preserve the unity of its constituent parts. That is, over a period of time, while the constituent
cells do not remain the same, the structural arrangement of the constituent units remains similar.
He suggested that human beings, as essential units, are connected by a set of social relations into
an integrated whole. Like the biological organism, the continuity of the social structure is not
destroyed by changes in the units. Although individuals may leave the society by death or other
means, other individuals may enter it. Therefore, the continuity is maintained by the process of
social life, which consists of the activities and interactions of individual human beings and of
organized groups into which they are united. The social life of a community is the functioning of
the social structure. The function of any recurrent activity is the part it plays in the social life as a
whole and thereby, the contribution it makes to structural continuity (Radcliffe-Brown
1952:178).

METHODOLOGIES
Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski formulated distinct versions of functionalism, yet the emphasis
on the differences between them obscures their fundamental similarities and complementarily.
Both viewed society as structured into a working unity in which the parts accommodate one
another in a way that maintains the whole. Thus, the function of a custom or institution is the
contribution it makes to the maintenance of the entire system of which it is a part. On the whole,
sociocultural systems function to provide their members with adaptations to environmental
circumstances and to connect them in a network of stable social relationships. This is not to say
that functionalists failed to recognize internal social conflict or other forms of disequilibrium.
However, they did believe that societies strongly tend to maintain their stability and internal
cohesion as if societies had homeostatic qualities (Broce 1973:38-39).
The functionalists also shared an emphasis on intensive fieldwork, involving participant-
observation. This methodological emphasis has resulted in a series of excellent monographs on
native societies. In large part, the quality of these monographs may be attributed to their
theoretical framework, since the investigation of functional interrelationships of customs and
institutions provides an especially fruitful perspective for the collection of information.
In their analysis, the functionalists attempted to interpret societies as they operated in a
single point in time, or as they operate over a relatively short period of time. This was not
because the functionalists opposed, in principle, the study of history. Instead, it was a
consequence of their belief that very little reliable information could be secured about the long-
term histories of primitive peoples. Their rejection of the conjectural reconstructions of the
evolutionists and the diffusionists was based largely on this conviction (Broce 1973:39).

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
By the 1970’s functionalism was declining, but its contributions continue to influence
anthropologists today. Functional analysis gave value to social institutions by considering them
not as mere custom (as proposed by early American ethnologists), but as active and integrated
parts of a social system (Langness 1987). Though Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown differed in
their approaches to functional interpretation, they both contributed to the push for a “shift in the
assumptions of ethnology, from a concern with isolated traits to the interpretation of social life”
(Winthrop 1991:130).
This school of thought has contributed to the concept of culture that traditional usages, whatever
their origin, have been shaped by the requirement that human beings must live together in
harmony. Therefore the demands of interpersonal relationships are a causative force in culture
(Goldschmidt 1967:17-18).
Despite its theoretical limitations, functionalism has made important methodological
contributions. With its emphasis on intensive fieldwork, functionalism has provided in-depth
studies of societies. Additionally, the investigation of functional interrelationships of customs
and institutions provides a ready-made framework for the collection of information.
Its theoretical difficulties notwithstanding, functionalism can yet be fruitful. Such statements as,
“all societies are functionally cohesive,” are too vague to be refuted easily. However, these
statements can be refuted if they suggest that societies do not change or disintegrate. Therefore,
such theories can be considered uncontroversial tautologies. It could be said that functionalism is
the integration of false theory and trivially true tautology into a blueprint for fieldwork.
Accordingly, such fieldwork can be thought of as empirical attempts to refute such ideas that
savages are simple-minded, that savage customs are superstitious, and that savage societies are
chaotic, in essence, that savage societies are “savage.”

CRITICISMS
Functionalism became an important paradigm in American theory in the 1950s and 1960s. With
time, criticism of this approach has escalated, resulting in its decline in the early 1970s.
Interactionist theorists criticized functionalism for failing to conceptualize adequately the
complex nature of actors and the process of interaction. Marxist theory argued
against functionalism’s conservativism and the static nature of analysis that emphasized the
contribution of social phenomena to the maintenance of the status-quo. Advocates of theory
construction questioned the utility of excessively classificatory or typological theories that
pigeonholed phenomena in terms of their functions (Turner and Maryanski 1991). Functional
theory also has been criticized for its disregard of the historical process and for its
presupposition that societies are in a state of equilibrium (Goldschmidt 1996:511).
Logical problems of functional explanations also have been pointed out, namely that they
are teleological and tautological. It has been argued that the presence of an institution cannot
precede the institution’s existence. Otherwise, such a teleological argument would suggest that
the institution’s development anticipated its function. This criticism can be countered by
recognizing an evolutionary or a historical process at work; however, functionalism specifically
rejected such ideas. Functional analysis has also been criticized for being circular: needs are
postulated on the basis of existing institutions which are, in turn, used to explain their existence.
This criticism can be countered by establishing a set of universal requisite needs, or functional
prerequisites. It has been argued that to account for phenomena by showing what social needs
they satisfy does not explain how it originated or why it is what it is (Kucklick 1996:250).
Furthermore, functionalism’s ahistorical approach made it impossible to examine social
processes, rejection of psychology made it impossible to understand attitudes and sentiments and
the rejection of culture led to a lack of recognition of the ecological context (Goldschmidt
1996:511).
In light of such criticisms, some anthropologists attempted functional explanations that were not
constrained by such narrow approaches. In Clyde Kluckhohn’s functional explanation of Navaho
witchcraft, he avoided tautology by positing a social need (to manage hostility), thereby bringing
a psychological assumption into the analysis. He demonstrated that more overt means of
managing hostility had not been available due to governmental controls, thereby bringing in
historical and ecological factors (Goldschmidt 1996:511).
Comparative functionalism attends to the difficulties posed by Malinowski’s argument that
every culture can be understood in its own terms; every institution can be seen as a product of the
culture within which it developed. Following this, a cross-cultural comparison of institutions is a
false enterprise in that it would be comparing phenomena that could not be compared. This is
problematic since the internal mode of analysis cannot provide either a basis for true
generalization or a means of extrapolation beyond the local time and place (Goldschmidt
1966:8). Recognizing this “Malinowskian dilemma,” Walter Goldschmidt argued for a
“comparative functionalism.” This approach recognizes the universality of functions to which
institutions are a response. Goldschmidt suggested that problems are consistent from culture to
culture, but institutional solutions vary. He suggested starting with what is problematical in order
to discover how institutional devices provide solutions. In this way, he too sought to situate his
explanations in a broader theoretical framework (Goldschmidt 1996:511-512).
Neofunctionalism is a revision of British structural-functionalism that experienced renewed
activity during the 1980s. Some neo-functionalists, influenced by Parsons, analyze phenomena in
terms of specific functional requisites. Others, although they place less emphasis on functional
requisites and examine a variety of phenomena, also share similarities with functionalism by
focusing on issues of social differentiation, integration, and social evolution. Finally, some neo-
functionalists examine how cultural processes (including ritual, ideology, and values) integrate
social structures. Generally, there is little emphasis on how phenomena meet or fail to meet
system needs (Turner and Maryanski 1991).
Neofunctionalism differs from structural-functionalism by focusing on the modeling of systems-
level interactions, particularly negative feedback. It also emphasizes techno-environmental
forces, especially environment, ecology, and population, thereby reducing culture to adaptation
(Bettinger 1996:851). Both neofunctionalism and structural-functionalism explain phenomena
with reference to the needs they fulfill. They consider problematic cultural behaviors to result
largely from benefits they generate that are essential to sustaining or improving the well-being of
larger systems in which they are embedded, these systems being cultures in the case of
structural-functionalism and ecosystems in the case of neo-functionalism (Bettinger 1996:851).
Structural-functionalists believe these benefits are generated by behaviors that reinforce group
cohesion, particularly ritual, or that provide the individual with effective mechanisms for coping
with psychological threatening situations by means such as religion or magic. Neofunctionalists,
on the other hand, are concerned with issues that relate directly to fitness similar to that in
evolutionary biology (Bettinger 1996:852).
These emphases correspond to the kinds of groups that preoccupy structural-functional and
neofunctional explanation. Structural-functional groups are culturally constituted, as cultures, by
group-reinforcing cultural behaviors. Rather than separating humans from other animals,
neofunctionalists focus on groups as biologically constituted populations aggregated in
cooperative social alliances, by which self-interested individuals obtain fitness benefits as a
consequence of group membership (Bettinger 1996:852).
Since obviously rational, beneficial behaviors require no special explanation, structural-
functionalism and neofunctionalism focus on finding rationality in seemingly irrational
behaviors. Neofunctionalism, with economic rationality as its basic frame of reference, believes
that what is irrational for the individual in the short run may be rational for the group in the long
run. Therefore, neofunctionalist explanation seemed to provide a bridge between human
behavior, which frequently involves cooperation, and natural selection, where individual
interaction involves competition more than cooperation. Additionally, this type of argument was
traditional in that it emphasized cultural behaviors whose stated purpose (manifest function)
concealed a more important latent function. However, evolutionary theorists suggest that group
selection occurs only under rare circumstances, thereby revealing the insufficiency of fitness-
related self-interest to sustain among groups of unrelated individuals over any extended period
(Bettinger 1996:853).

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Cultural Materialism
By Catherine Buzney and Jon Marcoux

BASIC PREMISES
Coined by Marvin Harris in his 1968 text, The Rise of Anthropological Theory, cultural
materialism embraces three anthropological schools of thought: cultural materialism, cultural
evolution and cultural ecology (Barfield 1997: 232).  Emerging as an expansion of Marxism
materialism, cultural materialism explains cultural similarities and differences as well as models
for cultural change within a societal framework consisting of three distinct levels:  infrastructure,
structure and superstructure.  Cultural materialism promotes the idea that infrastructure,
consisting of “material realities” such as technological, economic and reproductive
(demographic) factors mold and influence the other two aspects of culture.  The “structure”
sector of culture consists of organizational aspects of culture such as domestic and kinship
systems and political economy, while the “superstructure” sector consists of ideological and
symbolic aspects of society such as religion.  Therefore, cultural materialists believe that
technological and economic aspects play the primary role in shaping a society. Cultural
materialism aims to understand the effects of technological, economic and demographic factors
on molding societal structure and superstructure through strictly scientific methods.  As stated by
Harris, cultural materialism strives to “create a pan-human science of society whose findings can
be accepted on logical and evidentiary grounds by the pan-human community” (Harris 1979:
xii). Cultural materialism is an expansion upon Marxist materialism.  Marx suggested that there
are three levels of culture, infrastructure, structure, and superstructure; however, unlike Marxist
theory, cultural materialism views both productive (economic) and reproductive (demographic)
forces as the primary factors that shape society.  Therefore, cultural materialism explains the
structural features of a society in terms of production within the infrastructure only (Harris 1996:
277). As such, demographic, environmental, and technological changes are invoked to explain
cultural variation (Barfield 1997: 232).
In contrast to cultural materialists, Marxists argue that production is a material condition located
in the base (See American Materialism page) that acts upon and is acted upon by the
infrastructure (Harris 1996: 277-178). Furthermore, while Marxist theory suggests that
production is a material condition located in the base of society that engages in a reciprocal
relationship with societal structure, both acting and being acted upon by the infrastructure sector,
cultural materialism proposes that production lies within the infrastructure and that the
infrastructure-structure relationship is unidirectional (Harris 1996: 277-278). Thus, cultural
materialists see the infrastructure-structure relationship as being mostly in one direction, while
Marxists see the relationship as reciprocal. Cultural materialism also differs from Marxism in its
lack of class theory. While Marxism suggests that culture change only benefits the ruling class,
cultural materialism addresses relations of unequal power recognizing innovations or changes
that benefit both upper and lower classes (Harris 1996: 278). Despite the fact that both cultural
materialism and Marxism are evolutionary in proposing that culture change results from
innovations selected by society because of beneficial increases to productive capabilities, cultural
materialism does not envision a final utopian form as visualized by Marxism (Engels, quoted by
Harris 1979: 141-142; Harris 1996: 280).
Cultural Materialists believe that all societies operate according to  a model in which production
and reproduction dominate and determine the other sectors of culture (See Key Concepts
‘Priority of Infrastructure’), effectively serving as the driving forces behind all cultural
development.  They propose that all non-infrastructure aspects of society are created with the
purpose of benefitting societal productive and reproductive capabilities.  Therefore, systems such
as government, religion, law, and kinship are considered to be constructs that only exist for the
sole purpose of promoting production and reproduction.  Calling for empirical research and strict
scientific methods in order to make accurate comparisons between separate cultures, proponents
of cultural materialism believe that its perspective effectively explains both intercultural
variation and similarities (Harris 1979: 27).  As such, demographic, environmental, and
technological changes are invoked to explain cultural variation (Barfield 1997: 232). 

POINTS OF REACTION
As with other forms of materialism, cultural materialism  emerged in the late 1960s as a reaction
to cultural relativism and idealism.  At the time, much of anthropological thought was
dominated by theorists who located culture change in human systems of thought rather than in
material conditions (i.e. Durkheim and Levi-Strauss). Harris critiqued idealist and relativist
perspectives which claimed that comparisons between cultures are non-productive and irrelevant
because each culture is a product of its own dynamics. Marvin Harris argued that these
approaches remove culture from its material base and place it solely within the minds of its
people. With their strictly emic approach, Harris stated that idealists and relativists fail to be
holistic, violating a principal tenet of anthropological research (see Key Concepts) (Harris 1979;
1996: 277). By focusing on observable, measurable phenomena, cultural materialism presents an
etic (viewed from outside of the target culture) perspective of society. 

LEADING FIGURES
Marvin Harris (1927-) was educated at Columbia University where he received his Ph.D. in
1953. In 1968, Harris wrote The Rise of Anthropological Theory in which he lays out the
foundations of cultural materialism (CM) and critically considers other major anthropological
theories; this work drew significant criticism from proponents of other viewpoints.  (Barfield
1997: 232). Harris studied cultural evolution using a CM research strategy. His work with India’s
sacred cow ideology (1966) is seen by many as his most successful CM analysis (Ross 1980).  In
this work, Harris considers the taboo against cow consumption in India, demonstrating how
economic and technological factors within the infrastructure affect the other two sectors of
culture, resulting in superstructural ideology.  In this work, Harris shows the benefits of
juxtaposing both etic and emic perspectives in demonstrating how various phenomena which
appear non-adaptive are, in fact, adaptive. Harris also made a concerted effort to write for a more
general audience. His 1977 work Cannibals and Kings: The Origins of Culture laid out in CM
terms the evolutionary trajectories that lead to all features of human society (i.e., population
growth, technological change, ecological change) (Harris 1977). This work also represents the
point at whi ch many believe Harris started placing too much emphasis on material conditions in
explaining human society (Brfield 1997: 232). Critics of Harris  argued that his use of CM to
explain all cultural phenomena was too simplistic and, as a result, many criticized and even
dismissed his work (Friedman 1974).
In spite of his critics, Harris left a significant legacy having successfully created  an
anthropological theory and disseminated it to both students and the public. His work is widely
cited by both proponents and critics of cultural materialism, and as of 1997, Harris’
anthropological textbook Culture, People, Nature was in its seventh edition, attesting to the
quality of his work (Barfield 1997: 232).
Julian Steward (1902 – 1972) developed the principal of cultural ecology, which holds that the
environment is an additional, contributing factor in the shaping of cultures.    He defined
multilinear evolution as a methodology concerned with regularity in social change, the goal of
which is to develop cultural laws empirically.  He termed his approach multilinear evolution, and
defined it as “a methodology concerned with regularity in social change, the goal of which is to
develop cultural laws empirically” (Bohannan and Glazer 1988:321). In essence, Steward
proposed that, methodologically, one must look for “parallel developments in limited aspects of
the cultures of specifically identified societies” (Hoebel 1958:90). Once parallels in development
are identified, one must then look for similiar causal explanations. Steward also developed the
idea of culture types that have “cross-cultural validity and show the following characteristics: (1)
they are made up of selected cultural elements rather than cultures as wholes; (2) these cultural
elements must be selected in relationship to a problem and to a frame of reference; and (3) the
cultural elements that are selected must have the same functional relationships in every culture
fitting the type” (Bohannan and Glazer 1988:321).
Leslie White (1900 – 1975) was concerned with ecological anthropology and energy capture as
a measure by which to define the complexity of a culture.  He was heavily influenced by
Marxian economic theory as well as Darwinian evolutionary theory.  He proposed that Culture =
Energy * Technology, suggesting that “culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per
captia per year is increased, or as the efficiency of the instrumental means of putting the energy
to work is increased” (Bohannan and Glazer 1988:340). Energy capture is accomplished through
the technological aspect of culture so that a modification in technology could, in turn, lead to a
greater amount of energy capture or a more efficient method of energy capture thus changing
culture. In other words, “we find that progress and development are effected by the improvement
of the mechanical means with which energy is harnessed and put to work as well as by
increasing the amounts of energy employed” (Bohannan and Glazer 1988:344). Another premise
that White adopts is that the technological system plays a primary role or is the primary
determining factor within the cultural system. White’s materialist approach is evident in the
following quote: “man as an animal species, and consequently culture as a whole, is dependent
upon the material, mechanical means of adjustment to the natural environment” (Bohannan and
Glazer 1988).
R. Brian Ferguson is a professor within the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University.
Ferguson’s research interests include warfare and political economy in Puerto Rico. He has
published several books including Warfare, Culture, and Environment (1984) and Yanomami
Warfare: A Political History (1995). Ferguson’s approach to anthropology is very similar to that
of cultural materialism, but he argues that the infrastructural factors are not the only sources of
culture change;Fergusoninstead, he argues that causal factors may exist throughout the entire
sociocultural system, including both structural and superstructural sectors (Ferguson 1995: 24).
For example, Ferguson argues that  Puerto Rican sugar plantations were, in fact, cartels
politically maintained by statutes of the U.S. congress (Ferguson 1995: 33). Furthermore, he
argued that these structural factors allowed for economic inefficiency which ultimately led to the
collapse of Puerto Rico’s sugar plantations, subsequently causing hardships for all citizens
(Ferguson 1996: 33). In this case, he argues that the infrastructure was  affected by the structure
(i.e., the biological well being of citizens of Puerto Rico was affected by a wholly structural
factor).
Martin F. Murphy is the chairperson of the Anthropology Department at the University of
Notre Dame. . He has published widely on the subject of political organization in the Caribbean,
including the book Dominican Sugar Plantations: Production and Foreign Labor
Integration (1991) (Murphy and Margolis 1995: 213). In this 1991 work, Murphy seeks to
explain the use of foreign labor in sugar production as a response to material conditions such as
demography and technology. Specifically, the use of foreign labor, such as Haitian immigrants,
is seen as a response to a shortage of native Dominicans who are willing to do that type of
intensive labor (1991).
Maxine L. Margolis is a professor of anthropology who works with Marvin Harris at the
University of Florida. She has studied culture both in the United States and Brazil with a focus
on gender, international migration, and anthropological ecology (Murphy and Margolis 1995:
213). Her works include Mothers and Such: Views of American Women and Why They
Changed (1984) and The Moving Frontier: Social and Economic Change in a Southern Brazilian
Community (1973).  See “Methodologies” for an example of her CM analysis.
Allen Johnson currently teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research
applies a cultural materialism framework to economic anthropology (Murphy and Margolis
1995: 212). One of his most notable works, The Evolution of Human Societies: From Foraging
Group to Agrarian State (1987) was co-written with the notable materialist archaeologist
Timothy Earle. In this work, the authors use empirical grounds to argue that population growth is
a prime cause for culture change; population  growth leads to competition for resources among
egalitarian groups, and this competition acts as a catalyst in forming new adaptive modes
(Johnson and Earle 1987). Some of these new adaptive modes involve an increase in inequality
and the rise of stratified societies. Thus, they argue that social evolution is driven by
infrastructural causes.

KEY WORKS

 Burroughs, James E., & Rindfleisch, Aric.  2002.  Materialism and Well-Being:  A
Conflicting Values Perspective.  The Journal of Consumer Research 29(3):  348-370.  
 Dawson, Doyne.  1997.  Review:  Evolutionary materialism.  History and Theory 36(1): 
83-92. 
 Ferguson, R. Brian. 1984. Warfare, Culture, and Environment.  Florida:  Academic
Press.  
 Ferguson, R. Brian. 1995.  Yanomami Warfare: A Political History.  New Mexico:  The
American School of Research Press. 
 Goodenough, Ward H. 2003.  In pursuit of culture.  Annual Review of Anthropology 32:
1-12.   
 Harris, Marvin.  1927.  Culture, people, nature:  an introduction to general anthropology. 
New York: Crowell.
 Harris, Marvin. 1966. The Cultural Ecology of India’s Sacred Cattle. Current
Anthropology 7:51-66.
  Harris, Marvin. 1968. The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of
Culture. New York: Crowell.
 Harris, Marvin. 1977. Cannibals and Kings: The Origins of Culture. New York: Random
House.
 Harris, Marvin. 1979. Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture. New
York: Random House.
 Henrich, Joseph.  2001.  Cultural transmission and the diffusion of innovations: Adoption
dynamics indicate that biased cultural transmission is the predominate force in behavioral
change. American Anthropologist 103(4):  992-1013.  
 Johnson, Allen, & Earle, Timothy. 1987.  The Evolution of Human Societies: From
Foraging Group to Agrarian State.   California: Stanford University Press.  
 Manners, Robert A.  1913.  Process and pattern in culture, essays in honor of Julian
Steward.  Chicago:  Aldine Pub. Co.  
 Margolis, Maxine L.  2003.  Marvin Harris (1927-2001).  American Anthropologist
105(3):  685-688.  
 Margolis, Maxine L. 1984. Mothers and Such: Views of American Women and Why
They Changed.  California: University of California Press.  
 Margolis, Maxine L. 1973. The Moving Frontier: Social and Economic Change in a
Southern Brazilian Community.  Florida: University of Florida Press.  
 Milner, Andrew. 1993.  Cultural Materialism.  Canada:  Melbourne University Press.
 Murphy Martin, &  Margolis, Maxine (Eds.). 1995. Science, Materialism, and the Study
of Culture. Gainesville: University of Florida Press.
 Murphy, Martin. 1991. Dominican Sugar Plantations: Production and Foreign Labor
Integration.  New York:  Praeger Publishers. 
 Nolan, Patrick, & Lenski, Gerhard.  1996.  Technology, Ideology, and Societal
Development.   Sociological Perspectives 36(1):  23-38.
 Roseberry, William.  1997.  Marx and Anthropology.  Annual Review of
Anthorpology  26:  25-46.  
 Ross, Eric (Ed.).  1980. Beyond the Myths of Culture: Essays.  In  Cultural Materialism.
New York: Academic Press.
 Steward, Jane C., & Murphy, Robert. F. (Eds.).  1977.  Evolution and ecology:  essays on
social transformation.  Urbana:  University of Illinois Press. 
 Steward, Julian. 1955.  Chapter 20:  The Concept and Method of Cultural Ecology.  In
Theory of Culture Change. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, pp. 30-42. 
 White, Leslie. 1959.  Energy and Tools.  In: Paul A. Erickson & Liam D. Murphy
(Eds.),  Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory.  Ontario:  Broadview Press,
pp. 259-277.
 White, Leslie A., & Dillingham, Beth.  1973.  The concept of culture.  Minneapolis:
Burgess Pub. Co. 
 Whitely, Peter M.  2003.  Leslie White’s Hopi Ethnography:  Of Practice and in
Theory.  Journal of Anthropological Research 59(2):  151-181. 
 Wolf, Eric. 1982. Introduction to Europe and the People Without History.  In Paul A.
Erickson and Liam D. Murphy (Eds.), Readings for a History of Anthropological
Theory.    Ontario:  Broadview Press, pp. 370-386.

PRINCIPAL CONCEPTS
Emic: This term denotes an approach to anthropological inquiry where the observer attempts to
“get inside the heads” of the natives and learn the rules and categories of a culture in order to be
able to think and act as if they were a member of the population (Harris 1979: 32). For example,
an emic approach might attempt to understand native Faeroe islanders’ highly descriptive system
for naming geographic locations. Cultural materialism focuses on how the emics of thought and
the behavior of a native population are the results of etic processes (i.e., observable phenomena).
Etic: This term denotes an approach to anthropological inquiry where the observer does not
emphasize or use native rules or categories but instead uses “alien” empirical categories and
rules derived from the strict use of the scientific method. Quantifiable measurements such as
fertility rates, kilograms of wheat per household, and average rainfall are used to understand
cultural circumstances, regardless of what these measurements may mean to the individuals
within the population (Harris 1979:32). An example of this approach can be found in Paynter and
Cole’s work on tribal political economy (Paynter and Cole 1980). Cultural materialism focuses
on the etics of thought and the etics of behavior of a native population to explain culture change.
Etic behavioral mode of production: The etic behavioral mode of production involves the
actions of a society that satisfy the minimal requirements for subsistence (Harris 1979: 51). The
important thing to remember here is that these actions are determined and analyzed from a
scientific perspective, without regard for  their meaning to the members of the native society.
Etic behavioral mode of reproduction: The etic behavioral mode of reproduction involves the
actions that a society takes in order to limit detrimental increases or decreases to population
(Harris 1979: 1951).  These actions are determined and analyzed from a scientific perspective by
the observer, without regard for their meaning to the members of the native society.
Infrastructure: The infrastructure consists of etic behavioral modes of production and etic
modes of reproduction as determined by the combination of ecological, technological,
environmental, and demographic variables (Harris 1996: 277).
Structure: The structure is characterized by the organizational aspects of a culture consisting of
the domestic economy (e.g., kinship, division of labor) and political economy (Harris 1996: 277).
Political economy involves issues of control by a force above that of the domestic household
whether it be a government or a chief.
Superstructure: The superstructure is the symbolic or ideological segment of culture. Ideology
consists of a code of social order regarding how social and political organization is structured
(Earle 1997: 8). It structures the obligations and rights of all the members of society. The
superstructure involves things such as ritual, taboos, and symbols (Harris 1979: 229).
Priority of Infrastructure: In Harris’ words, “The etic behavioral modes of production and
reproduction probabilistically determine the etic behavioral domestic and political economy,
which in turn probabilistically determine the behavioral and mental emic superstructures” (Harris
1979: 55-56). In other words, the main factor in determining whether a cultural innovation is
selected by society lies in its effect on the basic biological needs of that society. These
innovations can involve a change in demographics, technological change and/or environmental
change in the infrastructure. The innovations within the infrastructure will be selected by a
society if they increase productive and reproductive capabilities even when they are in conflict
with structural or superstructural elements of society (Harris 1996: 278). Innovations can also
take place in the structure (e.g., changes in government) or the superstructure (e.g., religious
change), but will only be selected by society if they do not diminish the ability of society to
satisfy basic human needs. Therefore, the driving force behind culture change is satisfying the
basic needs of production and reproduction.

METHODOLOGIES
Harris writes, “Empirical science…is the foundation of the cultural materialist way of knowing”
(Harris 1979: 29). Epistemologically, cultural materialism focuses only on those entities and
events that are observable and quantifiable (Harris 1979: 27). In keeping with the scientific
method, these events and entities must be studied using operations that are capable of being
replicated (Harris 1979: 27). Using empirical methods, cultural materialists reduce cultural
phenomena into observable, measurable variables that can be applied across societies to
formulate nomothetic theories.
Harris’s basic approach to the study of culture is to show how emic (native) thoughts and
behaviors are a result of material considerations.   Harris focuses on practices that contribute to
the basic biological survival of those in society (i.e., subsistence practices, technology, and
demographic issues). In order to demonstrate this point, analysis often involves the measurement
and comparison of phenomena that might seem trivial to the native population (Harris 1979: 38). 
Harris used a cultural materialist model to examine the Hindu belief that cows are sacred and
must not be killed.. First, he argued that the taboos on cow slaughter (emic thought) were
superstructural elements resulting from the economic need to utilize cows as draft animals rather
than as food (Harris 1966: 53-5 4). He also observed that the Indian farmers claimed that no
calves died because cows are sacred (Harris 1979: 38). In reality, however, male calves were
observed to be starved to death when feed supplies are low (Harris 1979: 38). Harris argues that
the scarcity of feed (infrastructural change) shaped ideological (superstructural) beliefs of the
farmers (Harris 1979: 38). Thus, Harris shows how, using empirical methods, an etic perspective
is essential in order to understand culture change holistically.
Another good example of cultural materialism at work involves the study of women’s roles in
the post-World War II United States. Maxine Margolis empirically studied this phenomenon and
interpreted her findings according to a classic cultural materialist model. The 1950’s was a time
when ideology held that the duties of women should be located solely in the home (emic
thought); however, empirically, Margolis found that women were entering the workforce in large
numbers (actual behavior) (Margolis 1984). This movement was an economic necessity that
increased the productive and reproductive capabilities of U.S. households (Margolis
1984).Furthermore, Margolis argues that the ideological movement known as “feminism” did not
cause this increase of women in the workforce, but rather was a result of this movement by
women into the workforce (Margolis 1984). Thus, here we see how infrastructure determined
superstructure as ideology changed to suit new infrastructural innovations.
For more examples see Ross 1980.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Cultural materialism can be credited with challenging  anthropology to use more scientific
research methods. Rather than rely solely on native explanations of phenomenon, Harris and
others urged analysts to use empirical and replicable methods. Cultural materialism also
promoted the notion that culture change can be studied across geographic and temporal
boundaries in order to get at so-called universal, nomothetic theories. Some of Harris’ work
(1966, 1977) shows that logical, scientific explanations for cultural phenomena such as India’s
beef taboos are possible without invoking mystical or ephemeral causal factors such as are
present in structuralist or functionalist interpretations.
Archaeologists, too, have adopted cultural materialist approaches. Archaeologist William Rathje
wanted to test many of the assumptions archaeologists have in dealing with waste from the past
(Rathje 1992). In pursuit of this aim, Rathje excavated modern landfills in Arizona and other
states and took careful measurements of artifact frequencies. One of the many things he did with
this data was to test the difference between stated alcohol consumption of informants and actual
alcohol consumption (based on refuse evidence). In order to do this, Rathje selected a sample of
households from which he collected and analyzed refuse. He also gave those households a
questionnaire that asked questions relating to alcohol consumption. After analyzing what people
said they drank and what was actually found in the refuse, Rathje found a significant discrepancy
between stated and actual alcohol consumption (Rathje 1992). This case study demonstrates that
an etic approach to cultural phenomena may uncover vital information that would be otherwise
missed by a wholly emic analysis.

CRITICISMS
Criticisms of cultural materialism are plentiful in anthropology. As with all of the different
paradigms in anthropology (e.g., functionalism, structuralism, and Marxism), cultural
materialism does have its flaws. Cultural materialism has been termed “vulgar materialism” by
Marxists such as J. Friedman because opponents believe that the cultural materialists empirical
approach to culture change is too simple and  straightforward (Friedman 1974). Marxists believe
that cultural materialists rely too heavily on the one-directional infrastructure-superstructure
relationship to explain culture change, and that the relationship between the “base” (a distinct
level of a sociocultural system, underlying the structure, in Marxist terminology) and the
superstructure must be dialectically viewed (Friedman 1974).  They argue that a cultural
materialist approach can disregard the superstructure to such an extent that the effect of
superstructure on shaping structural elements can be overlooked. 
Idealists such as structuralists (e.g., Durkheim and his followers) argue that the key to
understanding culture change lies in the emic thoughts and behaviors of members of a native
society. Thus, in contrast to cultural materialists, they argue that there is no need for an etic/emic
distinction (Harris 1979: 167). To idealists, the etic view of culture is irrelevant and full of
ethnocentrism; furthermore, they argue that culture itself is the controlling factor in culture
change  (Harris 1979: 167). In their view, culture is based on a panhuman structure embedded
within the brain, and cultural variation is the result of each society’s filling that structure in their
own way (Harris 1979: 167).  They argue that the cultural materialist emphasis on an etic
perspective creates biased conclusions. 
Postmodernists also argue vehemently against cultural materialism because of its use of strict
scientific method. Postmodernists believe that science is itself a culturally determined
phenomenon that is affected by class, race and other structural and infrastructural variables
(Harris 1995: 62). In fact, some postmodernists argue that science is a tool used by upper classes
to oppress and dominate lower classes (Rosenau 1992: 129). Thus, postmodernists argue that the
use of any science is useless in studying culture, and that cultures should be studied using
particularism and relativism (Harris 1995: 63). This is a direct attack on cultural materialism
with its objective studies and cross-cultural comparisons.

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Anthropology. Oxford: Blackwell.
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New York: Crowell.
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California:  AltaMira Press.  
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Culture. New York: Crowell.
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and Cultural Anthropology. In: Eric B. Ross (Ed.), Beyond the Myths of Culture: Essays
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Margolis (Eds.), Science, Materialism, and the Study of Culture. Gainesville: University
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Structuralism
By Rachel Briggs and Janelle Meyer

BASIC PREMISES
Structuralism was predominately influenced by the schools of phenomenology and of Gestalt
psychology, both of which were fostered in Germany between 1910 and the 1930s (Sturrock
2003: 47). Phenomenology was a school of philosophical thought that attempted to give
philosophy a rational, scientific basis. Principally, it was concerned with accurately describing
consciousness and abolishing the gulf that had traditionally existed between subject and object of
human thought. Consciousness, as they perceived, was always conscious of something, and that
picture, that whole, cannot be separated from the object or the subject but is the relationship
between them (Sturrock 2003: 50-51). Phenomenology was made manifest in the works of
Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre among others.
Gestalt psychology maintained that all human conscious experience is patterned, emphasizing
that the whole is always greater than the parts, making it a holistic view (Sturrock 2003: 52). It
fosters the view that the human mind functions by recognizing or, if none are available, imposing
structures.
Structuralism developed as a theoretical framework in linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure in
the late 1920s, early 1930s. De Saussure proposed that languages were constructed of hidden
rules that practitioners ‘know’ but are unable to articulate. In other words, although we may all
speak the same language, we are not all able to fully articulate the grammatical rules that govern
why we arrange words in the order we do. However, we understand these rules at an implicit (as
opposed to explicit) level, and we are aware that we correctly use these rules when we are able to
successfully decode what another person is saying to us  (Johnson 2007: 91).
Claude Levi-Strauss (1908 – 2009) is widely regarded as the father of structural anthropology.
In the 1940s, he proposed that the proper focus of anthropological investigations is on the
underlying patterns of human thought that produce the cultural categories that organize
worldviews hitherto studied (McGee and Warms, 2004: 345). He believed these processes did
not determine culture, but instead, operated within culture. His work was heavily influenced by
Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss as well as the Prague School of structural linguistics
(organized in 1926) which include Roman Jakobson (1896 – 1982), and Nikolai Troubetzkoy
(1890 – 1938). From the latter, he derived the concept of binary contrasts, later referred to in his
work as binary oppositions, which became fundamental in his theory.
In 1972, his book Structuralism and Ecology detailed the tenets of what would become structural
anthropology. In it, he proposed that culture, like language, is composed of hidden rules that
govern the behavior of its practitioners. What makes cultures unique and different from one
another are the hidden rules participants understand but are unable to articulate; thus, the goal of
structural anthropology is to identify these rules. Levi-Strauss proposed a methodological means
of discovering these rules—through the identification of binary oppositions. The structuralist
paradigm in anthropology suggests that the structure of human thought processes is the same in
all cultures, and that these mental processes exist in the form of binary oppositions (Winthrop
1991). Some of these oppositions include hot-cold, male-female, culture-nature, and raw-cooked.
Structuralists argue that binary oppositions are reflected in various cultural institutions (Lett
1987:80). Anthropologists may discover underlying thought processes by examining such things
as kinship, myth, and language. It is proposed, then, that a hidden reality exists beneath all
cultural expressions. Structuralists aim to understand the underlying meaning involved in human
thought as expressed in cultural expressions.
Further, the theoretical approach offered by structuralism emphasizes that elements of culture
must be understood in terms of their relationship to the entire system (Rubel and Rosman
1996:1263). This notion, that the whole is greater than the parts, draws upon the Gestalt school
of psychology. Essentially, elements of culture are not explanatory in and of themselves, but
rather form part of a meaningful system. As an analytical model, structuralism assumes the
universality of human thought processes in an effort to explain the “deep structure” or underlying
meaning existing in cultural phenomena. “…[S]tructuralism is a set of principles for studying the
mental superstructure” (Harris 1979:166, from Lett 1987:101).

LEADING FIGURES
Claude Lévi-Strauss: (1908 – 2009) is unquestionably the founding and most important figure
in anthropological structuralism. He was born in Brussels in 1908. and obtained a law degree
from the University of Paris. He became a professor of sociology at the University of Sao Paulo
in Brazil in 1934. It was at this time that he began to think about human thought cross-culturally
when he was exposed to various cultures in Brazil. His first publication in anthropology
appeared in 1936 and covered the social organization of the Bororo (Bohannan and Glazer
1988:423). After WWII, he taught at the New School for Social Research in New York. There he
met Roman Jakobson, from whom he took the structural linguistics model and applied its
framework to culture (Bohannan and Glazer 1988:423). Lévi-Strauss has been noted as singly
associated with the elaboration of the structuralist paradigm in anthropology (Winthrop 1991).
Ferdinand de Saussure: (1857 – 1913) was a Swiss linguist born in Geneva whose work in
structural linguistics and semiology greatly influenced Lévi-Strauss (Winthrop 1991; Rubel and
Rosman 1996). He is widely considered to be the father of 20th century linguistics.
Roman Jakobson (1896 to 1982) was a Russian structural linguist. who was greatly influenced
by the work of Ferdinand de Saussere and who worked with Nikolai Trubetzkoy to develop
techniques for the analysis of sound in language. His work influenced Lévi-Strauss while they
were colleagues at the New School for Social Research in New York.
Marcel Mauss (1872 – 1952) was a French sociologist whose uncle was Emile Durkheim. He
taught Lévi-Strauss and influenced his thought on the nature of reciprocity and structural
relationships in culture (Winthrop 1991).
Jacques Derrida (1930 – 2004) was a French social philosopher, literary critic and founder of
deconstructoinism who may be labeled both a “structuralist’ and a “poststructuralist”. Derrida
wrote critiques of his contemporaries’ works, and of the notions underlying structuralism and
poststructuralism (Culler 1981).
Michel Foucault (1926 – 1984)  was a French social philosopher whose works also  have been
associated with both structuralist and poststructuralist thought, more often with the latter. When
asked in an interview if he accepted being grouped with Lacan and Lévi-Strauss, he conveniently
avoided a straight answer: “It’s for those who use the label [structuralism] to designate very
diverse works to say what makes us ‘structuralists’” (Lotringer 1989:60). However, he has
publicly scoffed at being labeled a structuralist because he did not wish to be permanently
associated with one paradigm (Sturrock 1981). Foucault largely wrote about  issues of power and
domination in his works, arguing that there is no absolute truth, and thus the purpose of
ideologies is to struggle against other ideologies for supremecy (think about competing news
networks, arguing different points of view). For this reason, he is more closely associated with
poststructuralist thought.

KEY WORKS

 Clarke, Simon (1981) The Foundations of Structuralism. The

Harvester Press: Sussex.
 Durkheim, Emile and Marcel Mauss (1963) Primitive
Classification. University of Chicago Press: Chicago.
 Hage, Per and Frank Harary (1983) Structural Models in
Anthropology. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
 Lane, Michael (1970) Introduction to Structuralism. Basic Books,
Inc.: New York.
 Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1963) Structural Anthropology, Volume I.
Basic Books, Inc.: New York.
 Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1976) Structural Anthropology, Volume II.
Basic Books, Inc.: New York.
 Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1963) The Elementary Structures of
Kinship. Beacon Press: Boston.
 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 1966) The Savage Mind. University of
Chicago Press: Chicago.
 Mauss, Marcel (1967) The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange
in Archaic Societies. Norton: New York.
 Merquior, J. G. (1986) From Prague to Paris: A Critique of
Structuralist and Post-Structuralist Thought. Thetford Press: Thetford, Norfolk.
 Millet, Louis and Madeleine Varin d’Ainvelle (1965) Le
structuralisme. Editions Universitaires: Paris.
 Pettit, Philip (1975) The Concept of Structuralism: A Critical
Analysis. University of California Press: Berkeley.
 Saussure, Ferdinand de (1959) Course in General Linguistics.
Charles Bally et al, eds. McGraw-Hill: New York.
 Sturrock, John (1986) Structuralism. Paladin Grafton Books:
London.

METHODOLOGIES
Folk stories, religious stories, and fairy tales were the principle subject matter for structuralists
because they believed these made manifest the underlying universal human structures, the binary
oppositions. For example, in the story of Cinderella, some of the binary oppositions include good
versus evil, pretty versus ugly (Cinderella versus her two stepsisters), clean versus dirty, etc.
Because of this focus, the principal methodology employed was hermeneutics. Hermeneutics
originated as a study of the Gospels, and has since come to refer to the interpretation of the
meaning of written works.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Though there are few anthropologists today who would declare themselves structuralists,
structuralism was highly
influential. Work of the poststructuralist Pierre Bourdieu, particularly his idea of the habitus, laid
the groundwork for agency theory. Structuralism also continued the idea that there were
universal structuring elements in the human mind that shaped culture. This concept is still
pursued in cognitive anthropology which examines the way people think in order to identify
these structures, instead of analyzing oral or written texts.

CRITICISMS
Some concerns have been expressed concerning the epistemological and theoretical assumptions
of structuralism. The validity of structural explanations has been challenged on the grounds
that structuralist methods are imprecise and dependent upon the observer (Lett 1987:103).
Lett (1987) poses the question of how independent structural analyses of the same phenomena
could arrive at the same conclusions.
The paradigm of structuralism is primarily concerned with the structure of the human psyche,
and it does not address historical  change in culture (Lett 1987, Rubel and Rosman 1996). This
synchronic approach, which advocates a “psychic unity” of all human minds, has been criticized
because it does not account for individual human action historically.
Maurice Godelier incorporated a dynamic element into his structural analysis of Australian
marriage-class systems and their relationship to demographic factors (Rubel and Rosman
1996:1269). He did so by incorporating Marxist ideas of structures representing an organized
reality and by emphasizing the importance of change in society. Godelier took structuralism a
step further with his examination of infrastructural factors. In structuralist thought, inherently
conflicting ideas exist in the form of binary oppositions, but these conflicts do not find
resolution. In structural Marxist thought, the importance of perpetual change in society is
noted: “When internal contradictions between structures or within a structure cannot be
overcome, the structure does not reproduce but is transformed or evolves” (Rubel and Rosman
1996:1269).
Further, others have criticized structuralism for its lack of concern with human individuality.
Cultural relativists are especially critical of this because they believe structural “rationality”
depicts human thought as uniform and invariable (Rubel and Rosman 1996).
In addition to those who modified the structuralist paradigm and its critics exists another reaction
known as poststructuralism. Although poststructuralists are influenced by the structuralist ideas
put forth by Lévi-Strauss, their work has more of a reflexive quality. Pierre Bourdieu is a
poststructuralist who “…sees structure as a product of human creation, even though the
participants may not be conscious of the structure” (Rubel and Rosman 1996:1270). Instead of
the structuralist notion of the universality of human thought processes found in the structure of
the human mind, Bourdieu proposes that dominant thought processes are a product of society
and determine how people act (Rubel and Rosman 1996). However, in poststructuralist methods,
the person describing the thought processes of people of another culture may be reduced to just
that—description—as interpretation imposes the observer’s perceptions onto the analysis at hand
(Rubel and Rosman 1996). Poststructuralism is much like postmodernism in this sense.
Materialists would also generally object to structural explanations in favor of more observable
or practical explanations. As Lett (1987) points out, Lévi-Strauss’ analysis of the role of the
coyote as trickster in many different Native American mythologies rationalizes that the coyote,
because it preys on herbivores and carnivores alike, is associated with agriculture and hunting,
and life and death (Lett 1987:104) is thus a deviation from natural order, or abnormal. Lett
further shows that a materialist perspective is reflected in  Marvin Harris’  explanation of the
recurrent theme of the coyote as trickster: “The coyote enjoys the status of a trickster because it
is an intelligent, opportunistic animal” (Lett 1987:104).
Another reaction to structuralism is grounded in scientific inquiry. In any form of responsible
inquiry, theories must be falsifiable. Structural analyses do not allow for this or for external
validation (Lett 1987). Although these analyses present “complexity of symbolic realms” and
“insight about the human condition,” they simply cannot be subjected to scientific scrutiny (Lett
1987:108-9).

SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Bohannan, Paul and Mark Glazer, eds. (1988) High Points in Anthropology. McGraw-
Hill, Inc.: New York.
 Culler, Jonathan (1981) Structuralism and Since: From Lévi-Strauss to Derrida. John
Sturrock (ed.); Oxford University Press: Oxford.
 Johnson, Matthew. (2007) Archaeological Theory.  Johnson, Matthew. (2001)
Archaeological Theory.
 Lett, James (1987) The Human Enterprise. Westview Press, Inc.:Boulder, Colorado.
 Lotringer, Sylvère, ed. (1989) Foucault Live. Semiotexte: New York.
 Rubel, Paula and Abraham Rosman (1996) Structuralism. In Encyclopedia of Cultural
Anthropology, Volume IV. David Levinson and Melvin Ember, Eds. Henry Holt and
Company: New York. Seymour-Smith, Charlotte (1986) Dictionary of
Anthropology. Macmillan Press, Ltd.: London.
 Sturrock, John. (2003) Structuralism: Second Edition. Blackwell Publishing: Oxford, UK.
 Winthrop, Robert H. (1991) Dictionary of Concepts in Cultural Anthropology.
Greenwood Press: New York.
Postmodernism and Its Critics
By Daniel Salberg, Robert Stewart, Karla Wesley and Shannon Weiss

BASIC PREMISES
As an intellectual movement postmodernism was born as a challenge to several modernist
themes that were first articulated during the Enlightenment. These include scientific positivism,
the inevitability of human progress, and the potential of human reason to address any essential
truth of physical and social conditions and thereby make them amenable to rational control
(Boyne and Rattansi 1990). The primary tenets of the postmodern movement include: (1) an
elevation of text and language as the fundamental phenomena of existence, (2) the application of
literary analysis to all phenomena, (3) a questioning of reality and representation, (4) a critique
of metanarratives, (5) an argument against method and evaluation, (6) a focus upon power
relations and hegemony,  and (7) a general critique of Western institutions and knowledge
(Kuznar 2008:78). For his part, Lawrence Kuznar labels postmodern anyone whose thinking
includes most or all of these elements.
Importantly, the term postmodernism refers to a broad range of artists, academic critics,
philosophers, and social scientists that Christopher Butler (2003:2) has only half-jokingly alluded
to as like “a loosely constituted and quarrelsome political party.” The anthropologist Melford
Spiro defines postmodernism thusly: “The postmodernist critique of science consists of two
interrelated arguments, epistemological and ideological. Both are based on subjectivity. First,
because of the subjectivity of the human object, anthropology, according to the epistemological
argument cannot be a science; and in any event the subjectivity of the human subject precludes
the possibility of science discovering objective truth. Second, since objectivity is an illusion,
science according to the ideological argument, subverts oppressed groups, females, ethnics, and
third-world peoples” (Spiro 1996: 759).
Postmodernism has its origins as an eclectic social movement originating in aesthetics,
architecture and philosophy (Bishop 1996). In architecture and art, fields which are distinguished
as the oldest claimants to the name, postmodernism originated in the reaction against abstraction
in painting and the International Style in architecture (Callinicos 1990: 101). However,
postmodern thinking arguably began in the nineteenth century with Nietzsche’s assertions
regarding truth, language, and society, which opened the door for all later postmodern and late
modern critiques about the foundations of knowledge (Kuznar 2008: 78). Nietzsche asserted that
truth was simply: a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms – in short, a
sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and
rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are
illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are. [Nietzsche 1954: 46-47]
According to Kuznar, postmodernists trace this skepticism about truth and the resulting
relativism it engenders from Nietzsche to Max Weber and Sigmund Freud, and finally to Jacques
Derrida, Michel Foucault and other contemporary postmodernists (2008:78).
Postmodernism and anthropology Postmodern attacks on ethnography are generally based on
the belief that there is no true objectivity and that therefore the authentic implementation of the
scientific method is impossible. For instance, Isaac Reed (2010) conceptualizes the postmodern
challenge to the objectivity of social research as skepticism over the anthropologist’s ability to
integrate the context of investigation and the context of explanation. Reed defines the context of
investigation as the social and intellectual context of the investigator – essentially her social
identity, beliefs and memories. The context of explanation, on the other hand, refers to the reality
that she wishes to investigate, and in particular the social actions she wishes to explain and the
surrounding social environment, or context, that she explains them with.
In the late 1970s and 1980s some anthropologists, such as Crapanzano and Rabinow, began to
express elaborate self-doubt concerning the validity of fieldwork. By the mid-1980s the critique
about how anthropologists interpreted and explained the Other, essentially how they engaged in
“writing culture,” had become a full-blown epistemic crisis that Reed refers to as the
“postmodern” turn. The driving force behind the postmodern turn was a deep skepticism about
whether the investigator could adequately, effectively, or honestly integrate the context of
investigation into the context of explanation and, as a result, write true social knowledge. This
concern was most prevalent in cultural and linguistic anthropology, less so in archaeology, and
had the least effect on physical anthropology, which is generally regarded as the most scientific
of the four subfields.
Modernity first came into being with the Renaissance. Modernity implies “the progressive
economic and administrative rationalization and differentiation of the social world” (Sarup
1993). In essence this term emerged in the context of the development of the capitalist state. The
fundamental act of modernity is to question the foundations of past knowledge, and Boyne and
Rattansi characterize modernity as consisting of two sides: “the progressive union of scientific
objectivity and politico-economic rationality . . . mirrored in disturbed visions of unalleviated
existential despair” (1990: 5).
Postmodernity is the state or condition of being postmodern. Logically postmodernism literally
means “after modernity.”  It refers to the incipient or actual dissolution of those social forms
associated with modernity” (Sarup 1993). The archaeologist Mathew Johnson has characterized
postmodernity, or the postmodern condition, as disillusionment with Enlightenment ideals
(Johnson 2010). Jean-Francois Lyotard, in his seminal work The Postmodern Condition (1984)
defines it as an “incredulity toward metanarratives,” which is, somewhat ironically, a product of
scientific progress (1984: xxiv).
Postmodernity concentrates on the tensions of difference and similarity erupting from
processes of globalization and capitalism: the accelerating circulation of people, the increasingly
dense and frequent cross-cultural interactions, and the unavoidable intersections of local and
global knowledge. Some social critics have attempted to explain the postmodern condition in
terms of the historical and social milieu which spawned it. David Ashley (1990) suggests that
“modern, overloaded individuals, desperately trying to maintain rootedness and integrity . . .
ultimately are pushed to the point where there is little reason not to believe that all value-
orientations are equally well-founded. Therefore, increasingly, choice becomes meaningless.”
Jean Baudrillard, one of the most radical postmodernists, writes that we must come to terms with
the second revolution: “that of the Twentieth Century, of postmodernity, which is the immense
process of the destruction of meaning equal to the earlier destruction of appearances. Whoever
lives by meaning dies by meaning” ([Baudrillard 1984:38-39] in Ashley 1990).
Modernization “is often used to refer to the stages of social development which are based upon
industrialization. Modernization is a diverse unity of socio-economic changes generated by
scientific and technological discoveries and innovations. . .” (Sarup 1993). Modernism should be
considered distinct from the concept of “modernity.” . Although in its broadest definition
modernism refers to modern thought, character or practice, the term is usually restricted to a set
of artistic, musical, literary, and more generally aesthetic movements that emerged in Europe in
the late nineteenth century and would become institutionalized in the academic institutions and
art galleries of post-World War I Europe and America (Boyne and Rattansi 1990). Important
figures include Matisse, Picasso, and Kandinsky in painting, Joyce and Kafka in literature, and
Eliot and Pound in poetry. It can be characterized by self-consciousness, the alienation of the
integrated subject, and reflexiveness, as well as by a general critique of modernity’s claims
regarding the progressive capacity of science and the efficacy of metanarratives. These themes
are very closely related to Postmodernism (Boyne and Rattansi 1990: 6-8; Sarup 1993).
Sarup maintains that “There is a sense in which if one sees modernism as the culture of
modernity, postmodernism is the culture of postmodernity” (1993). The term “postmodernism”
is somewhat controversial since many doubt whether it can ever be dignified by conceptual
coherence. For instance, it is difficult to reconcile postmodernist approaches in fields like art and
music to certain postmodern trends in philosophy, sociology, and anthropology. However, it is in
some sense unified by a commitment to a set of cultural projects privileging heterogeneity,
fragmentation, and difference, as well as a relatively widespread mood in literary theory,
philosophy, and the social sciences that question the possibility of impartiality, objectivity, or
authoritative knowledge (Boyne and Rattansi 1990: 9-11).

POINTS OF REACTION
In the previous section, it has been asserted that, in the broadest sense, rejecting many
fundamental elements of the Enlightenment project has been identified as the stimulus for the
development of postmodernism.  This section addresses cross-currents within the varied
practices found inside of what might loosely be called the Postmodernism project.
“Modernity” takes its Latin origin from “modo,” which means “just now.” The Postmodern,
then, literally means “after just now” (Appignanesi and Garratt 1995). Points of reaction from
within postmodernism are associated with other “posts”: postcolonialism, poststructuralism, and
postprocessualism.
Postcolonialism has been defined as:

 A description of institutional conditions in formerly colonial societies.

 An abstract representation of the global situation after the colonial period.
 A description of discourses informed by psychological and epistemological orientations.

Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism (1993) uses discourse analysis and postcolonial theory
as tools for rethinking forms of knowledge and the social identities of postcolonial systems. An
important feature of postcolonialist thought is its assertion that modernism and modernity are
part of the colonial project of domination. Debates about postcolonialism are unresolved, yet
issues raised in Said’s Orientalism (1978), a critique of Western descriptions of Non-Euro-
American Others, suggest that colonialism as a discourse is based on the ability of Westerners to
examine other societies in order to produce knowledge and use it as a form of power deployed
against the very subjects of inquiry. As should be readily apparent, the issues of postcolonialism
are uncomfortably relevant to contemporary anthropological investigations.
Poststructuralism In reaction to the abstraction of cultural data characteristic of model building,
cultural relativists argue that model building hindered understanding of thought and action. From
this claim arose poststructuralist concepts such as developed in the work of Pierre Bourdieu
(1972). He asserts that structural models should not be replaced but enriched. Poststructuralists
like Bourdieu are concerned with reflexivity and the search for logical practice. By doing so,
accounts of the participants’ behavior and meanings are not objectified by the observer. In
general postructuralism expresses disenchantment with static, mechanistic, and controlling
models of culture, instead privileging social process and agency.
Postprocessualism  Unlike postcolonialism and poststructuralism, which are associated with
cultural anthropology, postprocessualism is a trend that emerged among archaeologists.
Postprocessualists “use deconstructionist skeptical arguments to conclude that there is no
objective past and that our representations of the past are only texts that we produce on the basis
of our socio-political standpoints (Harris 1999).

LEADING FIGURES
Jean Baudrillard (1929 – 2007) Baudrillard was a sociologist who began his career exploring
the Marxist critique of capitalism (Sarup 1993: 161). During this phase of his work he argued
that, “consumer objects constitute a system of signs that differentiate the population” (Sarup
1993: 162). Eventually, however, Baudrillard felt that Marxist tenets did not effectively evaluate
commodities, so he turned to postmodernism. Rosenau labels Baudrillard as a skeptical
postmodernist because of statements like, “everything has already happened….nothing new can
occur,” and “there is no real world” (Rosenau 1992: 64, 110). Baudrillard breaks down
modernity and postmodernity in an effort to explain the world as a set of models. He identifies
early modernity as the period between the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution, modernity
as the period at the start of the Industrial Revolution, and postmodernity as the period of mass
media (cinema and photography). Baudrillard states that we live in a world of images, but
images that are only simulations. Baudrillard implies that many people fail to understand this
concept that, “we have now moved into an epoch…where truth is entirely a product of consensus
values, and where ‘science’ itself is just the name we attach to certain modes of explanation,”
(Norris 1990: 169).
Jacques Derrida (1930 – 2004) is identified as a poststructuralist and a skeptical postmodernist.
Much of his writing is concerned with the deconstruction of texts and probing the relationship of
meaning between texts (Bishop 1996: 1270). He observes that “a text employs its own
stratagems against it, producing a force of dislocation that spreads itself through an entire
system.” (Rosenau 1993: 120). Derrida directly attacks Western philosophy’s understanding of
reason. He sees reason as dominated by “a metaphysics of presence.” Derrida agrees with
structuralism’s insight, that meaning is not inherent in signs, but he proposes that it is incorrect to
infer that anything reasoned can be used as a stable and timeless model (Appignanesi 1995: 77).
According to Norris, “He tries to problematize the grounds of reason, truth, and knowledge…he
questions the highest point by demanding reasoning for reasoning itself,” (1990: 199).
Michel Foucault (1926 – 1984) – Foucault was a French philosopher who attempted to show
that what most people think of as the permanent truths of human nature and society actually
change throughout the course of history. While challenging the influences of Marx and Freud,
Foucault postulated that everyday practices enabled people to define their identities and
systemize knowledge. Foucault is considered a postmodern theorist precisely because his work
upset the conventional understanding of history as a chronology of inevitable facts.
Alternatively, he depicted history as existing under layers of suppressed and unconscious
knowledge in and throughout history. These under layers are the codes and assumptions of order,
the structures of exclusion that legitimate the epistemes by which societies achieve identities
(Appignanesi 1995: 83). In addition to these insights, Foucault’s study of power and its shifting
patterns is one of the foundations of postmodernism. Foucault believed that power was inscribed
in everyday life to the extent that many social roles and institutions bore the stamp of power,
specifically as it could be used to regulate social hierarchies and structures. These could be
regulated though control of the conditions in which “knowledge,” “truth,” and socially accepted
“reality” were produced (Erikson and Murphy 2010: 272).
Clifford Geertz (1926 – 2006) was a prominent anthropologist best known for his work with
religion. Closely identified with interpretive anthropology, he was somewhat ambivalent about
anthropological postmodernism. He divided it into two movements that both came to fruition in
the 1980s. The first movement revolved around  essentially literary matters: authorship, genre,
style, narrative, metaphor, representation, discourse, fiction, figuration, persuasion; the second,
essentially entailed adopting political stances: the social foundations of anthropological
authority, the modes of power inscribed in its practices, its ideological assumptions, its
complicity with colonialism, racism, exploitation, and exoticism, and its dependency on the
master narratives of Westerns self-understanding. These interlinked critiques of anthropology,
the one inward-looking and brooding, the other outward-looking and recriminatory, may not
have produced the ‘fully dialectical ethnography acting powerfully in the postmodern world
system,’ to quote that Writing Culture blast again, nor did they exactly go unresisted. But they
did induce a certain self-awareness and a certain candor also, into a discipline not without need
of them.. [Geertz 2002: 11]
Ian Hodder (1948 – ) is a founder of postprocessualism and is generally considered one of the
most influential archaeologists of the last thirty years. The postprocessual movement arose out of
an attempt to apply insights gained from French Marxist anthropology to the study of material
culture and was heavily  influenced by a postmodern epistemology. Working in sub-Sahara
Africa, Hodder and his students documented how material culture was not merely a reflection of
sociopolitical organization, but was also an active element that could be used to disguise, invert,
and distort social relations. Bruce Trigger (2006:481) has argued that perhaps the most
successful “law” developed in recent archaeology was this demonstration that material culture
plays an active role in social strategies and hence can alter as well as reflect social reality.
Nancy Scheper-Hughes (1944-) Scheper-Hughes is a professor of Anthropology at the
University of California, Berkeley. In her work “Primacy of the Ethical” Scheper-Hughes argues
that, “If we cannot begin to think about social institutions and practices in moral or ethical terms,
then anthropology strikes me as quite weak and useless.” (1995: 410). She advocates that
ethnographies be used as tools for critical reflection and human liberation because she feels that
“ethics” make culture possible. Since culture is preceded by ethics, therefore ethics cannot be
culturally bound as argued by anthropologists in the past. These philosophies are evident in her
other works such as, Death Without Weeping. The crux of her postmodern perspective is that,
“Anthropologists, no less than any other professionals, should be held accountable for how we
have used and how we have failed to use anthropology as a critical tool at crucial historical
moments. It is the act of “witnessing” that lends our word its moral, at times almost theological,
character” (1995: 419).
Jean-Francois Lyotard (1924 – 1998) was the author of a highly influential work on
postmodern society called, The Postmodern Condition (1984). This book was a critique of the
current state of knowledge among modern postindustrial nations such as those found in the
United States and much of Western Europe. In it Lyotard made a number of notable arguments,
one of which was that the postmodern world suffered from a crisis of “representation,” in which
older modes of writing about the objects of artistic, philosophical, literary, and social scientific
languages were no longer credible. Lyotard suggests that: The Postmodern would be that which
…that which refuses the consolation of correct forms, refuses the consensus of taste permitting a
common experience of nostalgia for the impossible, and inquires into new presentations–not to
take pleasure in them, but to better produce the feeling that there is something unpresentable.
[Lyotard 1984]
Lyotard also attacked modernist thought as epitomized by “Grand” Narratives or what he termed
the Meta(master) narrative (Lyotard 1984). In contrast to the ethnographies written by
anthropologists in the first half of the 20th Century, Lyotard states that an all-encompassing
account of a culture cannot be accomplished.

KEY WORKS

 Baudrillard, Jean (1995) Simulacra and Simulation. Translated by Sheila Faria Glaser.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
 Derrida, Jacques (1997) Of Grammatology. Corrected ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press. Foucault, Michel (1970) The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the
Human Sciences. New York: Pantheon.
 Jameson, Fredric (1991). Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Lyotard, Jean-Francois (1984) The Postmodern
Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Marcus,
George E. and Michael M. J. Fischer (1986) Anthropology as Cultural Critique. An
Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
 Norris, Christopher (1979) Deconstruction: Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge.
 Scheper-Hughes, Nancy (1993) Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life
in Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press.
 Tyler, Stephen (1986) Post-Modern Ethnography: From Document of the Occult To
Occult Document. In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, ed.
James Clifford and George E. Marcus. Berkeley: University of California Press.
 Vattimo, Gianni (1988) The End of Modernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics. In Post-
Modern Critique. London: Polity.

PRINCIPAL CONCEPTS
“Culture” in Peril – Aside from Foucault, other postmodernists felt that “Culture is becoming a
dangerously unfocused term, increasingly lacking in scientific credentials” (Pasquinelli 1996).
The concept of Culture as a whole was tied not only to modernity, but to evolutionary theory
(and, implicitly, to eurocentrism). In the postmodernist view, if “culture” existed it had to be
totally relativistic without any suggestion of “progress.” While postmodernists did have a greater
respect for later revisions of cultural theory by Franz Boas and his followers, who attempted to
shift from a single path of human “culture” to many varied “cultures,” they found even this
unsatisfactory because it still required the use of a Western concept to define non-Western
people.
Lament – Lament is a practice of ritualized weeping (Wilce 2005). In the view of Wilce, the
traditional means of laments in many cultures were being forced out by modernity due to many
claiming that ritualized displays of discontent, particularly discontent with the lost of traditional
culture, was a “backwards” custom that needed to be stopped.
Metanarrative – Lawrence Kuznar describes metanarratives as grand narratives such as the
Enlightenment, Marxism or the American dream. Postmodernists see metanarratives as unfairly
totalizing or naturalizing in their generalizations about the state of humanity and historical
process (2008:83).
Polyvocality – Paralleling the generally relatativst and skeptical attitudes towards scientific
authority, many postmodernists advocate polyvocality, which maintains that there exists
multiple, legitimate versions of reality or truths as seen from different perspectives.
Postmodernists construe Enlightenment rationalism and scientific positivism as an effort to
impose hegemonic values and political control on the world. By challenging the authority of
anthropologists and other Western intellectuals, postmodernists see themselves as defending the
integrity of local cultures and helping weaker peoples to oppose their oppressors (Trigger
2006:446-447).
Power – Foucault was a prominent critic of the idea of “culture,” preferring instead to wield the
concept of “power” as the major focus of anthropological research (Barrett 2001). Foucault
felt that it was through the dynamics of power that “a human being turns himself into a subject”
(Foucault 1982). This is not only true of political power, but also includes people recognizing
things such as sexuality as forces to which they are subject. “The exercise of power is not simply
a relationship between partners, individual or collective; it is a way in which certain actions
modify others. Which is to say, of course, that something called Power, with or without a capital
letter, which is assumed to exist universally in a concentrated or diffused form, does not exist”
(Foucault 1982: 788).
Radical skepticism – The systematic skepticism of grounded theoretical perspectives and
objective truths espoused by many postmodernists had a profound effect on anthropology. This
skepticism has shifted focus from the observation of a particular society to a reflexive
consideration of the (anthropological) observer (Bishop 1996). According to Rosenau (1992),
postmodernists can be divided into two very broad camps, Skeptics and Affirmatives.
Skeptical Postmodernists – They are extremely critical of the modern subject. They consider
the subject to be a “linguistic convention” (Rosenau 1992:43). They also reject any
understanding of time because for them the modern understanding of time is oppressive in that it
controls and measures individuals. They reject Theory because theories are abundant, and no
theory is considered more correct that any other. They feel that “theory conceals, distorts, and
obfuscates, it is alienated, disparate, dissonant, it means to exclude, order, and control rival
powers” (Rosenau 1992: 81).
Affirmative Postmodernists – Affirmatives also reject Theory by denying claims of truth. They
do not, however, feel that Theory needs to be abolished but merely transformed. Affirmatives are
less rigid than Skeptics. They support movements organized around peace, environment, and
feminism (Rosenau 1993: 42).
Realism – “…is the platonic doctrine that universals or abstractions have being independently of
mind” (Gellner 1980: 60). Marcus and Fischer note that: “Realism is a mode of writing that
seeks to represent the reality of the whole world or form of life. Realist ethnographies are written
to allude to a whole by means of parts or foci of analytical attention which can constantly evoke
a social and cultural totality (1986: 2323).
Relativism – Relativism is the notion that different perspectives have no absolute truth or
validity, but rather possess only relative, subjective value according to distinctions in perception
and consideration. Gellner writes about the relativistic-functionalist view of thought that goes
back to the Enlightenment: “The (unresolved) dilemma, which the thought of the Enlightenment
faced, was between a relativistic-functionalist view of thought, and the absolutist claims of
enlightened Reason. Viewing man as part of nature…requires (us) to see cognitive and
evaluative activities as part of nature too, and hence varying from organism to organism and
context to context. (Gellner in [Asad 1986: 147]). Anthropological theory of the 1960s may be
best understood as the heir of relativism. Contemporary interpretative anthropology is the
essence of relativism as a mode of inquiry about communication in and between cultures
(Marcus & Fischer, 1986:32).
Self-Reflexivity – In anthropology, self-reflexivity refers to the process by which
anthropologists question themselves and their work, both theoretically and practically. Bishop
notes that, “The scientific observer’s objectification of structure as well as strategy was seen as
placing the actors in a framework not of their own making but one produced by the observer, “
(1996: 1270). Self-Reflexivity therefore leads to a consciousness of the process of knowledge
creation (1996: 995). There is an increased awareness of the collection of data and the limitation
of methodological systems. This idea underlies the postmodernist affinity for studying the
culture of anthropology and ethnography.

METHODOLOGIES
One of the essential elements of Postmodernism is that it constitutes an attack against theory
and methodology. In a sense proponents claim to relinquish all attempts to create new
knowledge in a systematic fashion, instead substituting an “anti-rules” fashion of discourse
(Rosenau 1993:117). Despite this claim, however, there are two methodologies characteristic of
Postmodernism. These methodologies are interdependent in that interpretation is inherent
in deconstruction. “Post-modern methodology is post-positivist or anti-positivist. As substitutes
for the scientific method the affirmatives look to feelings and personal experience. . . the
skeptical postmodernists reject most of the substitutes for method because they argue we can
never really know anything (Rosenau 1993:117).
Deconstruction emphasizes negative critical capacity. Deconstruction involves demystifying a
text to reveal internal arbitrary hierarchies and presuppositions. By examining the margins of a
text, the effort of deconstruction examines what it represses, what it does not say, and its
incongruities. It does not solely unmask error, but redefines the text by undoing and reversing
polar opposites. Deconstruction does not resolve inconsistencies, but rather exposes hierarchies
involved for the distillation of information (Rosenau 1993). Rosenau’s Guidelines for
Deconstruction Analysis:

  Find an exception to a generalization in a text and push it to the limit so that this

generalization appears absurd. Use the exception to undermine the principle.
 Interpret the arguments in a text being deconstructed in their most extreme form.
 Avoid absolute statements and cultivate intellectual excitement by making statements that
are both startling and sensational.
 Deny the legitimacy of dichotomies because there are always a few exceptions.
 Nothing is to be accepted, nothing is to be rejected. It is extremely difficult to criticize a
deconstructive argument if no clear viewpoint is expressed.
 Write so as to permit the greatest number of interpretations possible…..Obscurity may
“protect from serious scrutiny” (Ellis 1989: 148). The idea is “to create a text without
finality or completion, one with which the reader can never be finished” (Wellberg, 1985:
234).
 Employ new and unusual terminology in order that “familiar positions may not seem too
familiar and otherwise obvious scholarship may not seem so obviously relevant”(Ellis
1989: 142).
 “Never consent to a change of terminology and always insist that the wording of the
deconstructive argument is sacrosanct.”
 More familiar formulations undermine any sense that the deconstructive position is
unique (Ellis 1989: 145). (Rosenau 1993, p.121)

Intuitive Interpretation – Rosenau notes that, “Postmodern interpretation is introspective and

anti-objectivist which is a form of individualized understanding. It is more a vision than data
observation. In anthropology interpretation gravitates toward narrative and centers on listening
to and talking with the other, “(1993:119). For postmodernists there are an endless number of
interpretations. Foucault argues that everything is interpretation (Dreyfus and Rabinow 1983:
106). “There is no final meaning for any particular sign, no notion of unitary sense of text, no
interpretation can be regarded as superior to any other” (Latour 1988: 182-3). Anti-positivists
defend the notion that every interpretation is false. “Interpretative anthropology is a covering
label for a diverse set of reflections upon the practice of ethnography and the concept of culture”
(Marcus and Fisher 1986: 60).

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Critical Examination of Ethnographic Explanation – The unrelenting re-examination of the
nature of ethnography inevitably leads to a questioning of ethnography itself as a mode of
cultural analysis. Postmodernism adamantly insists that anthropologists must consider the role of
their own culture in the explanation of the “other” cultures being studied. Postmodernist theory
has led to a heightened sensitivity within anthropology to the collection of data.
Demystification – Perhaps the greatest accomplishments of postmodernism is the focus upon
uncovering and criticizing the epistemological and ideological motivations in the social sciences,
as well as the increased attention to the factors contributing to the production of knowledge.
Polyvocality – The self-reflexive regard for the ways in which social knowledge is produced, as
well as a general skepticism regarding the objectivity and authority of scientific knowledge, has
led to an increased appreciation for the voice of the anthropological Other. Even if we do not
value all interpretations as equally valid for whatever reason, today it is generally recognized
(although perhaps not always done in practice) that anthropologists must actively consider the
perspectives and wellbeing of the people being studied.

CRITICISMS
Roy D’Andrade (1931-2016) – In the article “Moral Models in Anthropology,” D’Andrade
critiques postmodernism’s definition of objectivity and subjectivity by examining the moral
nature of their models. He argues that these moral models are purely subjective. D’Andrade
argues that despite the fact that utterly value-free objectivity is impossible, it is the goal of the
anthropologist to get as close as possible to that ideal. He argues that there must be a separation
between moral and objective models because “they are counterproductive in discovering how the
world works.” (D’Andrade 1995: 402). From there he takes issue with the postmodernist attack
on objectivity. He states that objectivity is in no way dehumanizing nor is objectivity impossible.
He states, “Science works not because it produces unbiased accounts but because its accounts are
objective enough to be proved or disproved no matter what anyone wants to be true.”
(D’Andrade 1995: 404).
Ryan Bishop – “The Postmodernist genre of ethnography has been criticized for fostering a self-
indulgent subjectivity, and for exaggerating the esoteric and unique aspects of a culture at the
expense of more prosiac but significant questions.” (Bishop 1996: 58)
Patricia M. Greenfield – Greenfield believes that postmodernism’s complete lack of
objectivity, and its tendency to push political agendas, makes it virtually useless in any scientific
investigation (Greenfield 2005). Greenfield suggests using resources in the field of psychology
to help anthropologists gain a better grasp on cultural relativism, while still maintaining their
objectivity.
Bob McKinley – McKinley believes that postmodernism is more of a religion than a science
(McKinley 2000). He argues that the origin of postmodernism is the Western emphasis on
individualism, which makes postmodernists reluctant to acknowledge the existence of distinct
multi-individual cultures.
Christopher Norris – Norris believes that Lyotard, Foucault, and Baudrillard are too
preoccupied with the idea of the primacy of moral judgments (Norris 1990: 50).
Pauline Rosenau (1993) Rosenau identifies seven contradictions in Postmodernism:

1. Its anti-theoretical position is essentially a theoretical stand.

2. While postmodernism stresses the irrational, instruments of reason are freely employed to
advance its perspective.
 3. The postmodern prescription to focus on the marginal is itself an evaluative emphasis of
precisely the sort that it otherwise attacks.
4. Postmodernism stress intertextuality but often treats text in isolation.
5. By adamantly rejecting modern criteria for assessing theory, postmodernists cannot argue
that there are no valid criteria for judgment.
6. Postmodernism criticizes the inconsistency of modernism, but refuses to be held to norms
of consistency itself.
7. Postmodernists contradict themselves by relinquishing truth claims in their own writings.

Marshall Sahlins (1930 – ) criticizes the postmodern preoccupation with power. “The current
Foucauldian-Gramscian-Nietzschean obsession with power is the latest incarnation of
anthropology’s incurable functionalism. . . Now ‘power’ is the intellectual black hole into which
all kinds of cultural contents get sucked, if before it was social solidarity or material advantage.”
(Sahlins, 1993: 15).
Melford Spiro (1920 – 2014)  argues that postmodern anthropologists do not convincingly
dismiss the scientific method (1996). Further, he suggests that if anthropology turns away from
the scientific method then anthropology will become the study of meanings and not the discovery
of causes that shape what it is to be human. Spiro further states that, “the causal account of
culture refers to ecological niches, modes of production, subsistence techniques, and so forth,
just as a causal account of mind refers to the firing of neurons, the secretions of hormones, the
action of neurotransmitters . . .” (1996: 765).  Spiro critically addresses six interrelated
propositions from John Searle’s 1993 work, “Rationality and Realism”

1. Reality exists independently of human representations. If this is true then, contrary to

postmodernism, this postulate supports the existence of “mind-independent external
reality” which is called “metaphysical realism”.
2. Language communicates meanings but also refers to objects and situations in the world
which exist independently of language. Contrary to postmodernism, this postulate
supports the concept of language as have communicative and referential functions.
3.  Statements are true or false depending on whether the objects and situations to which
they refer correspond to a greater or lesser degree to the statements. This
“correspondence theory” of truth is to some extent the theory of truth for postmodernists,
but this concept is rejected by many postmodernists as “essentialist.”
4. Knowledge is objective. This signifies that the truth of a knowledge claim is independent
of the motive, culture, or gender of the person who makes the claim. Knowledge depends
on empirical support.
5. Logic and rationality provide a set of procedures and methods, which contrary to
postmodernism, enables a researcher to assess competing knowledge claims through
proof, validity, and reason.
6. Objective and intersubjective criteria judge the merit of statements, theories,
interpretations, and all accounts.

Spiro specifically assaults the assumption that the disciplines that study humanity, like
anthropology, cannot be “scientific” because subjectivity renders observers incapable of
discovering truth. Spiro agrees with postmodernists that the social sciences require very different
techniques for the study of humanity than do the natural sciences, but while insight and empathy
are critical in the study of mind and culture, intellectual responsibility requires objective
(scientific methods) in the social sciences (Spiro 1996).

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York: Greenwood Press.
History and Theory of Feminism

The term feminism can be used to describe a political, cultural or economic movement aimed at
establishing equal rights and legal protection for women. Feminism involves political and
sociological theories and philosophies concerned with issues of gender difference, as well as a
movement that advocates gender equality for women and campaigns for women's rights and
interests. Although the terms "feminism" and "feminist" did not gain widespread use until the
1970s, they were already being used in the public parlance much earlier; for instance, Katherine
Hepburn speaks of the "feminist movement" in the 1942 film Woman of the Year.

According to Maggie Humm and Rebecca Walker, the history of feminism can be divided into
three waves. The first feminist wave was in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the
second was in the 1960s and 1970s, and the third extends from the 1990s to the present. Feminist
theory emerged from these feminist movements. It is manifest in a variety of disciplines such as
feminist geography, feminist history and feminist literary criticism.

Feminism has altered predominant perspectives in a wide range of areas within Western society,
ranging from culture to law. Feminist activists have campaigned for women's legal rights (rights
of contract, property rights, voting rights); for women's right to bodily integrity and autonomy,
for abortion rights, and for reproductive rights (including access to contraception and quality
prenatal care); for protection of women and girls from domestic violence, sexual harassment and
rape;for workplace rights, including maternity leave and equal pay; against misogyny; and
against other forms of gender-specific discrimination against women.

During much of its history, most feminist movements and theories had leaders who were
predominantly middle-class white women from Western Europe and North America. However,
at least since Sojourner Truth's 1851 speech to American feminists, women of other races have
proposed alternative feminisms. This trend accelerated in the 1960s with the Civil Rights
movement in the United States and the collapse of European colonialism in Africa, the
Caribbean, parts of Latin America and Southeast Asia. Since that time, women in former
European colonies and the Third World have proposed "Post-colonial" and "Third World"
feminisms. Some Postcolonial Feminists, such as Chandra Talpade Mohanty, are critical of
Western feminism for being ethnocentric. Black feminists, such as Angela Davis and Alice
Walker, share this view.

History

Simone de Beauvoir wrote that "the first time we see a woman take up her pen in defense of her
sex" was Christine de Pizan who wrote Epitre au Dieu d'Amour (Epistle to the God of Love) in
the 15th century. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and Modesta di Pozzo di Forzi worked in the 16th
century. Marie Le Jars de Gournay, Anne Bradstreet and Francois Poullain de la Barre wrote
during the 17th.

Feminists and scholars have divided the movement's history into three "waves". The first wave
refers mainly to women's suffrage movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
(mainly concerned with women's right to vote). The second wave refers to the ideas and actions
associated with the women's liberation movement beginning in the 1960s (which campaigned for
legal and social rights for women). The third wave refers to a continuation of, and a reaction to
the perceived failures of, second-wave feminism, beginning in the 1990s.

First wave

First-wave feminism refers to an extended period of feminist activity during the nineteenth
century and early twentieth century in the United Kingdom and the United States. Originally it
focused on the promotion of equal contract and property rights for women and the opposition to
chattel marriage and ownership of married women (and their children) by their husbands.
However, by the end of the nineteenth century, activism focused primarily on gaining political
power, particularly the right of women's suffrage. Yet, feminists such as Voltairine de Cleyre and
Margaret Sanger were still active in campaigning for women's sexual, reproductive, and
economic rights at this time. In 1854, Florence Nightingale established female nurses as adjuncts
to the military.

In Britain the Suffragettes and, possibly more effectively, the Suffragists campaigned for the
women's vote. In 1918 the Representation of the People Act 1918 was passed granting the vote
to women over the age of 30 who owned houses. In 1928 this was extended to all women over
twenty-one. In the United States, leaders of this movement included Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony, who each campaigned for the abolition of
slavery prior to championing women's right to vote; all were strongly influenced by Quaker
thought. American first-wave feminism involved a wide range of women. Some, such as Frances
Willard, belonged to conservative Christian groups such as the Woman's Christian Temperance
Union. Others, such as Matilda Joslyn Gage, were more radical, and expressed themselves within
the National Woman Suffrage Association or individually. American first-wave feminism is
considered to have ended with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution (1919), granting women the right to vote in all states.

The term first wave was coined retrospectively after the term second-wave feminism began to be
used to describe a newer feminist movement that focused as much on fighting social and cultural
inequalities as political inequalities.

Second wave

Second-wave feminism refers to the period of activity in the early 1960s and lasting through the
late 1980s. The scholar Imelda Whelehan suggests that the second wave was a continuation of
the earlier phase of feminism involving the suffragettes in the UK and USA. Second-wave
feminism has continued to exist since that time and coexists with what is termed third-wave
feminism. The scholar Estelle Freedman compares first and second-wave feminism saying that
the first wave focused on rights such as suffrage, whereas the second wave was largely
concerned with other issues of equality, such as ending discrimination.

The feminist activist and author Carol Hanisch coined the slogan "The Personal is Political"
which became synonymous with the second wave. Second-wave feminists saw women's cultural
and political inequalities as inextricably linked and encouraged women to understand aspects of
their personal lives as deeply politicized and as reflecting sexist power structures.

Simone de Beauvoir and The Second Sex

The French author and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir wrote novels; monographs on
philosophy, politics, and social issues; essays; biographies; and an autobiography. She is now
best known for her metaphysical novels, including She Came to Stay and The Mandarins, and for
her treatise The Second Sex, a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract
of contemporary feminism. Written in 1949, its English translation was published in 1953. It sets
out a feminist existentialism which prescribes a moral revolution. As an existentialist, she
accepted Jean-Paul Sartre's precept existence precedes essence; hence "one is not born a woman,
but becomes one." Her analysis focuses on the social construction of Woman as the Other. This
de Beauvoir identifies as fundamental to women's oppression. She argues women have
historically been considered deviant and abnormal and contends that even Mary Wollstonecraft
considered men to be the ideal toward which women should aspire. De Beauvoir argues that for
feminism to move forward, this attitude must be set aside.

The Feminine Mystique

Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1963) criticized the idea that women could only find
fulfillment through childrearing and homemaking. According to Friedan's obituary in the The
New York Times, The Feminine Mystique “ignited the contemporary women's movement in
1963 and as a result permanently transformed the social fabric of the United States and countries
around the world” and “is widely regarded as one of the most influential nonfiction books of the
20th century.” In the book Friedan hypothesizes that women are victims of a false belief system
that requires them to find identity and meaning in their lives through their husbands and children.
Such a system causes women to completely lose their identity in that of their family. Friedan
specifically locates this system among post-World War II middle-class suburban communities.
At the same time, America's post-war economic boom had led to the development of new
technologies that were supposed to make household work less difficult, but that often had the
result of making women's work less meaningful and valuable.

Women's Liberation in the USA

The phrase "Women’s Liberation" was first used in the United States in 1964 and first appeared
in print in 1966. By 1968, although the term Women’s Liberation Front appeared in the
magazine Ramparts, it was starting to refer to the whole women’s movement. Bra-burning also
became associated with the movement, though the actual prevalence of bra-burning is debatable.
One of the most vocal critics of the women's liberation movement has been the African
American feminist and intellectual Gloria Jean Watkins (who uses the pseudonym "bell hooks")
who argues that this movement glossed over race and class and thus failed to address "the issues
that divided women." She highlighted the lack of minority voices in the women's movement in
her book Feminist theory from margin to center (1984).
Third wave

Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, arising as a response to perceived failures of the
second wave and also as a response to the backlash against initiatives and movements created by
the second wave. Third-wave feminism seeks to challenge or avoid what it deems the second
wave's essentialist definitions of femininity, which (according to them) over-emphasize the
experiences of upper middle-class white women.

A post-structuralist interpretation of gender and sexuality is central to much of the third wave's
ideology. Third-wave feminists often focus on "micro-politics" and challenge the second wave's
paradigm as to what is, or is not, good for females. The third wave has its origins in the mid-
1980s. Feminist leaders rooted in the second wave like Gloria Anzaldua, bell hooks, Chela
Sandoval, Cherrie Moraga, Audre Lorde, Maxine Hong Kingston, and many other black
feminists, sought to negotiate a space within feminist thought for consideration of race-related
subjectivities.

Third-wave feminism also contains internal debates between difference feminists such as the
psychologist Carol Gilligan (who believes that there are important differences between the sexes)
and those who believe that there are no inherent differences between the sexes and contend that
gender roles are due to social conditioning.

Post-feminism

Post-feminism describes a range of viewpoints reacting to feminism. While not being "anti-
feminist," post-feminists believe that women have achieved second wave goals while being
critical of third wave feminist goals. The term was first used in the 1980s to describe a backlash
against second-wave feminism. It is now a label for a wide range of theories that take critical
approaches to previous feminist discourses and includes challenges to the second wave's ideas.
Other post-feminists say that feminism is no longer relevant to today's society. Amelia Jones
wrote that the post-feminist texts which emerged in the 1980s and 1990s portrayed second-wave
feminism as a monolithic entity and criticized it using generalizations.

One of the earliest uses of the term was in Susan Bolotin's 1982 article "Voices of the Post-
Feminist Generation," published in New York Times Magazine. This article was based on a
number of interviews with women who largely agreed with the goals of feminism, but did not
identify as feminists.

Some contemporary feminists, such as Katha Pollitt or Nadine Strossen, consider feminism to
hold simply that "women are people". Views that separate the sexes rather than unite them are
considered by these writers to be sexist rather than feminist'.'

In her book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, Susan Faludi argues that
a backlash against second wave feminism in the 1980s has successfully re-defined feminism
through its terms. She argues that it constructed the women's liberation movement as the source
of many of the problems alleged to be plaguing women in the late 1980s. She also argues that
many of these problems are illusory, constructed by the media without reliable evidence.
According to her, this type of backlash is a historical trend, recurring when it appears that
women have made substantial gains in their efforts to obtain equal rights.

Angela McRobbie argues that adding the prefix post to feminism undermines the strides that
feminism has made in achieving equality for everyone, including women. Post-feminism gives
the impression that equality has been achieved and that feminists can now focus on something
else entirely. McRobbie believes that post-feminism is most clearly seen on so-called feminist
media products, such as Bridget Jones's Diary, Sex and the City, and Ally McBeal. Female
characters like Bridget Jones and Carrie Bradshaw claim to be liberated and clearly enjoy their
sexuality, but what they are constantly searching for is the one man who will make everything
worthwhile.

French feminism

French feminism refers to a branch of feminist thought from a group of feminists in France from
the 1970s to the 1990s. French feminism, compared to Anglophone feminism, is distinguished by
an approach which is more philosophical and literary. Its writings tend to be effusive and
metaphorical, being less concerned with political doctrine and generally focused on theories of
"the body." The term includes writers who are not French, but who have worked substantially in
France and the French tradition such as Julia Kristeva and Bracha Ettinger.

In the 1970s French feminists approached feminism with the concept of ecriture feminine, which
translates as female, or feminine writing. Helene Cixous argues that writing and philosophy are
phallocentric and along with other French feminists such as Luce Irigaray emphasizes "writing
from the body" as a subversive exercise. The work of the feminist psychoanalyst and
philosopher, Julia Kristeva, has influenced feminist theory in general and feminist literary
criticism in particular. From the 1980s onwards the work of artist and psychoanalyst Bracha
Ettinger has influenced literary criticism, art history and film theory. However, as the scholar
Elizabeth Wright pointed out, "none of these French feminists align themselves with the feminist
movement as it appeared in the Anglophone world.

Theoretical schools

Feminist theory is an extension of feminism into theoretical or philosophical fields. It

encompasses work in a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, economics,
women's studies, literary criticism, art history, psychoanalysis and philosophy. Feminist theory
aims to understand gender inequality and focuses on gender politics, power relations and
sexuality. While providing a critique of these social and political relations, much of feminist
theory focuses on the promotion of women's rights and interests. Themes explored in feminist
theory include discrimination, stereotyping, objectification (especially sexual objectification),
oppression and patriarchy.

The American literary critic and feminist Elaine Showalter describes the phased development of
feminist theory. The first she calls "feminist critique," in which the feminist reader examines the
ideologies behind literary phenomena. The second Showalter calls "gynocriticism," in which the
"woman is producer of textual meaning" including "the psychodynamics of female creativity;
linguistics and the problem of a female language; the trajectory of the individual or collective
female literary career and literary history." The last phase she calls "gender theory," in which the
"ideological inscription and the literary effects of the sex/gender system" are explored. The
scholar Toril Moi criticized this model, seeing it as an essentialist and deterministic model for
female subjectivity that fails to account for the situation of women outside the West.

Movements and ideologies

Several submovements of feminist ideology have developed over the years; some of the major
subtypes are listed below. These movements often overlap, and some feminists identify
themselves with several types of feminist thought.

Anarcha

Anarcha-feminism (also called anarchist feminism and anarcho-feminism) combines anarchism

with feminism. It generally views patriarchy as a manifestation of involuntary hierarchy.
Anarcha-feminists believe that the struggle against patriarchy is an essential part of class
struggle, and the anarchist struggle against the State. In essence, the philosophy sees anarchist
struggle as a necessary component of feminist struggle and vice-versa. As L. Susan Brown puts
it, "as anarchism is a political philosophy that opposes all relationships of power, it is inherently
feminist".

Important historic anarcha-feminists include Emma Goldman, Federica Montseny, Voltairine de

Cleyre and Lucy Parsons. In the Spanish Civil War, an anarcha-feminist group, Mujeres Libres
("Free Women") linked to the Federacion Anarquista Iberica, organized to defend both anarchist
and feminist ideas.

Contemporary anarcha-feminist writers/theorists include Germaine Greer, L. Susan Brown and

the eco-feminist Starhawk. Contemporary anarcha-feminist groups include Bolivia's Mujeres
Creando, Radical Cheerleaders, the Spanish anarcha-feminist squat La Eskalera Karakola, and
the annual La Rivolta! conference in Boston.

Socialist and Marxist

Socialist feminism connects the oppression of women to Marxist ideas about exploitation,
oppression and labor. Socialist feminists think unequal standing in both the workplace and the
domestic sphere holds women down.[59] Socialist feminists see prostitution, domestic work,
childcare and marriage as ways in which women are exploited by a patriarchal system that
devalues women and the substantial work they do. Socialist feminists focus their energies on
broad change that affects society as a whole, rather than on an individual basis. They see the
need to work alongside not just men, but all other groups, as they see the oppression of women
as a part of a larger pattern that affects everyone involved in the capitalist system.

Marx felt when class oppression was overcome, gender oppression would vanish as well.
According to some socialist feminists, this view of gender oppression as a sub-class of class
oppression is naive and much of the work of socialist feminists has gone towards separating
gender phenomena from class phenomena. Some contributors to socialist feminism have
criticized these traditional Marxist ideas for being largely silent on gender oppression except to
subsume it underneath broader class oppression. Other socialist feminists, many of whom belong
to Radical Women and the Freedom Socialist Party, two long-lived American organizations,
point to the classic Marxist writings of Frederick Engels and August Bebel as a powerful
explanation of the link between gender oppression and class exploitation.

In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century both Clara Zetkin and Eleanor Marx
were against the demonization of men and supported a proletarian revolution that would
overcome as many male-female inequalities as possible. As their movement already had the most
radical demands of women's equality, most Marxist leaders, including Clara Zetkin and
Alexandra Kollontai, counterposed Marxism against feminism, rather than trying to combine
them.

Radical

Radical feminism considers the male controlled capitalist hierarchy, which it describes as sexist,
as the defining feature of women’s oppression. Radical feminists believe that women can free
themselves only when they have done away with what they consider an inherently oppressive
and dominating patriarchal system. Radical feminists feel that there is a male-based authority and
power structure and that it is responsible for oppression and inequality, and that as long as the
system and its values are in place, society will not be able to be reformed in any significant way.
Some radical feminists see no alternatives other than the total uprooting and reconstruction of
society in order to achieve their goals.

Over time a number of sub-types of Radical feminism have emerged, such as Cultural feminism,
Separatist feminism and Anti-pornography feminism. Cultural feminism is the ideology of a
"female nature" or "female essence" that attempts to revalidate what they consider undervalued
female attributes. It emphasizes the difference between women and men but considers that
difference to be psychological, and to be culturally constructed rather than biologically innate. Its
critics assert that because it is based on an essentialist view of the differences between women
and men and advocates independence and institution building, it has led feminists to retreat from
politics to “life-style” Once such critic, Alice Echols (a feminist historian and cultural theorist),
credits Redstockings member Brooke Williams with introducing the term cultural feminism in
1975 to describe the depoliticisation of radical feminism.

Separatist feminism is a form of radical feminism that does not support heterosexual
relationships. Its proponents argue that the sexual disparities between men and women are
unresolvable. Separatist feminists generally do not feel that men can make positive contributions
to the feminist movement and that even well-intentioned men replicate patriarchal dynamics.
Author Marilyn Frye describes separatist feminism as "separation of various sorts or modes from
men and from institutions, relationships, roles and activities that are male-defined, male-
dominated, and operating for the benefit of males and the maintenance of male privilege – this
separation being initiated or maintained, at will, by women".
Liberal

Liberal feminism asserts the equality of men and women through political and legal reform. It is
an individualistic form of feminism, which focuses on women’s ability to show and maintain
their equality through their own actions and choices. Liberal feminism uses the personal
interactions between men and women as the place from which to transform society. According to
liberal feminists, all women are capable of asserting their ability to achieve equality, therefore it
is possible for change to happen without altering the structure of society. Issues important to
liberal feminists include reproductive and abortion rights, sexual harassment, voting, education,
"equal pay for equal work", affordable childcare, affordable health care, and bringing to light the
frequency of sexual and domestic violence against women.

Black

Black feminism argues that sexism, class oppression, and racism are inextricably bound together.
Forms of feminism that strive to overcome sexism and class oppression but ignore race can
discriminate against many people, including women, through racial bias. The Combahee River
Collective argued in 1974 that the liberation of black women entails freedom for all people, since
it would require the end of racism, sexism, and class oppression. One of the theories that evolved
out of this movement was Alice Walker's Womanism. It emerged after the early feminist
movements that were led specifically by white women who advocated social changes such as
woman’s suffrage. These movements were largely white middle-class movements and had
generally ignored oppression based on racism and classism. Alice Walker and other Womanists
pointed out that black women experienced a different and more intense kind of oppression from
that of white women.

Angela Davis was one of the first people who articulated an argument centered around the
intersection of race, gender, and class in her book, Women, Race, and Class. Kimberle
Crenshaw, a prominent feminist law theorist, gave the idea the name Intersectionality while
discussing identity politics in her essay, "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity
Politics and Violence Against Women of Color".

Postcolonial and third-world

Postcolonial feminists argue that oppression relating to the colonial experience, particularly
racial, class, and ethnic oppression, has marginalized women in postcolonial societies. They
challenge the assumption that gender oppression is the primary force of patriarchy. Postcolonial
feminists object to portrayals of women of non-Western societies as passive and voiceless
victims and the portrayal of Western women as modern, educated and empowered.

Postcolonial feminism emerged from the gendered history of colonialism: colonial powers often
imposed Western norms on colonized regions. In the 1940s and 1950s, after the formation of the
United Nations, former colonies were monitored by the West for what was considered "social
progress". The status of women in the developing world has been monitored by organizations
such as the United Nations and as a result traditional practices and roles taken up by women—
sometimes seen as distasteful by Western standards—could be considered a form of rebellion
against colonial oppression. Postcolonial feminists today struggle to fight gender oppression
within their own cultural models of society rather than through those imposed by the Western
colonizers.

Postcolonial feminism is critical of Western forms of feminism, notably radical feminism and
liberal feminism and their universalization of female experience. Postcolonial feminists argue
that cultures impacted by colonialism are often vastly different and should be treated as such.
Colonial oppression may result in the glorification of pre-colonial culture, which, in cultures
with traditions of power stratification along gender lines, could mean the acceptance of, or
refusal to deal with, inherent issues of gender inequality. Postcolonial feminists can be described
as feminists who have reacted against both universalizing tendencies in Western feminist thought
and a lack of attention to gender issues in mainstream postcolonial thought.

Third-world feminism has been described as a group of feminist theories developed by feminists
who acquired their views and took part in feminist politics in so-called third-world countries.
Although women from the third world have been engaged in the feminist movement, Chandra
Talpade Mohanty and Sarojini Sahoo criticize Western feminism on the grounds that it is
ethnocentric and does not take into account the unique experiences of women from third-world
countries or the existence of feminisms indigenous to third-world countries. According to
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, women in the third world feel that Western feminism bases its
understanding of women on "internal racism, classism and homophobia". This discourse is
strongly related to African feminism and postcolonial feminism. Its development is also
associated with concepts such as black feminism, womanism, "Africana womanism",
"motherism", "Stiwanism", "negofeminism", chicana feminism, and "femalism".

Multiracial

Multiracial feminism (also known as “women of color” feminism) offers a standpoint theory and
analysis of the lives and experiences of women of color. The theory emerged in the 1990s and
was developed by Dr. Maxine Baca Zinn, a Chicana feminist and Dr. Bonnie Thornton Dill, a
sociology expert on African American women and family.

Libertarian

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Classical liberal or libertarian feminism

conceives of freedom as freedom from coercive interference. It holds that women, as well as
men, have a right to such freedom due to their status as self-owners."

There are several categories under the theory of libertarian feminism, or kinds of feminism that
are linked to libertarian ideologies. Anarcha-feminism (also called anarchist feminism or
anarcho-feminism) combines feminist and anarchist beliefs, embodying classical libertarianism
rather than contemporary conservative libertarianism. Anarcha-feminists view patriarchy as a
manifestation of hierarchy, believing that the fight against patriarchy is an essential part of the
class struggle and the anarchist struggle against the state. Anarcha-feminists such as Susan
Brown see the anarchist struggle as a necessary component of the feminist struggle. In Brown's
words, "anarchism is a political philosophy that opposes all relationships of power, it is
inherently feminist". Recently, Wendy McElroy has defined a position (which she labels
"ifeminism" or "individualist feminism") that combines feminism with anarcho-capitalism or
contemporary conservative libertarianism, arguing that a pro-capitalist, anti-state position is
compatible with an emphasis on equal rights and empowerment for women. Individualist
anarchist-feminism has grown from the US-based individualist anarchism movement.

Individualist feminism is typically defined as a feminism in opposition to what writers such as

Wendy McElroy and Christina Hoff Sommers term, political or gender feminism. However,
there are some differences within the discussion of individualist feminism. While some
individualist feminists like McElroy oppose government interference into the choices women
make with their bodies because such interference creates a coercive hierarchy (such as
patriarchy), other feminists such as Christina Hoff Sommers hold that feminism's political role is
simply to ensure that everyone's, including women's, right against coercive interference is
respected. Sommers is described as a "socially conservative equity feminist" by the Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Critics have called her an anti-feminist.

Standpoint

Since the 1980s, standpoint feminists have argued that feminism should examine how women's
experience of inequality relates to that of racism, homophobia, classism and colonization. In the
late 1980s and 1990s postmodern feminists argued that gender roles are socially constructed, and
that it is impossible to generalize women's experiences across cultures and histories.

Post-structural and postmodern

Post-structural feminism, also referred to as French feminism, uses the insights of various
epistemological movements, including psychoanalysis, linguistics, political theory (Marxist and
post-Marxist theory), race theory, literary theory, and other intellectual currents for feminist
concerns. Many post-structural feminists maintain that difference is one of the most powerful
tools that females possess in their struggle with patriarchal domination, and that to equate the
feminist movement only with equality is to deny women a plethora of options because equality is
still defined from the masculine or patriarchal perspective.

Postmodern feminism is an approach to feminist theory that incorporates postmodern and post-
structuralist theory. The largest departure from other branches of feminism is the argument that
gender is constructed through language. The most notable proponent of this argument is Judith
Butler. In her 1990 book, Gender Trouble, she draws on and critiques the work of Simone de
Beauvoir, Michel Foucault and Jacques Lacan. Butler criticizes the distinction drawn by previous
feminisms between biological sex and socially constructed gender. She says that this does not
allow for a sufficient criticism of essentialism. For Butler "woman" is a debatable category,
complicated by class, ethnicity, sexuality, and other facets of identity. She states that gender is
performative. This argument leads to the conclusion that there is no single cause for women's
subordination and no single approach towards dealing with the issue.

In A Cyborg Manifesto Donna Haraway criticizes traditional notions of feminism, particularly its
emphasis on identity, rather than affinity. She uses the metaphor of a cyborg in order to construct
a postmodern feminism that moves beyond dualisms and the limitations of traditional gender,
feminism, and politics. Haraway's cyborg is an attempt to break away from Oedipal narratives
and Christian origin-myths like Genesis. She writes: "The cyborg does not dream of community
on the model of the organic family, this time without the oedipal project. The cyborg would not
recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust."

A major branch in postmodern feminist thought has emerged from the contemporary
psychoanalytic French feminism. Other postmodern feminist works highlight stereotypical
gender roles, only to portray them as parodies of the original beliefs. The history of feminism is
not important in these writings - only what is going to be done about it. The history is dismissed
and used to depict how ridiculous past beliefs were. Modern feminist theory has been extensively
criticized as being predominantly, though not exclusively, associated with Western middle class
academia. Mary Joe Frug, a postmodernist feminist, criticized mainstream feminism as being too
narrowly focused and inattentive to related issues of race and class.

Environmental

Ecofeminism links ecology with feminism. Ecofeminists see the domination of women as
stemming from the same ideologies that bring about the domination of the environment.
Patriarchal systems, where men own and control the land, are seen as responsible for the
oppression of women and destruction of the natural environment. Ecofeminists argue that the
men in power control the land, and therefore they are able to exploit it for their own profit and
success. Ecofeminists argue that in this situation, women are exploited by men in power for their
own profit, success, and pleasure. Ecofeminists argue that women and the environment are both
exploited as passive pawns in the race to domination. Ecofeminists argue that those people in
power are able to take advantage of them distinctly because they are seen as passive and rather
helpless. Ecofeminism connects the exploitation and domination of women with that of the
environment. As a way of repairing social and ecological injustices, ecofeminists feel that
women must work towards creating a healthy environment and ending the destruction of the
lands that most women rely on to provide for their families.

Ecofeminism argues that there is a connection between women and nature that comes from their
shared history of oppression by a patriarchal Western society. Vandana Shiva claims that women
have a special connection to the environment through their daily interactions with it that has been
ignored. She says that "women in subsistence economies, producing and reproducing wealth in
partnership with nature, have been experts in their own right of holistic and ecological
knowledge of nature’s processes. But these alternative modes of knowing, which are oriented to
the social benefits and sustenance needs are not recognized by the capitalist reductionist
paradigm, because it fails to perceive the interconnectedness of nature, or the connection of
women’s lives, work and knowledge with the creation of wealth.”

However, feminist and social ecologist Janet Biehl has criticized ecofeminism for focusing too
much on a mystical connection between women and nature and not enough on the actual
conditions of women.

Society
The feminist movement has effected change in Western society, including women's suffrage;
greater access to education; more nearly equitable pay with men; the right to initiate divorce
proceedings and "no fault" divorce; and the right of women to make individual decisions
regarding pregnancy (including access to contraceptives and abortion); as well as the right to
own property.

Civil rights

From the 1960s on the women's liberation movement campaigned for women's rights, including
the same pay as men, equal rights in law, and the freedom to plan their families. Their efforts
were met with mixed results. Issues commonly associated with notions of women's rights
include, though are not limited to: the right to bodily integrity and autonomy; to vote (universal
suffrage); to hold public office; to work; to fair wages or equal pay; to own property; to
education; to serve in the military; to enter into legal contracts; and to have marital, parental and
religious rights.

In the UK a public groundswell of opinion in favour of legal equality gained pace, partly through
the extensive employment of women in men's traditional roles during both world wars. By the
1960s the legislative process was being readied, tracing through MP Willie Hamilton's select
committee report, his Equal Pay for Equal Work Bill, the creation of a Sex Discrimination
Board, Lady Sear's draft sex anti-discrimination bill, a government Green Paper of 1973, until
1975 when the first British Sex Discrimination Act, an Equal Pay Act, and an Equal
Opportunities Commission came into force. With encouragement from the UK government, the
other countries of the EEC soon followed suit with an agreement to ensure that discrimination
laws would be phased out across the European Community.

In the USA, the US National Organization for Women (NOW) was created in 1966 with the
purpose of bringing about equality for all women. NOW was one important group that fought for
the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). This amendment stated that “equality of rights under the
law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.” But
there was disagreement on how the proposed amendment would be understood. Supporters
believed it would guarantee women equal treatment. But critics feared it might deny women the
right be financially supported by their husbands. The amendment died in 1982 because not
enough states had ratified it. ERAs have been included in subsequent Congresses, but have still
failed to be ratified.

In the final three decades of the 20th century, Western women knew a new freedom through
birth control, which enabled women to plan their adult lives, often making way for both career
and family. The movement had been started in the 1910s by US pioneering social reformer
Margaret Sanger and in the UK and internationally by Marie Stopes.

The United Nations Human Development Report 2004 estimated that when both paid
employment and unpaid household tasks are accounted for, on average women work more than
men. In rural areas of selected developing countries women performed an average of 20% more
work than men, or an additional 102 minutes per day. In the OECD countries surveyed, on
average women performed 5% more work than men, or 20 minutes per day. At the UN's Pan
Pacific Southeast Asia Women's Association 21st International Conference in 2001 it was stated
that "in the world as a whole, women comprise 51% of the population, do 66% of the work,
receive 10% of the income and own less than one percent of the property".

CEDAW

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
is an international convention adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. Described as an
international bill of rights for women, it came into force on 3 September 1981. Several countries
have ratified the Convention subject to certain declarations, reservations and objections. Iran,
Sudan, Somalia, Qatar, Nauru, Palau, Tonga and the United States have not ratified CEDAW.
Expecting a U.S. Senate vote, NOW has encouraged President Obama to remove U.S.
reservations and objections added in 2002 before the vote.

Language

Gender-neutral language is a description of language usages which are aimed at minimizing

assumptions regarding the biological sex of human referents. The advocacy of gender-neutral
language reflects, at least, two different agendas: one aims to clarify the inclusion of both sexes
or genders (gender-inclusive language); the other proposes that gender, as a category, is rarely
worth marking in language (gender-neutral language). Gender-neutral language is sometimes
described as non-sexist language by advocates and politically-correct language by opponents.

Heterosexual relationships

The increased entry of women into the workplace beginning in the twentieth century has affected
gender roles and the division of labor within households. Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild in
The Second Shift and The Time Bind presents evidence that in two-career couples, men and
women, on average, spend about equal amounts of time working, but women still spend more
time on housework. Feminist writer Cathy Young responds to Hochschild's assertions by arguing
that in some cases, women may prevent the equal participation of men in housework and
parenting.

Feminist criticisms of men's contributions to child care and domestic labor in the Western middle
class are typically centered around the idea that it is unfair for women to be expected to perform
more than half of a household's domestic work and child care when both members of the
relationship also work outside the home. Several studies provide statistical evidence that the
financial income of married men does not affect their rate of attending to household duties.

In Dubious Conceptions, Kristin Luker discusses the effect of feminism on teenage women's
choices to bear children, both in and out of wedlock. She says that as childbearing out of
wedlock has become more socially acceptable, young women, especially poor young women,
while not bearing children at a higher rate than in the 1950s, now see less of a reason to get
married before having a child. Her explanation for this is that the economic prospects for poor
men are slim, hence poor women have a low chance of finding a husband who will be able to
provide reliable financial support.
Although research suggests that to an extent, both women and men perceive feminism to be in
conflict with romance, studies of undergraduates and older adults have shown that feminism has
positive impacts on relationship health for women and sexual satisfaction for men, and found no
support for negative stereotypes of feminists.

Religion

Feminist theology is a movement that reconsiders the traditions, practices, scriptures, and
theologies of religions from a feminist perspective. Some of the goals of feminist theology
include increasing the role of women among the clergy and religious authorities, reinterpreting
male-dominated imagery and language about God, determining women's place in relation to
career and motherhood, and studying images of women in the religion's sacred texts.

Christian feminism is a branch of feminist theology which seeks to interpret and understand
Christianity in light of the equality of women and men. Because this equality has been
historically ignored, Christian feminists believe their contributions are necessary for a complete
understanding of Christianity. While there is no standard set of beliefs among Christian
feminists, most agree that God does not discriminate on the basis of biologically-determined
characteristics such as sex. Their major issues are the ordination of women, male dominance in
Christian marriage, and claims of moral deficiency and inferiority of abilities of women
compared to men. They also are concerned with the balance of parenting between mothers and
fathers and the overall treatment of women in the church.

Islamic feminism is concerned with the role of women in Islam and aims for the full equality of
all Muslims, regardless of gender, in public and private life. Islamic feminists advocate women's
rights, gender equality, and social justice grounded in an Islamic framework. Although rooted in
Islam, the movement's pioneers have also utilized secular and Western feminist discourses and
recognize the role of Islamic feminism as part of an integrated global feminist movement.
Advocates of the movement seek to highlight the deeply rooted teachings of equality in the
Quran and encourage a questioning of the patriarchal interpretation of Islamic teaching through
the Quran, hadith (sayings of Muhammad), and sharia (law) towards the creation of a more equal
and just society.

Jewish feminism is a movement that seeks to improve the religious, legal, and social status of
women within Judaism and to open up new opportunities for religious experience and leadership
for Jewish women. Feminist movements, with varying approaches and successes, have opened
up within all major branches of Judaism. In its modern form, the movement can be traced to the
early 1970s in the United States. According to Judith Plaskow, who has focused on feminism in
Reform Judaism, the main issues for early Jewish feminists in these movements were the
exclusion from the all-male prayer group or minyan, the exemption from positive time-bound
mitzvot, and women's inability to function as witnesses and to initiate divorce.

The Dianic Wicca or Wiccan feminism is a female focused, Goddess-centered Wiccan sect; also
known as a feminist religion that teaches witchcraft as every woman’s right. It is also one sect of
the many practiced in Wicca.
Theology

Feminist theology is a movement found in several religions to reconsider the traditions,

practices, scriptures, and theologies of those religions from a feminist perspective. Some of the
goals of feminist theology include increasing the role of women among the clergy and religious
authorities, reinterpreting male-dominated imagery and language about God, determining
women's place in relation to career and motherhood, and studying images of women in the
religion's sacred texts. In Wicca "the Goddess" is a deity of prime importance, along with her
consort the Horned God. In the earliest Wiccan publications she is described as a tribal goddess
of the witch community, neither omnipotent nor universal, and it was recognised that there was a
greater "Prime Mover", although the witches did not concern themselves much with this being.

Architecture

Gender-based inquiries into and conceptualization of architecture have also come about in the
past fifteen years or so. Piyush Mathur coined the term "archigenderic" in his 1998 article in the
British journal Women's Writing. Claiming that "architectural planning has an inextricable link
with the defining and regulation of gender roles, responsibilities, rights, and limitations," Mathur
came up with that term "to explore...the meaning of 'architecture" in terms of gender" and "to
explore the meaning of "gender" in terms of architecture"

Culture

Women's writing

Women's writing came to exist as a separate category of scholarly interest relatively recently. In
the West, second-wave feminism prompted a general reevaluation of women's historical
contributions, and various academic sub-disciplines, such as Women's history (or herstory) and
women's writing, developed in response to the belief that women's lives and contributions have
been underrepresented as areas of scholarly interest. Virginia Balisn et al. characterize the
growth in interest since 1970 in women's writing as "powerful". Much of this early period of
feminist literary scholarship was given over to the rediscovery and reclamation of texts written
by women. Studies such as Dale Spender's Mothers of the Novel (1986) and Jane Spencer's The
Rise of the Woman Novelist (1986) were ground-breaking in their insistence that women have
always been writing. Commensurate with this growth in scholarly interest, various presses began
the task of reissuing long-out-of-print texts. Virago Press began to publish its large list of
nineteenth and early-twentieth-century novels in 1975 and became one of the first commercial
presses to join in the project of reclamation. In the 1980s Pandora Press, responsible for
publishing Spender's study, issued a companion line of eighteenth-century novels written by
women. More recently, Broadview Press has begun to issue eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
works, many hitherto out of print and the University of Kentucky has a series of republications
of early women's novels. There has been commensurate growth in the area of biographical
dictionaries of women writers due to a perception, according to one editor, that "most of our
women are not represented in the 'standard' reference books in the field".
Another early pioneer of Feminist writing is Charlotte Perkins Gilman, whose most notable work
was The Yellow Wallpaper.

Science fiction

In the 1960s the genre of science fiction combined its sensationalism with political and
technological critiques of society. With the advent of feminism, questioning women’s roles
became fair game to this "subversive, mind expanding genre". Two early texts are Ursula K. Le
Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) and Joanna Russ' The Female Man (1970). They serve
to highlight the socially constructed nature of gender roles by creating utopias that do away with
gender. Both authors were also pioneers in feminist criticism of science fiction in the 1960s and
70s, in essays collected in The Language of the Night (Le Guin, 1979) and How To Suppress
Women's Writing (Russ, 1983). Another major work of feminist science fiction has been
Kindred by Octavia Butler.

Riot grrrl movement

Riot grrrl (or riot grrl) is an underground feminist punk movement that started in the 1990s and is
often associated with third-wave feminism (it is sometimes seen as its starting point). It was
Grounded in the DIY philosophy of punk values. Riot grrls took an anti-corporate stance of self-
sufficiency and self-reliance. Riot grrrl's emphasis on universal female identity and separatism
often appears more closely allied with second-wave feminism than with the third wave. Riot grrrl
bands often address issues such as rape, domestic abuse, sexuality, and female empowerment.
Some bands associated with the movement are: Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Excuse 17, Free Kitten,
Heavens To Betsy, Huggy Bear, L7, and Team Dresch. In addition to a music scene, riot grrrl is
also a subculture; zines, the DIY ethic, art, political action, and activism are part of the
movement. Riot grrrls hold meetings, start chapters, and support and organize women in music.

The riot grrrl movement sprang out of Olympia, Washington and Washington, D.C. in the early
1990s. It sought to give women the power to control their voices and artistic expressions. Riot
grrrls took a growling double or triple r, placing it in the word girl as a way to take back the
derogatory use of the term.

The Riot Grrrl’s links to social and political issues are where the beginnings of third-wave
feminism can be seen. The music and zine writings are strong examples of "cultural politics in
action, with strong women giving voice to important social issues though an empowered, a
female oriented community, many people link the emergence of the third-wave feminism to this
time". The movement encouraged and made "adolescent girls’ standpoints central," allowing
them to express themselves fully.

Pornography

The "Feminist Sex Wars" is a term for the acrimonious debates within the feminist movement in
the late 1970s through the 1980s around the issues of feminism, sexuality, sexual representation,
pornography, sadomasochism, the role of transwomen in the lesbian community, and other
sexual issues. The debate pitted anti-pornography feminism against sex-positive feminism, and
parts of the feminist movement were deeply divided by these debates.

Anti-pornography movement

For more details on this topic, see Feminist_views_on_pornography#Anti-

pornography_feminism. Anti-pornography feminists, such as Catharine MacKinnon, Andrea
Dworkin, Robin Morgan and Dorchen Leidholdt, put pornography at the center of a feminist
explanation of women's oppression.

Some feminists, such as Diana Russell, Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, Susan
Brownmiller, Dorchen Leidholdt, Ariel Levy, and Robin Morgan, argue that pornography is
degrading to women, and complicit in violence against women both in its production (where,
they charge, abuse and exploitation of women performing in pornography is rampant) and in its
consumption (where, they charge, pornography eroticizes the domination, humiliation, and
coercion of women, and reinforces sexual and cultural attitudes that are complicit in rape and
sexual harassment).

Beginning in the late 1970s, anti-pornography radical feminists formed organizations such as
Women Against Pornography that provided educational events, including slide-shows, speeches,
and guided tours of the sex industry in Times Square, in order to raise awareness of the content
of pornography and the sexual subculture in pornography shops and live sex shows. Andrea
Dworkin and Robin Morgan began articulating a vehemently anti-porn stance based in radical
feminism beginning in 1974, and anti-porn feminist groups, such as Women Against
Pornography and similar organizations, became highly active in various US cities during the late
1970s.

Sex-positive movement

Sex-positive feminism is a movement that was formed in order to address issues of women's
sexual pleasure, freedom of expression, sex work, and inclusive gender identities. Ellen Willis'
1981 essay, "Lust Horizons: Is the Women's Movement Pro-Sex?" is the origin of the term, "pro-
sex feminism"; the more commonly-used variant, "sex positive feminism" arose soon after.

Although some sex-positive feminists, such as Betty Dodson, were active in the early 1970s,
much of sex-positive feminism largely began in the late 1970s and 1980s as a response to the
increasing emphasis in radical feminism on anti-pornography activism.

Sex-positive feminists are also strongly opposed to radical feminist calls for legislation against
pornography, a strategy they decried as censorship, and something that could, they argued, be
used by social conservatives to censor the sexual expression of women, gay people, and other
sexual minorities. The initial period of intense debate and acrimony between sex-positive and
anti-pornography feminists during the early 1980s is often referred to as the Feminist Sex Wars.
Other sex-positive feminists became involved not in opposition to other feminists, but in direct
response to what they saw as patriarchal control of sexuality.
Relationship to political movements

Socialism

Since the early twentieth century some feminists have allied with socialism. In 1907 there was an
International Conference of Socialist Women in Stuttgart where suffrage was described as a tool
of class struggle. Clara Zetkin of the Social Democratic Party of Germany called for women's
suffrage to build a "socialist order, the only one that allows for a radical solution to the women's
question".

In Britain, the women's movement was allied with the Labour party. In America, Betty Friedan
emerged from a radical background to take command of the organized movement. Radical
Women, founded in 1967 in Seattle is the oldest (and still active) socialist feminist organization
in the U.S. During the Spanish Civil War, Dolores Ibarruri (La Pasionaria) led the Communist
Party of Spain. Although she supported equal rights for women, she opposed women fighting on
the front and clashed with the anarcho-feminist Mujeres Libres.

Revolutions in Latin America brought changes in women's status in countries such as Nicaragua
where Feminist ideology during the Sandinista Revolution was largely responsible for
improvements in the quality of life for women but fell short of achieving a social and ideological
change.

Fascism

Scholars have argued that Nazi Germany and the other fascist states of the 1930s and 1940s
illustrates the disastrous consequences for society of a state ideology that, in glorifying
traditional images of women, becomes anti-feminist. In Germany after the rise of Nazism in
1933, there was a rapid dissolution of the political rights and economic opportunities that
feminists had fought for during the prewar period and to some extent during the 1920s. In
Franco's Spain, the right wing Catholic conservatives undid the work of feminists during the
Republic. Fascist society was hierarchical with an emphasis and idealization of virility, with
women maintaining a largely subordinate position to men.

Scientific discourse

Some feminists are critical of traditional scientific discourse, arguing that the field has
historically been biased towards a masculine perspective. Evelyn Fox Keller argues that the
rhetoric of science reflects a masculine perspective, and she questions the idea of scientific
objectivity.

Many feminist scholars rely on qualitative research methods that emphasize women’s subjective,
individual experiences. According to communication scholars Thomas R. Lindlof and Bryan C.
Taylor, incorporating a feminist approach to qualitative research involves treating research
participants as equals who are just as much an authority as the researcher. Objectivity is
eschewed in favor of open self-reflexivity and the agenda of helping women. Also part of the
feminist research agenda is uncovering ways that power inequities are created and/or reinforced
in society and/or in scientific and academic institutions. Lindlof and Taylor also explain that a
feminist approach to research often involves nontraditional forms of presentation.

Primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy notes the prevalence of masculine-coined stereotypes and
theories, such as the non-sexual female, despite "the accumulation of abundant openly available
evidence contradicting it". Some natural and social scientists have examined feminist ideas using
scientific methods.

Biology of gender

Modern feminist science challenges the biological essentialist view of gender, however it is
increasingly interested in the study of biological sex differences and their effect on human
behavior. For example, Anne Fausto-Sterling's book Myths of Gender explores the assumptions
embodied in scientific research that purports to support a biologically essentialist view of gender.
Her second book, Sexing the Body discussed the alleged possibility of more than two true
biological sexes. This possibility only exists in yet-unknown extraterrestrial biospheres, as no
ratios of true gametes to polar cells other than 4:0 and 1:3 (male and female, respectively) are
produced on Earth. However, in The Female Brain, Louann Brizendine argues that brain
differences between the sexes are a biological reality with significant implications for sex-
specific functional differences. Steven Rhoads' book Taking Sex Differences Seriously illustrates
sex-dependent differences across a wide scope.

Carol Tavris, in The Mismeasure of Woman, uses psychology and sociology to critique theories
that use biological reductionism to explain differences between men and women. She argues
rather than using evidence of innate gender difference there is an over-changing hypothesis to
justify inequality and perpetuate stereotypes.

Evolutionary biology

Sarah Kember - drawing from numerous areas such as evolutionary biology, sociobiology,
artificial intelligence, and cybernetics in development with a new evolutionism - discusses the
biologization of technology. She notes how feminists and sociologists have become suspect of
evolutionary psychology, particularly inasmuch as sociobiology is subjected to complexity in
order to strengthen sexual difference as immutable through pre-existing cultural value judgments
about human nature and natural selection. Where feminist theory is criticized for its "false beliefs
about human nature," Kember then argues in conclusion that "feminism is in the interesting
position of needing to do more biology and evolutionary theory in order not to simply oppose
their renewed hegemony, but in order to understand the conditions that make this possible, and to
have a say in the construction of new ideas and artefacts."

Male reaction

The relationship between men and feminism has been complex. Men have taken part in
significant responses to feminism in each 'wave' of the movement. There have been positive and
negative reactions and responses, depending on the individual man and the social context of the
time. These responses have varied from pro-feminism to masculism to anti-feminism. In the
twenty-first century new reactions to feminist ideologies have emerged including a generation of
male scholars involved in gender studies, and also men's rights activists who promote male
equality (including equal treatment in family, divorce and anti-discrimination law). Historically a
number of men have engaged with feminism. Philosopher Jeremy Bentham demanded equal
rights for women in the eighteenth century. In 1866, philosopher John Stuart Mill (author of
"The Subjection of Women") presented a women’s petition to the British parliament; and
supported an amendment to the 1867 Reform Bill. Others have lobbied and campaigned against
feminism. Today, academics like Michael Flood, Michael Messner and Michael Kimmel are
involved with men's studies and pro-feminism.

A number of feminist writers maintain that identifying as a feminist is the strongest stand men
can take in the struggle against sexism. They have argued that men should be allowed, or even be
encouraged, to participate in the feminist movement. Other female feminists argue that men
cannot be feminists simply because they are not women. They maintain that men are granted
inherent privileges that prevent them from identifying with feminist struggles, thus making it
impossible for them to identify with feminists. Fidelma Ashe has approached the issue of male
feminism by arguing that traditional feminist views of male experience and of "men doing
feminism" have been monolithic. She explores the multiple political discourses and practices of
pro-feminist politics, and evaluates each strand through an interrogation based upon its effect on
feminist politics.

A more recent examination of the subject is presented by author and academic Shira Tarrant. In
Men and Feminism (Seal Press, May 2009), the California State University, Long Beach
professor highlights critical debates about masculinity and gender, the history of men in
feminism, and men’s roles in preventing violence and sexual assault. Through critical analysis
and first-person stories by feminist men, Tarrant addresses the question of why men should care
about feminism in the first place and lays the foundation for a larger discussion about feminism
as an all-encompassing, human issue.

Tarrant touches on similar topics in Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power
(Routledge, 2007).

Pro-feminism

Pro-feminism is the support of feminism without implying that the supporter is a member of the
feminist movement. The term is most often used in reference to men who are actively supportive
of feminism and of efforts to bring about gender equality. The activities of pro-feminist men's
groups include anti-violence work with boys and young men in schools, offering sexual
harassment workshops in workplaces, running community education campaigns, and counseling
male perpetrators of violence. Pro-feminist men also are involved in men's health, activism
against pornography including anti-pornography legislation, men's studies, and the development
of gender equity curricula in schools. This work is sometimes in collaboration with feminists and
women's services, such as domestic violence and rape crisis centers. Some activists of both
genders will not refer to men as "feminists" at all, and will refer to all pro-feminist men as "pro-
feminists".
Anti-feminism

Anti-feminism is opposition to feminism in some or all of its forms. Writers such as Camille
Paglia, Christina Hoff Sommers, Jean Bethke Elshtain and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese have been
labeled "anti-feminists" by feminists. Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge argue that in this way
the term "anti-feminist" is used to silence academic debate about feminism. Paul Nathanson and
Katherine K. Young's books Spreading Misandry and Legalizing Misandry explore what they
argue is feminist-inspired misandry. Christina Hoff-Sommers argues feminist misandry leads
directly to misogyny by what she calls "establishment feminists" against (the majority of)
women who love men in Who Stole Feminism: How Women Have Betrayed Women. Marriage
rights advocates criticize feminists like Sheila Cronan who take the view that marriage
constitutes slavery for women, and that freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition
of marriage.
Religion and Anthropology (E.B. Tylor)
Certainly in a British context and arguably more widely, Edward Burnett Tylor is generally
acknowledged to be ‘the father of anthropology’.1 In an oft-repeated phrase, Friedrich Max
Müller, professor of comparative philology at Oxford University, even referred to the new
discipline as ‘Mr. Tylor's science’.2 While appreciations in Festschrifts are apt to be over-
generous, they also tend to be careful about claims that might slight other eminent scholars. Even
though the very contributors to the volume in Tylor's honour were distinguished figures, such as
Andrew Lang, J.G. Frazer and W.H.R. Rivers, nevertheless the preface declared unequivocally
that Tylor was ‘the greatest of English anthropologists’, and the first chapter gave him pride of
place as ‘the founder of this science’.3 Obituaries reaffirmed these generative claims, as have
scholars ever since.4 Tylor is also widely credited with providing the first definition of ‘culture’
in its modern, anthropological sense.5 He also gave the English-speaking world its first, proper,
anthropological textbook.6 Even more clear-cut is the unique position Tylor occupied as the first
holder of a professorship in anthropology in Britain (at Oxford University). Chris Holdsworth
has also observed, ‘Tylor was the only nineteenth-century anthropologist who devoted his entire
time to anthropology’.7
Given this level of significance, it is stunning to realize that there has never been a
biography. In the Festschrift chapter entitled ‘Edward Burnett Tylor’, the historian is
disappointed to read, ‘It has been no part of my conception of my task to enter into the details of
Mr. Tylor's biography’.8 This pattern of commenting on the work rather than on the life has been
followed ever since.9 In contrast to many Victorians of his eminence, he was not the subject of a
‘life and letters’ volume: one suspects this was because he had made the mistake of living too
long; by the time of his death, the younger generations of anthropologists did not wish to
dishonour their founder by documenting how his theories had largely gone out of fashion. This
paper is also mainly about Tylor's work, albeit in relation to his personal life and beliefs. Still,
several major and illuminating biographical details which are not in the existing scholarship have
been discovered in the process of researching it.
The one biographical point which everyone highlights is that Tylor had been raised a
Quaker. Nevertheless, scholars have failed to discern the most significant ways in which this
influenced his work. Indeed, the most important alleged implication of Tylor's Quaker formation
is simply wrong. To take a recent example, his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography states: ‘A Quaker by birth, Tylor was educated at Grove House, Tottenham, a school
belonging to the Society of Friends. His faith, which he abandoned later in life, precluded a
university education.’10 In fact, there was no required oath to prevent Tylor from gaining a full
Cambridge education (albeit without obtaining the actual degree), or a Scottish higher education,
diploma and all. (Edinburgh was a popular destination for English Quakers seeking a medical
degree.) The most obvious option, however, was London, which, as part of its raison d’être,
provided non-Anglicans of any stripe an opportunity to obtain a university degree. To take just
one example to hand, the historian and lifelong Friend Thomas Hodgkin (nephew of his
namesake who was a founder of the Ethnological Society of London) was a year older than Tylor
and as they had both attended the same Quaker school it could hardly have escaped Tylor's
notice that Hodgkin had gone on to University College London. 11 In short, there was nothing in
the letter or spirit of the rules and ways of either University College London or the Society of
Friends to have prevented Tylor from gaining a university degree in his own home country.
 Tylor was born at Camberwell, Surrey, into a Quaker family. His father was the prosperous
owner of a brass foundry. One of his older brothers, Alfred, would become a noted geologist
while also having a flair for generating wealth in the family business. Edward was sent to the
Quaker school at Tottenham, and then came to work at the brass foundry at the age of sixteen.
His health was fragile, however, and in that wonderfully Victorian way for financially
comfortable families this led to a life of pleasant trips abroad. Tylor's wife, Anna, compiled a
diary of their life together which primarily consists of chronicling health concerns and travels.
An early entry reads: ‘Were [sic] engaged – He came to Linden – Chest delicate, & he spent the
winter at Nice.’12 The first significant such trip was a wander through parts of the New World
which began in 1855. He spent ‘the best part of a year’ touring the United States, but the turning
point of his professional life came on an omnibus in Havana, Cuba, in the spring 1856.13 There
he happened to meet the ethnologist Henry Christy. Christy was planning a Mexican expedition
to collect artefacts and Tylor agreed to accompany him, thereby learning to focus his intellectual
curiosity upon the study of primitive culture.14
This initiation itself reflects a deeply Quaker lineage. At the time of their Mexican journey,
both Christy and Tylor were devout Friends, and Christy would remain so. 15 Tylor himself (by
then a religious sceptic of long standing) reflected in 1884 on how Christy had become interested
in ethnology:
He was led into this subject by his connection with Dr. Hodgkin; the two being at first interested,
from the philanthropist's point of view, in the preservation of the less favored races of man, and
taking part in a society for this purpose, known as the Aborigines’ protection society.16
Thomas Hodgkin was a deeply devout Quaker. He founded the Ethnological Society of London,
which would become the intellectual centre of the emerging discipline of anthropology. When
T.H. Huxley served as president in 1871 he brought about a merger with an upstart rival that led
to its becoming what is now entitled the Royal Anthropological Institute. The Quaker component
in this story of the development of anthropological institutions was, of course, only one current
and by no means the whole, but it is the germane one to highlight here because Tylor came into
this field upon that particular current. In short, Quaker spirituality resulted in Friends being
leading humanitarian activists.17 Quaker abolitionism is well known. Another such cause was the
interests of indigenous peoples who were being mistreated in colonial encounters. This
religiously motivated concern, in turn, led on to a scholarly interest in savages.
R.R. Marett observed that ‘Tylor's anthropological apprenticeship was served in
Mexico.’18 Tylor decided that his travels with Christy could be the subject of a book. He had
married Anna in 1858 and her diary entry for 27 June 1859 was: ‘E. going on with
“Anahuac.”’19Anahuac, Or Mexico and the Mexicans, Ancient and Modern (1861) was Tylor's
first publication. This book has justly been ignored as not an important contribution to
anthropology. It is not even clear that Tylor had a working definition of
‘Mexican’.20 Nevertheless, one can see already present several subjects that would interest Tylor
throughout his career (such as tracing decimal numeration to counting on fingers).21
The main scholarly examinations of Anahuac, a couple of articles by Frédéric Regard, aptly
focus on its marked anti-Catholicism. 22 Nevertheless, these and all other studies are hampered by
ignorance of the chronology of Tylor's spiritual autobiography. Regard elides this by merely
saying that Tylor was the son of a Quaker.23 In fact, Tylor was himself still a devout Friend when
he wrote Anahuac. At one point his faith is on display in a reference to ‘our Saviour’. 24 There are
numerous opinionated passages in Anahuac that reflect Quaker values, such as denunciations of
gambling and showy clothing. He even praised the ‘good sense’ that George Fox, the founder of
the Society of Friends, had shown in his practical wardrobe. 25 More importantly, Tylor's Quaker
anti-militarism is readily apparent.26
In other words, Tylor was offering a Quaker critique of Catholicism. Friends practised one
of the least elaborate versions of Christianity that existed in the nineteenth century. It was
therefore easy for Tylor to condemn Catholic ways in the certainty that his own spiritual house
was in order. He could attack Catholicism as priest-ridden, safe in the knowledge that there were
no Quaker priests; decry their greedy schemes, confident that Quaker ministers did not receive
any payments; object to the idolatrous treatment of statues, knowing that Friends did not even
allow religious images, and so on. The polemical pay-off was the assertion that Catholicism was
little better than the pagan religion of the Aztecs:
Practically, there is not much difference between the old heathenism and the new Christianity …
They had gods, to whom they built temples, and in whose honour they gave offerings,
maintained priests, danced and walked in processions – much as they do now …27
The message of the Anahuac was simple: Catholicism is like paganism and paganism is like
Catholicism.
Tylor's anti-Catholicism was lifelong. Another way of saying that Catholics were pagans
was to say that they were savages. Tylor's greatest work, Primitive Culture, is particularly thick
with anti-Catholic gibes. For instance:
That the guilt of thus bringing down Europe intellectually and morally to the level of negro
Africa lies in the main upon the Roman Church, the bulls of Gregory IX. and Innocent VIII., and
the records of the Holy Inquisition, are conclusive evidence to prove.28
Again and again, such parallels are made: the Catholic attitude to saints on high is no different
from ancestor worship – or polytheism – or idolatry. 29 The man of science and Jesuit Alfred
Weld unsurprisingly spoke of Tylor's ‘hatred’ of the Catholic Church.30
Tylor's breakthrough book was Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the
Development of Civilization (1865).31 A.C. Haddon identified Researches as a ‘masterly work’
which ‘at once brought Tylor to the forefront as an ethnologist’. 32 It has been observed that this
volume never explored religion, and this omission is intriguing in the light of his next
book, Primitive Culture, where examining religion literally fills half the book and intellectually
engulfs the project.33 Marett remarked that in Researches Tylor ‘reserved the subject of religion
as not yet ripe for treatment’.34 As will be shown, the reason for this is that Tylor lost his faith
while working on Researches. It was simply too soon: he was not yet willing or able to tackle
religion directly from a sceptical perspective. Nevertheless, there are incidental clues. The most
positive portrayal of Christianity in the book is a poignant account of a Lutheran worship service
at the Berlin Deaf-and-Dumb Institute.35 Tylor had experienced this when still a
believer.36 Elsewhere, scepticism can be seen encroaching. Tylor suggests that ‘the idea of a
future life’ had occurred to savages through an unsound procession of reasoning. 37 He complains
that Victorian society was too trusting of ancient authors. That this was a jab at the authority of
the Bible is reinforced by other passages such as the seemingly irreverent glibness of comparing
the story of Jonah with those of Tom Thumb and Little Red Riding Hood and a reference to ‘the
Jewish superstition that a man's destiny may be changed by changing his name’ which sets a
whole series of biblical narratives in a dismissive light. 38 Tylor complained that Archbishop
Whatley had brought the notion of supernatural revelation into his account of human cultural
development despite such a theory lacking ‘any real evidence’.39
 Before carrying on with his anthropological writings, it is necessary now to circle back
chronologically somewhat in order to trace more of Tylor's biography. The commonest reason
why members left the Society of Friends during this period was because of marrying out: the
society required all members only to wed a Friend, and to marry an outsider inevitably meant
expulsion. It is a mark of his devout Quaker identity that Tylor conformed to this expectation.
Anna Fox was from a Quaker family whose business was the Tonedale Mills, Wellington,
Somerset.40 More than merely marrying a Friend, Tylor actually met Anna at a religious meeting.
Anna's diary is devoid of comments on their inner lives and entries are usually confined to where
they went. She recorded how their relationship started in 1857: ‘We met at Stoke Newington at
Yearly Meeting time.’41 Yearly Meeting was the high point of the Quaker annual spiritual
calendar – a time when Friends gathered from across the country for worship and fellowship and
to conduct the business of the society. Tylor was living in the family home at Stoke Newington
and the Stoke Newington Friends Meeting House would become his and Anna's congregation as
a married couple. The Yearly Meeting was generally recognized as an apt time for Friends to
find a spouse, and Tylor conformed to this established custom. Edward and Anna were married
on 16 June 1858. It was also a custom among Friends at that time to have the wedding ceremony
in the bride's home and it would seem they followed this tradition as well: their marriage was
recorded by the West Somerset Monthly Meeting.42
Edward and Anna then settled down to six years of married life as faithful Friends. Tylor's
move away from religion can be formally dated as he and Anna resigned their Quaker
membership on 17 July 1864.43 This fact has never before been uncovered, and indeed the Tylors
themselves were prone to obscure it, perhaps because it was socially awkward given that close
family members, including even Tylor's geologist brother, kept the faith unto death. Anna did not
mention it in the diary that she painstakingly prepared after Tylor's death, although it is packed
with much more trivial events (the most notable occurrence in 1864 is therefore not the severing
of their Christian ties but rather a holiday at Teignmouth, Devon).44 Likewise, Tylor would
merely say that he had been ‘brought up among the Quakers’, thus eliding that he was himself a
faithful Friend until the age of thirty-two.45 Their resignation was a solemn act and a much more
decisive one than simply allowing one's Quaker identity to wither through neglect. Given Tylor's
known religious scepticism thereafter, it is safe to assume that the resignation was prompted by a
loss of faith. Moreover, the timing is significant: his Researches would appear one year later. By
his own account, studying anthropology was his life's work from 1861. 46 It is therefore also
reasonable to infer that Tylor's loss of faith was triggered by his concerted grappling with
anthropological evidence and theories: he could not find a way to think anthropologically and as
a Christian at the same time.
Tylor's Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy,
Religion, Language, Art and Custom was published in 1871. It went through multiple editions
and was also translated into French, German, Russian and Polish. 47 In his Festschrift it was
referred to as his ‘masterpiece’, and at Tylor's death Haddon declared that Primitive
Culture ‘speedily became a “classic,” and such will always remain’. 48Anthropology: An
Introduction to the Study of Man and Civilization appeared in 1881. Rather than weary the reader
by presenting the contents of these volumes in seriatim, it seems more profitable to draw upon
them (and other works where desirable) to present Tylor's major anthropological ideas,
particularly those that have a strong bearing on his view of religion.
Tylor's anthropological thought was stadial, developmental and progressive, based in an
evolutionary model of human culture. He was deeply indebted to the work of Auguste Comte.
Comte believed that he had found a Casaubon-like key to all human progress, a law of a three
stages: ‘the Theological, or fictitious; the Metaphysical, or abstract; and the Scientific, or
positive’.49 Such a scheme was overtly antithetical to Christianity: it placed theology in the
earliest stage of development and marked it off as something that had to be dispensed with in the
name of progress. Tylor sometimes used Comte's categories. 50 His standard scheme, however,
was a deployment of an already existing pattern using older, pre-Comtean terminology: ‘Human
life may be roughly classed into three great stages, Savage, Barbaric, Civilized.’ 51 (To play with
Tylorian language, it seems a curious survival of theological modes of thought that the stages in
such schemes always needed to be three in number – one thinks of Joachim of Fiore's Trinitarian
scheme of human history. J.G. Frazer would continue this convention, deciding upon magical,
religious and scientific as his triad.) Although surely superfluous for his readers, Tylor's example
of a savage was ‘the wild Australian’, while ‘the Englishman’, of course, was the very model of
modern, civilized Homo sapiens.52 The South Sea islanders he discerned to be ‘intelligent
barbarians’.53 Every human culture could be identified as occupying one of these three standard
stages which Tylor had inherited.
Moreover, the arrow of history pointed in the direction of progress. 54 Tylor was influenced
by the Pitt Rivers collection and he was one of the main anthropologists associated with it. Pitt-
Rivers himself had arranged his artefacts as a ‘museum of development’ from the primitive to
the most advanced. Tylor came to see this as revealing a general truth about all aspects of
culture: ‘The principle that thus became visible to him in weapon-development is not less true
through the whole range of civilization.’ 55 For Tylor, cumulative progress was true not only in
technology, but in all areas, including mental culture and morality.
Tylor's stadial consciousness led on to his particular use of the comparative method. He
believed that everyone at the same stage had the same patterns of thought. Therefore one could
apply what one learned from one group of savages to another. Moreover, thinking of savages as
‘grown-up children’ was ‘in the main a sound’ comparison.56 Have you ever noticed that they
both are fond of rattles and drums?57 The main pay-off of the comparative method was that the
early history of ‘the white race’ could be recovered by studying contemporary savages.
Next came Tylor's notion of survivals. In his lexicon, a ‘survival’ was something in a
culture that did not make sense there in the present context but rather spoke of an earlier stage. It
existed not by inherent logic but ‘had lasted on by mere conservatism into a new civilization, to
which it is unsuited’.58 Survivals were obsolete stock that had failed to be thrown out. Tylor
would illustrate this from clothing fashions and would incidentally apply it to a range of
practices such as vendettas.59 Nevertheless, Tylor's mind was not really preoccupied with such
matters but rather with what he acknowledged was a close synonym:
Such a proceeding as this would be usually, and not improperly, described as a superstition; and,
indeed, this name would be given to a large proportion of survivals generally. The very word
‘superstition,’ in what is perhaps its original sense of a ‘standing over’ from old times, itself
expresses the notion of a survival.60
Tylor's deployment of the doctrine of survivals was overwhelmingly in order to elucidate
religion, and scholars have observed that the concept was developed in order to help him find a
way to think about spiritual matters.61
Tylor's anthropological approach to religion can now be examined. In Primitive Culture, he
set out as a condition that ‘as to the religious doctrines and practices examined, these are treated
as belonging to theological systems devised by human reason, without supernatural aid or
revelation’.62 In actuality, this methodology was undergirded by a much stronger, unstated
conviction, namely that there were no souls or spiritual beings. Without ever addressing the
matter, Tylor tacitly ruled out the possibility that people might believe in these things because
they actually exist. Given that starting point, Tylor saw it as his task to account for how people
had come to adopt these erroneous beliefs.63
Tylor appropriated the term ‘animism’ for belief in spiritual beings and thus as a synonym
for the indispensable essence of religion. His view of the origin of religion has been called the
‘dream theory’.64 The argument ran thus: when we dream it appears that a part of us leaves our
body. Our body is sleeping at home, but we swim in a lake. Savages assume that this literally
happens and therefore infer that they have a part of themselves separable from their body – this
is how the notion of a ‘soul’ developed (as well as the supposition of an afterlife as the ‘soul’ can
apparently exist without the body – a theory undergirded by the fact that dead people still come
to us in our dreams, which savages interpret as an actual visit). The notion of a soul, in turn,
leads on to spirits. Tylor viewed ghosts and demons as the fundamental spiritual beings in the
early stages of religion. (One is delighted to learn that the traditional way to describe a ghost's
voice is as a ‘twitter’.) 65 Darwin's The Descent of Man affirmed: ‘It is also probable, as Mr. Tylor
has shewn, that dreams may have first given rise to the notion of spirits.’ 66 Spirits, in turn, are
ranked, leading to gods, and this eventually gives rise to thinking about a supreme god, the road
to monotheism. Tylor summarized his own view as the ‘theory that the conception of the human
soul is the very “fons et origo” of the conceptions of spirit and deity in general’.67
If some of this seems improbable to us, Tylor avers, that is precisely because we have
advanced and therefore have a higher mental culture. The primitive mind is incapable of
distinguishing between objective and subjective. We consider dreams ‘subjective processes of
the mind’.68 That they could not think this way helps to account for how claims to divine
revelation arose. Savages, as it were, did not have the imagination to realize that they were
simply imagining something and therefore objectified it as the voice of a god. In the mystical
tradition, this is typically physically induced by fasting, which generates hallucinations mistaken
for interactions with spiritual beings.69 Tylor also thought of modern spiritualism as primitive
religion redux. Armchair anthropologist though he was, Tylor attended some seances as a sort of
bit of fieldwork and recorded his observations. For one session his verdict was simply
‘subjectivity’, by which he meant that these people could not distinguish their own fancies from
reality.70 Tylor never tired of insisting that the primitive mind could not rise to the notion of a
metaphor. Examples of literalistic thinking he always latched upon as indicative of the whole. He
was delighted with St Patrick's Purgatory, Lough Dearg, as expressing the uncivilized
assumption that purgatory must be a physical place to which one could walk. 71 Literal also meant
material. Tylor hoped that the American anthropologist Franz Boas would provide an artefact for
the museum: ‘I should much like to possess one or two genuine “soul-catchers.” They are of the
greatest value to enable the public to realise what the barbaric doctrine of souls really
is.’72 Perhaps it will not be amiss to give an example of Tylor overreaching in this way as
illuminating the groove in which his mind ran. In both Primitive Culture and Anthropology Tylor
avers that the supreme god was originally literally the sky: ‘Who, we may ask, is this divinity,
calm and indifferent save when his wrath bursts forth in storm, but the Heaven himself?’ 73 This
Heaven-Father later evolves into our Father in Heaven. Tylor insisted that a survival of this can
be found in language: ‘Among all the relics of barbaric religion which surround us, few are more
striking than the phrases which still recognise as a deity the living sky, as “Heaven forgive
me!”’74 The actual origin of such phrases is much more likely to be a reverent reluctance to say
the divine name, which caused ‘heaven’ to be used as a euphemistic substitute, but Tylor
instinctively assumed literalism.
For Tylor, animism was the scientific thought of savages. Magic was merely ‘a sort of early
and unsuccessful attempt at science’, and the same can be said for religion. 75 In developing what
we would term religious ideas, ‘their purpose is to explain nature’. 76 When thinking about
religion, civilized people tend to dwell on doctrines that developed quite late rather than on the
true basis of spirituality in ‘the primitive spiritualistic science which interpreted nature to the
lower races’.77 Animist beliefs were a rational effort by a limited mental culture. 78 Thinking has
made progress, however, and therefore we know better.
By its subsequent critics, this view has been labelled the ‘intellectualist’ tradition in British
anthropology – one that assumes that religion was the result of savage philosophers
contemplating the natural world. For the purpose at hand, what needs to be highlighted is the
way that Tylor's theory fuelled the warfare model of the relationship between religion and
science.79 This model was propounded by polemical secularists. It asserted that religion and
science were locked in a zero-sum struggle over the same turf: whenever religion was accepted,
it hampered scientific thinking, and whenever scientific thinking was accepted it dispensed with
religion.80 Sprinkled throughout Tylor's works are comments on how theology or priests thwarted
scientific advances.81 Indeed, it would seem that he himself thought that he sometimes expressed
this view too intemperately. In the proof sheets for his last, unpublished book was this sentence:
‘It is often and not untruly complained that theological teaching was a great obstacle to the rise
of geology.’ Apparently deciding he had gone too far, Tylor deleted ‘great’.82
Another anthropological theory of Tylor's that needs to be set in the light of wider debates
in the nineteenth century is his view on morality in early history. Tylor was concerned to keep
morality and religion as discreet, unconnected categories: ‘savage animism is almost devoid of
that ethical element which to the educated modern mind is the very mainspring of practical
religion’.83 A section heading for a Gifford lecture he gave put it succinctly: ‘Primitive morality
independent of religion’.84 Tylor also insisted, however, that savages were highly moral. 85 Many
Victorians believed that religion was essential for maintaining morality. A major criticism of free
thought was that it would undercut people's motivation for being moral. It seems that Tylor was
covertly attempting to reassure people that they could abandon religion without fearing for
morality: the future could be like the past in which people were moral without being religious.
There is more warrant to assume that he was tacitly furthering wider contemporary causes
in his scholarship than there is for some others because Tylor himself commended his work for
serving this purpose. The famous last words of Primitive Culture were that ‘the science of
culture is essentially a reformer's science’.86 Tylor's task was ‘to expose the remains of crude old
culture which has passed into harmful superstition, and to mark these out for
destruction’.87Anthropology ends in the same sermonic way, with Tylor revealing ‘the practical
moral’ of what his readers had learned, namely that they must apply these anthropological
insights to ‘the practical business of life’ and therefore create a better world. 88 Tylor reminisced
to an American audience about discovering this:
By and by it did become visible, that to show that a custom or institution which belonged to an
early state of civilization had lasted on by mere conservatism into a newer civilization, to which
it is unsuited, would somehow affect the public mind as to the question whether this custom or
institution should be kept up, or done away with. Nothing has for months past given me more
unfeigned delight than when I saw in the Times newspaper the corporation of the city of London
spoken of as a ‘survival.’ You have institutions even here which have outlived their original
place and purpose …89
The corporation of the city of London is a mere illustrative red herring. An American audience
would presumably have found the monarchy and House of Lords survivals, but Tylor never
declared that politics needed to be reformed. Indeed, his calls in earnest for reform were all
exclusively confined to religion. Even in this area he much preferred to leave it to others to
connect the dots, but he could not resist repeatedly declaring that his theories would necessitate
some hard rethinking by theologians specifically, while he never commended them for the
particular domains of politicians or lawyers or heads of Oxbridge colleges. For example, Tylor
argued that the eastward orientation of the priest (which had been reinstated by Tractarians)
should not be discussed as a point of liturgical correctness, but rather as a survival of sun
worship:
How many years must pass before it shall be expected of every theologian that he shall have
studied the development of religious ideas in the world before he reasons about them? Such a
time will come, and with it the time when a theologian's education will necessarily include an
elementary knowledge of the laws of nature. On these two steps will follow the second
Reformation in England, and it will be greater than the first.90
The final prophetic pronouncement identifies Tylor with Huxley's Christianity-puncturing,
agnostic crusade, which he was pursuing under the banner of the ‘New Reformation’.91
The first person to hold a post as an anthropologist in Britain, Tylor was appointed a reader
in anthropology at Oxford University in 1884 and elevated to a professorship in 1896.92 Tylor
was also one of the first to give Gifford lectures, an endowed series on natural theology. Tylor
gave these lectures at Aberdeen University beginning in December 1889. He intended to turn
them into a book entitled The Natural History of Religion (echoing David Hume, who is a foil in
the piece.) Working with Oxford University Press, Tylor proceeded so far as to have portions of
it turned into proof sheets. The press date-stamped these sheets, revealing that this flurry of
activity happened in 1899 and 1900. Tylor hand-corrected a reference to reflect the new
sovereign, demonstrating that he was still at it in 1901, but he must have given up on working on
it in earnest thereafter.
The proof sheets for The Natural History of Religion reveal Tylor deploying his established
anthropological theories to reform society by challenging its religious beliefs. Chapter 1 was
entitled ‘History of the doctrine of natural religion’. It was primarily an attack on the views of
the eighteenth-century deists, who had identified natural religion as a simple, moral
monotheism.93 Even for the deists this was primarily a statement of what people ought to have
discovered rather than of what they did, but Tylor took it to be a theory about the actual beliefs
and practices of early humans. He then pretended that this supposed theory of primitive culture is
what orthodox Christians meant by natural theology. (Quite to the contrary, orthodox theologians
standardly claimed that human beings were natural idolaters.)
The main argument of The Natural History of Religion was an attempt to show that all
religions, however advanced and sophisticated, were based in the crude animistic theories of
savages.94 This is done through charts which endeavour to reveal the common elements in the
religions of primitive societies, such as ‘Tasmanian Animism’ and ‘Algonquin Animism’
through to ‘Christian Animism’. Although he must have found this very telling, all he really
seems to be demonstrating is his definition of religion, a general category which therefore
necessitates that the items in the set have features in common. This method of exposé by
classification is further compromised by the fact that Tylor had considerable liberty in deciding
which features warranted inclusion.95 He makes the links between primitive religions and
Christianity stronger both by anachronistically importing elements back to earlier stages and by
keeping explicitly rejected elements in later ones. As to the former, Aztec animism includes
‘Ecclesiastical Influence on Society’. (The use of the Christian term ‘ecclesiastical’ seems to be
an attempt to show how the religions of the Aztecs and the Catholics are similar, thus bringing
Tylor in his last attempt at a book back full circle to the argument of his first one, Anahuac.) At
the other end of the scale, the ‘Christian Animism’ chart has as one of eight basic categories
‘Nature-Spirits and Polytheistic Deities’. This is apologetically accounted for with the
parenthetical explanation, ‘retained in folklore’. As Christian teaching explicitly repudiates these
things they cannot have a place in a chart of the Christian religion qua Christian. Tylor also
insisted throughout that ‘Demons’ were the most basic category of religious belief, second only
to the soul. ‘Guardian angels’ were just a subset of demons. While this categorization makes
sense for ‘Greco-Roman Animism’, in Jewish and Christian thought this is reversed: angels are
the basic category (though much more marginal to these faiths than second after the soul), and
‘demons’ are only a subset – ‘fallen angels’. It is possible that Tylor himself began to feel the
force of some of these critiques and that is why he abandoned the project. An additional factor
might have been that another anthropologist, Andrew Lang, a friend and one-time disciple, had
come out with a book which argued that monotheism was part of primitive culture. 96 Tylor's
unease about this conflict with Lang is demonstrated by his multiple attempts to describe it in the
right tone, with crossed-out, handwritten efforts piled on top of each other.97
The proof sheets also contained a chapter that was unnumbered and it is tempting to see this
as a reflection of the fact that there was no obvious place to put it, as it is not clear how this
material would have contributed to any formal, overarching argument being pursued in the book.
It was entitled ‘Deluge-Legends’. Tylor was well aware that Christian apologists averred that the
existence of stories of a great deluge in so many different, scattered cultures was evidence for the
historical veracity of the biblical narrative. In his earlier work, Tylor had tended to counter this
with the claim that missionaries had probably infected these cultures with these stories rather
than found them there. As more evidence emerged, however, this suspicion did not hold up and
so a new theory was needed. The argument of this chapter was that the story of the flood had
indeed disseminated from a single source across the globe but this was not because of a historical
event or from the Jewish account but rather from the Babylonian one (which Tylor asserted is
plagiarized in the Hebrew Bible). As this watery excursus does not connect to the unfolding
argument of the rest of the book it seems to have been included simply as additional material that
undermines Christianity. This suspicion is supported by a section on how higher critics have
discerned that biblical books are compilations from multiple authors. This theory unsettled some
conservative Christians – which again seems to be why it interested Tylor – but it was not
relevant to the chapter's thesis. Tylor himself half realized this from the start, writing by way of
apology in the typeset version, ‘Although this division has not such importance in the present
inquiry as it has theologically’.98 He nonetheless traced the seams in the Pentateuch with relish.
Reading it over again, Tylor himself apparently realized that this material was not germane to the
ostensible theme of the chapter and therefore decided it had to be excised.
Tylor's anti-Christian stance has been generally acknowledged by scholars. Holdsworth
noted, ‘Tylor was openly hostile to organized religion.’99 Henrika Kuklick has observed that it
was typical of that generation of anthropologists. She quotes an observation made in a memorial
tribute to A.C. Haddon: ‘In their day, to be an anthropologist was generally considered
equivalent to being an agnostic and freethinker.’100 George W. Stocking Jr emphasized the way
that Tylor's animus against Christianity was expressed in some verses of poetry he wrote which
were published anonymously, the key lines being: ‘Theologians all to expose, – / 'Tis
the mission of Primitive Man.’101 In other words, Tylor avowed that anthropology discredited
Christian doctrine. While in Anahuac Tylor laboured to demonstrate that Catholicism was
essentially paganism, from Primitive Culture onwards this approach was broadened to the claim
that Christianity in general is fundamentally pagan. Throughout his writings Tylor worked to
lead the reader to this conclusion, both by describing savage religion with words familiar from
Christian contexts (for example referring to a Maori rite as baptism and to Sioux theologians)
and by insisting that Christian beliefs were no different to savage ones. For instance, here is how
one ought to think about the doctrine of the virgin birth:
in the Samoan Islands such intercourse of mischievous inferior gods caused ‘many supernatural
conceptions;’ and in Lapland, where details of this last extreme class have also been placed on
record. From these lower grades of culture we may follow the idea onward.102
This is not the place for a systematic evaluation of Tylor's anthropological thought, but in
exploring its relationship to religion, it is worth noticing a few critiques. Even when he was at
the height of his career not everyone was enamoured with Tylor's thought. Weld satirized Tylor's
unexplained assumption that there was no spiritual realm, comparing it to ‘if a historian were to
discuss the origin of the widespread belief in the exploits of Alexander of Macedon, without
touching on the hypothesis that such a conqueror perhaps really did exist’. 103 Alfred Russel
Wallace, the co-discoverer of what came to be called Darwinism, made the same argument. On
another point, he argued that it was wrong to assume that humanity was making general
progress. Finally, in a critique which is even more apt when applied to the unpublished Natural
History of Religion, Wallace observed:
We are constantly told that each such belief or idea ‘finds its place,’ with the implication that it is
thus sufficiently accounted for … Any great mass of facts or phenomena whatever can be
classified, but the classification does not necessarily add anything to our knowledge of the causes
which produced the facts or phenomena … Although the details given on these subjects are so
numerous … they are yet altogether one-sided. They have been amassed with one object and
selected, no doubt unconsciously, so as to harmonize with the à priori convictions of the
writer.104
Andrew Lang came to agree with Weld and Wallace that Tylor had begged the question of the
existence of spiritual realities.105 Even in his Festschrift tribute to him, Lang was not above just
flat-out mocking Tylor's deployment of the doctrine of survivals:
Protestants in Germany, says Wuttke, get Catholic priests to lay ghosts for them. Why not, if the
ghost be a Catholic priest? The Rev. Mr. Thomson of Ednam, father of the author of The Castle
of Indolence, was slain by a ghost, obviously not Presbyterian …106
Marett was clearly embarrassed by Tylor's ‘harsh’ attitude toward religion and repeatedly noticed
it with regret.107 Here is Marett's exasperation at Tylor's habit of only finding literal and scientific
meaning in any statement:
One might even construct a myth of one's own to the effect that the first story-teller was
interrupted in the middle of his moving recital by someone who asked, ‘Was that really so?;’ that
he promptly slew the stupid fellow with his stone-axe; and that ever afterwards there has
prevailed a certain tolerance of poetic licence.108
 Eventually, the new school of functionalism swept away Tylor's notion of survivals. It
rejected the assumption that any practice should be viewed as a now-pointless relic maintained
by mere conservatism, insisting instead that these practices must be serving a contemporary
function. An anthropologist's task, then, is to explore that current function and not to chase
antiquarian Brer Rabbit trails regarding how the practice initially arose. Anthropologists also
abandoned Tylor's evolutionism. The First World War helped to dislodge the assumption that the
human story was one of progress, as it were, on all fronts.109
Some of the difficulties in Tylor's theories may be highlighted by introducing a corollary
notion of his to survivals, namely ‘revivals’. He introduced it thus:
Sometimes old thoughts and practices will burst out afresh, to the amazement of a world that
thought them long since dead or dying; here survival passes into revival, as has lately happened
in so remarkable a way in the history of modern spiritualism …110
The first thing to notice is that Tylor never offered a theory as to why revivals happen: he merely
observed that they do happen. The second point is that revivals are in tension with his
assumption that technological advance could be generalized to all-round progress. The point of
the technological model was that advances, once made, were not unmade. A few quirky
examples notwithstanding, if technology was the only field considered then no category of
revivals would have been needed: there are simply not enough cases of societies freely choosing
to revert to more primitive technologies to necessitate the creating of a theoretical category for
this phenomenon. ‘Revival’, of course, was a common word in Victorian society as a spiritual
event, a term cherished by many Christians. It is therefore quite possible that Tylor chose it
deliberately as a way of baiting believers. This suspicion is strengthened by the fact that as well
as introducing revivals in his anthropological sense, Tylor also spoke with open abuse of revivals
in the spiritual sense:
Medical descriptions of the scenes brought on by fanatical preachers at ‘revivals’ in England,
Ireland, and America, are full of interest to students of the history of religious rites … These
manifestations in modern Europe indeed form part of a revival of religion, the religion of mental
disease.111
Tylor's anthropological thought as a religious sceptic was littered with survivals (to adapt
his parlance) from his Quaker past. Huxley waggishly referred to Comte's Religion of Humanity
as ‘Catholicism minus Christianity’, and one might describe Tylor's mature views as Quakerism
minus Christianity.112 Most generally, he maintained a lifelong disdain for priests and saw every
religious image as an idol. Quaker anti-ritualism was no doubt behind his judgement that the
religion of the Native Americans ‘expressed itself’ in ‘useless ceremony’. 113 The Friends were
one of the very few Christian groups which did not observe the ordinances of baptism and
communion, and one can read Primitive Culture as culminating in an attack on the sacraments.
Quaker plainness continued to prompt Tylor to object to jewellery. He saw earrings as a savage
survival: ‘the women of modern Europe mutilate their ears to hang jewels in them’. 114 If no
piercing was involved, then perhaps one had graduated a stage, but it was still uncivilized: ‘our
ladies keep in fashion barbaric necklaces of such things as shells, seeds, tigers’ claws, and
especially polished stones. The wearing of shining stones as ornaments lasts on’.115
The most dominant continuing Quaker attitude was Tylor's anti-militarism. Even in his
anthropological textbook he could not refrain from offering an editorial opposing the existence
of the military.116 In Primitive Culture Tylor insisted that one of ‘the lessons’ to be learned from
studying savages was that order can be kept without the need for a police force. 117 War caused a
society to regress back to an earlier stage.118 And here is a rather peculiar definition: ‘A
constitutional government, whether called republic or kingdom, is an arrangement by which the
nation governs itself by means of the machinery of a military despotism.’ 119 Quaker traces
continue to the end. The ‘Christian Animism’ chart in The Natural History of Religion betrays
the fingerprints of Friends. For example, it includes ‘Oath’ and ‘Religious Belief legally
enforced’, which in no way define Christianity but which loomed large for Quakers as issues that
set them apart from other religious groups, while leaving out the sacraments (which have been
far more universal and essential throughout Christian history, but are obscured in Quaker
practice and thought).120 While Tylor's Quaker mindset undoubtedly hindered his anthropological
work when it came to reflecting on aspects of culture such as ritual and images, it also provided
illumination. For instance, no British community was more attuned to questions of exogamy and
endogamy than the Quakers.121 Tylor's attentiveness to a chanting voice in worship was
undoubtedly informed by his experience of the sing-song habit of Victorian Quaker
preachers.122 Finally, a book review reference might reveal that Tylor thought in a Quaker way
even about his own apostasy from the Quaker way. Observing that the bishop of Manchester had
conceded some ground to the views of biblical critics, he remarked, ‘Having once “let in the
reasoner” (as the old Quaker phrase goes), Dr. Fraser would probably feel obliged to admit
…’.123 This was a common Quaker expression for allowing doubt to undermine faith. Tylor
himself had ‘let the reasoner in’, and he did find that there was no apparent way to stop
scepticism from undermining religion as a whole thereafter.
One of the limitations of Tylor's notion of survivals was that, in practice, it seemed almost
inevitably to become contaminated by the anthropologist's own prior disposition toward a
practice or belief. Tylor could pronounce wearing necklaces barbaric and wonder that it
continued on, but this was merely an expression of a personal preference. An emotionally distant
person could just as well deem hugging a savage practice that had inexplicably survived into
civilized culture. This arbitrariness may be illustrated by some details regarding the last period of
Tylor's life. In 1912, Tylor was knighted. One might suspect that a progressive reformer would
judge that knighthood was a survival that needed to be eliminated, but Tylor offered no such
leadership on that front, underlining once again how exclusively he confined his concerted
reforming agenda to religion. Relatedly, Edward and Anna Tylor had drawn closer to the
Anglican world in their latter decades, presumably a manifestation of a desire for greater social
prominence, ease and respectability. Oxford University had Anglican worship woven into its
fabric, and Tylor even lectured in 1898 at the intentional Anglican community, Toynbee
Hall.124 In her diary, Anna took to noticing that things happened on days in the church calendar.
For instance, ‘Joe’ died on ‘Good Friday’, and several years later ‘Isabella’ died on ‘Easter
Sunday’.125 One might even go so far as to say that Tylor learned part of his anthropological
methodology from the Quakers. For example, Friends rejected the traditional names of the days
of the week as derived from pagan gods, substituting numbers instead. Tylor would have been
trained to use this Quaker nomenclature, but reverted to the more traditional terms. One might
see this as a classic revival of a survival. Moreover, day names are just one of numerous such
Friendly critiques of common practices. In other words, it was the Society of Friends that taught
Tylor to think in terms of paganisms that have survived into the present, but which need to be
purged.126 Finally, no scholar has ever mentioned Tylor's funeral or apparently found a report of
it. Nevertheless, it turns out that, in the end – presumably at his own request, and certainly with
Anna's approval – Sir Edward Burnett Tylor received a spectacularly Anglican funeral: no fewer
than three priests presided and the choirs of both Wellington parish church and All Saints’
Church sang.127 In Primitive Culture, Tylor himself described what happens to a ghostly pagan
soul that survives into a more respectable religious environment: ‘the doleful wanderer now asks
Christian burial in consecrated earth’.128
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84 [Thomas], op. cit. (3), p. 399.
85 Tylor, op. cit. (6), pp. 406–409.
86 Tylor, op. cit. (28), vol. 2, p. 453.
87 Tylor, op. cit. (28), vol. 2, p. 453.
88 Tylor, op. cit. (6), pp. 439–440.
89 Tylor, op. cit. (16), p. 550.
90 E.B. Tylor, letter to The Times, 15 July 1875.
91 Bernard Lightman, ‘Interpreting agnoticism as a nonconformist sect: T.H. Huxley's “New
Reformation”’, in Paul Wood (ed.), Science and Dissent in England, 1688–1945, Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2004, pp. 197–214. Tylor, op. cit. (28), vol. 2, p. 449.
92 Rivière, Peter (ed.), A History of Oxford Anthropology, Oxford: Berghahn
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93 Tylor, op. cit. (77), Chapter 1, p. 5.
94 Tylor, op. cit. (77), Chapter 2, p. 25.
95 Stocking, George W. Jr, ‘Charting the progress of animism: E.B. Tylor on “The Common
Religion of Mankind”’, History of Anthropology Newsletter (1992) 19, pp. 3–10Google Scholar.
96 Lang, Andrew, The Making of Religion, London: Longmans, Green, 1898Google Scholar.
97 Tylor, op. cit. (77), Chapter 3, p. 27.
98 Tylor, op. cit. (77), unnumbered chapter ‘Deluge-Legends’, p. 46.
99 Holdsworth, op. cit. (7), p. 775.
100 Kuklick, Henrika, The Savage Within: The Social History of British Anthropology, 1885–
1945, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 79Google Scholar.
101 Lang, Andrew, XXXII Ballades in Blue China, London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1888,
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102 Tylor, op. cit. (28), vol. 2, p. 190.
103 Weld, op. cit. (30), pp. 78–106.
104 Wallace, Alfred R., ‘Physical science and philosophy’, Academy (15 February 1872) 3,
pp. 69–71Google Scholar.
105 Stocking, George W. Jr, After Tylor: British Social Anthropology, 1888–
1951, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995, pp. 56–60Google Scholar.
106 [Thomas], op. cit. (3), p. 7.
107 Marett, op. cit. (9), pp. 72, 76, 146.
108 Marett, op. cit. (9), pp. 86–87.
109 Kuklick, op. cit. (100), pp. 19–20, 95, 277. For a recent exploration of the limits of Tylor's
thought see Logan, op. cit. (2), pp. 89–114. For a twenty-first-century critique of Tylor's
anthropological thought in relationship to religion see Phillips, op. cit. (80), pp. 146–182.
110 Tylor, op. cit. (28), vol. 1, pp. 16–17.
111 Tylor, op. cit. (28), vol. 2, p. 421.
112 Desmond, Adrian, Huxley, London: Penguin, 1997, p. 373Google Scholar. The difference
between Comte and Tylor is revealing on this point. Raised as a Catholic, Comte continued to
think fondly of the trappings of Catholicism and wanted to retain them even in a post-theological
context, while Tylor always retained the disdain for the trappings of Catholicism which he had
acquired in his Quaker formation, simply going on to expand this critique to include the basic
tenets of Christian theology in all its forms as well.
113 Tylor, op. cit. (28), vol. 1, p. 31.
114 Tylor, op. cit. (31), p. 1.
115 Tylor, op. cit. (6), p. 243.
116 Tylor, op. cit. (6), p. 228.
117 Tylor, op. cit. (28), vol. 2, p. 405.
118 Tylor, op. cit. (28), vol. 2, p. 414.
119 Tylor, op. cit. (28), vol. 2, p. 434.
120 Tylor, op. cit. (77), ‘Christian Animism’ section, p. 24.
121 Tylor, op. cit. (31), p. 279.
122 Tylor, op. cit. (6), p. 291; idem, op. cit. (28), vol. 1, p. 175. Isichei, op. cit. (17), p. 95.
123 [E.B. Tylor], ‘Mythology among the Hebrews’, The Spectator, 21 April 1877, pp. 508–509.
124 Anna Tylor, op. cit. (12), February 1898.
125 Anna Tylor, op. cit. (12), 5 April 1901, 15 April 1906.
126 There is also probably a negative influence as well. Marjorie Wheeler-Barclay has recently
observed that because some Victorian Quakers retained outmoded ways such as archaic forms of
speech and styles of dress, Tylor in all likelihood was observing practices in his own community
that seemed unfortunate survivals. Wheeler-Barclay, Marjorie, The Science of Religion in
Britain, 1860–1915, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010, p. 75Google Scholar.
127 ‘Late Sir Edward B. Tylor’, Wellington Weekly News, 10 January 1917, p. 8.
128 Tylor, op. cit. (28), vol. 2, p. 29.