Chapter One
History and Theory in Anthropology
Anthropology is concerned with understanding the "other." Typically anthropologists study the
behavior, beliefs, and lifestyles of people in other cultures. Some examine current cultures;
others study the remains of past societies to recreate the lives of people who disappeared long
ago; still others study primates to see what our closest relatives can tell us about being human.
What unites this diverse work is a common ground in some fundamental theoretical ideas
concerning biological evolution and social behavior.
Most anthropologists would agree that anthropology emerged as a distinct branch of scholarship
around the middle of the nineteenth century, when public interest in human evolution took hold.
Anthropology as an academic discipline began a bit later, with the Wrst appointments of
professional anthropologists in universities, museums, and government. However, there is no
doubt that anthropological ideas came into being much earlier. How much earlier is a matter of
disagreement, though not particularly much active debate? Rather, each anthropologist and each
historian of the discipline has his or her own notion of the most relevant point at which to begin
the story.
From a ‘history of ideas’ point of view, the writings of ancient Greek philosophers and travellers,
medieval Arab historians, medieval and Renaissance European travellers, and later European
philosophers, jurists, and scientists of various kinds, are all plausible precursors. The choice,
though, would be with the concept of the ‘social contract’, and the perceptions of human nature,
society, and cultural diversity which emerged from this concept. This is where I shall begin.
Another, essentially unrelated, beginning is the idea of the Great Chain of Being, which defined
the place of the human species as between God and the animals. This idea was in some respects a
forerunner of the theory of evolution, and later in this chapter we shall look at it in that context.
Eighteenth-century debates on the origin of language and on the relation between humans and
what we now call the higher primates are also relevant, as is the early nineteenth-century debate
between the polygenists (who believed that each ‘race’ had a separate origin) and the
monogenists (who emphasized humankind’s common descent, whether from Adam or ape). Such
ideas are important not only as ‘facts’ of history, but also because they form part of modern
anthropology’s perception of itself.
Why Study Theory
Theory is the core of anthropology. Theories determine the types of questions anthropologists
ask and the sorts of information they collect. Without a solid understanding of the history of
theory, anthropological data remain a collection of exotic ethnographic vignettes. With
knowledge of theory, these vignettes become attempts to answer critical philosophical and
practical problems. Thus it is critical that anthropologists understand theory and its historical
context
Theory is critical because, although anthropologists collect data through fieldwork, data in and of
themselves are meaningless. Whether stated explicitly or assumed, theories are the tools
anthropologists use to give meaning to their data. Anthropologists' understanding of the artifacts
they collect or the events they record in the field is derived from their theoretical perspective. A
wink and an eyelid twitch look identical to an observer, but one carries information ("I'm
kidding," "you're cute," "that's OK"), whereas the other signifies nothing more than dust in
someone's eye. So, to paraphrase Clifford Geertz, a famous cultural anthropologist, how does
one differentiate between winks and eyelid twitches? Anthropologists distinguish the two
through their understanding of the context in which the action occurs. Theories guide that
understanding. They are the tools anthropologists use to sort significant from meaningless
information. In fact, one's choice of theory largely determines the data to be collected in the first
place. A structuralist interested in the unconscious meaning of mythology probably will not
spend too much time studying subsistence patterns. An economic anthropologist might ignore
ritual and religion.
Without theory, one cannot do anthropology. The different branches of anthropology have
always freely borrowed ideas from each other and from other sciences. In the nineteenth century,
Herbert Spencer, a sociologist, and Charles Darwin, a naturalist, greatly influenced each other's
work. Sigmund Freud was well versed in nineteenth-century evolutionary theories, and his work
is imbued with ideas taken from anthropology; anthropology, in turn, has been greatly influenced
by his theories. Sociobiologists study human behavior in terms of evolutionary biology and
cultural adaptations. Symbolic anthropologists and postmodernists rely on tools developed in the
study of literature. In the course of their research, anthropologists to-day delve into biology,
geology, psychology, history, literature, physics, chemistry, medicine, and other subjects.
Modern anthropology is built on the work of earlier generations of theorists. Indeed,
anthropologists today ask many of the same questions that occupied scholars in the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. Nineteenth-century theories continue to resonate in popular
culture. Anthropological theory is also important because it helps us think about who and what
we are as human beings. It does this by forcing us to consider the ways in which we understand
the "other." At its most basic level, anthropology asks how we are to understand other people in
the world, those who look different from us and have different languages and customs (what
anthropologists have come to call different cultures). Are such people inferior to us, superior to
us, or just different? Are their culture unchanging, following their own paths of evolution, or
bound to ours in a grand evolutionary scheme? How should we behave toward such people?
At a second level, anthropology forces us to consider the otherness of nature itself. It forces us to
ask if we, as human beings, are fundamentally part of the natural world. If so, perhaps we can be
studied by the scientific methods and principles used by biologists, physicists, and other scholars
in the traditional physical sciences. Alternatively, are human beings sufficiently different from
the rest of the world that studying them with these methods will produceonly trivial and
confusing results? If that is true, the skills needed might be creative insight, imaginative
interpretation, and soul-borne empathy-analytic tools traditionally associated with the arts and
humanities.
A final level of discourse deals with the otherness of culture itself. By directing us, sometimes
only implicitly, to the comparison of cultures, anthropology ultimately points toward the study of
universal human nature. If we could strip away the cultural clothing of all peoples, would we be
left with some set of basic principles or underlying essence? Would this be equivalent to finding
untrammeled human nature before us in the buff? If so, how are we to understand human
culture? Is it that which permits the full and satisfying expression of human nature, or that which
prevents human nature from destroying human society?
At some level, all theory in anthropology, whether written in the eighteenth, nineteenth,
twentieth, or twenty-first centuries, addresses these essential questions. Sometimes, individual
theorists take extreme postures and for a time quiet the voices of those who hold alternative
positions. However, no definitive conclusion has ever been reached on any of these issues.
Perhaps these questions are ultimately unanswerable by their very nature. But the fact that no
authoritative conclusion has been reached does not lessen the importance of the debate, for how
we answer these questions has practical applications in our world. The answers determine our
understanding of ourselves and our behavior toward other individuals and groups. In a world of
instantaneous communication and virtually unlimited capacity for violence, in a world of ethnic
strife and national warfare, surely these are among the most important questions that face us.
Shifts in Anthropological Perspective
One major division in anthropology is between those anthropologists who prefer materialist
explanations of society and those who prefer culturalist explanations. To some extent, this
division reflects the differences between the scientific approach and the humanistic-interpretive
perspective in anthropology. The scientists and materialists focus on technological,
environmental, biological, and economic factors to explain human behavior and society. This
group which includes, cultural materialists, some Marxist anthropologists, sociobiologists, and
evolutionary psychologists; views many aspects of culture as having a material purpose.
Culturalists, including the structuralisms and some psychological anthropologists like Ruth
Benedict and Margaret Mead, and the symbolic anthropologists focus on the symbolic aspect of
culture. Their aim is to interpret the meaning of symbols in a society. To the culturalists, symbols
and culture may not have a material purpose at all, but rather establish meaningfulness for the
people in a society.
Anthropologist Richard Barrett (1984) notes that the difference between the materialist and
culturalist approaches is related to the nature of society and human existence itself. As Barrett
emphasizes, every society must confront the problem of adjusting to the practical circumstances
of life. People need food, shelter, clothing, and the necessary technology and energy for survival.
This is the material component of culture; it is related to survival. But there is also the
nonmaterial aspect of culture: norms, values, beliefs, ideologies, and symbols. These cultural
norms and symbols have emotional significance. Symbols may not be related at all to the
practical circumstances of life; instead, they may indicate some aesthetic or moral values that are
not related to the material conditions of society.
Thus, the distinction between the material and nonmaterial aspects of culture has led to different
approaches to the analysis of human behavior and society. In later chapters, we learn how
anthropologists have employed these approaches in explaining and interpreting human affairs.
Anthropological Paradigms
It is commonplace in many academic Welds to distinguish between a ‘theory’ and a ‘theoretical
perspective’. By a theoretical perspective, we usually mean a grand theory, what is sometimes
called a theoretical framework or a broad way of looking at the world. In anthropology we
sometimes call such a thing a cosmology if it is attributed to a ‘traditional’ culture or a paradigm
if it is attributed to Western scientists.
The theoretical perspective, cosmology, or paradigm defines the major issues with which a
theorist is concerned. The principle is the same whether one is a member of a traditional culture,
an anthropologist, or a natural scientist. In the philosophy of science itself there are differences
of opinion as to the precise nature of scientific thinking, the process of gaining scientific
knowledge, and the existential status of that knowledge.
Within our paradigms we have the particular facts and explanations which make up any given
anthropological study. Anthropology goes through ‘revolutions’ or ‘paradigm shifts’ from time
to time, although the nature of ours may be different from those in the natural sciences. For
anthropology, fashion, as much as explanatory value, has its part to play. The following section
will discuss some paradigm differences in anthropology.
Diachronic, synchronic, and interactive perspectives
Within anthropology, it is useful to think in terms of both a set of competing theoretical
perspectives within any given framework, and a hierarchy of theoretical levels. Take
evolutionism and infusionism, for example. Evolutionism is an anthropological perspective
which emphasizes the growing complexity of culture through time. Difusionism is a perspective
which emphasizes the transmission of ideas from one place to another. They compete because
they ofer diferent explanations of the same thing: how cultures change. Yet both are really part
of the same grand theory: the theory of social change. Sometimes the larger perspective which
embraces both evolutionism and diffusionism is called the diachronic one (indicating the relation
of things through time). Its opposite is the synchronic perspective (indicating the relation of
things together in the same time). Synchronic approaches include functionalism, structuralism,
interpretivism, and other ones which try to explain the workings of particular cultures without
reference to time. A third large grouping of anthropological theories is what might be termed the
interactive perspective. This perspective or, more accurately, set of perspectives, has both
diachronic and synchronic aspects. Its adherents reject the static nature of most synchronic
analysis, and reject also the simplistic historical assumptions of the classical evolutionist and
diffusionist traditions. Proponents of interactive approaches include those who study cyclical
social processes, or cause-and-effect relations between culture and environment. The important
point for now is that anthropology is constructed of a hierarchy of theoretical levels, though
assignment of specific approaches to the larger levels is not always clear-cut. Hence,
Anthropologists debate both within their narrower perspectives (e.g., one evolutionist against
another about either the cause or the chronology of evolution), and within larger perspectives
(e.g., evolutionists versus diffusionists, or those favoring diachronic approaches against those
favoring synchronic approaches).
Very broadly, the history of anthropology has involved transitions from diachronic perspectives
to synchronic perspectives and from synchronic perspectives to interactive perspectives. Early
diachronic studies, especially in evolutionism, often concentrated on global but quite specific
theoretical issues. For example, ‘Which came first, patrilineal or matrilineal descent?’ Behind
this question was a set of notions about the relation between men and women, about the nature of
marriage, about private property, and so on. Through such questions, quite grand theories were
built up. These had great explanatory power, but they were vulnerable to refutation by careful
counter-argument, often using contradicting ethnographic evidence.
For the synchronic approaches, which became prominent in the early twentieth century, it was
often more difficult to find answers to that kind of theoretical question. ‘Which is more culturally
appropriate, patrilineal or matrilineal descent?’ is rather less meaningful than ‘Which came
first?’ The focus landed more on specific societies. Anthropologists began to study societies in
great depth and to compare how each dealt with problems such as raising children, maintaining
links between kinsfolk, and dealing with members of other kin groups. A debate did emerge on
which was more important, descent (relations within a kin group) or alliance (relations between
kin groups which intermarry). Yet overall, the emphasis in synchronic approaches has been on
the understanding of societies one at a time, whether in respect of the function, the structure, or
the meaning of specific customs.
Interactive approaches have con concentrated on the mechanisms through which individuals seek
to gain over other individuals, or simply the ways in which individuals define their social
situation. For example, the question might arise: ‘Are there any hidden features of matrilineal or
patrilineal descent which might lead to the breakdown of groups based on such principles?’ Or,
‘What processes enable such groups to persist?’ Or, ‘How does an individual man oeuvre around
the structural constraints imposed by descent groups?’
Thus anthropologists of diverse theoretical orientations try to tackle related, if not identical
theoretical questions. The complex relation between such questions is one of the most interesting
aspects of the discipline.
Chapter Two
Materialist Approaches
2.1. Cultural Ecology and Neo-evolutionism
Basic Features
1. Impact of environment. Culture is shaped by environmental conditions.
2. Impact of technology. Techno-economic factors combine with environment to influence the
character of social organization and ideology.
3. Focus on adaptation. Human populations continuously adapt to techno- economic-
environmental conditions. ‘Culture’ is the mechanism that makes adaptation possible.
4. Reciprocal links between culture and ecology. While techno-economic environmental factors
shape culture, the converse is also true. This blurs the distinction between the former and the
latter, and underlines the complexity and dynamism intrinsic to the perspective of cultural
ecology.
5. Emphasis on etic rather than emic data. The objective conditions of existence – environment
and technology – not subjective conditions – values, norms, meaning, and individual motivation
6. Culture perceived as practical and useful. Unlike Boas, but like Tylor, cultural ecologists
assume that culture is purposeful and functional, not accidental or irrational.
7. De-emphasis of the individual. The privileged position assigned to the individual by Boas,
Benedict, and Mead is deemed inappropriate by the cultural ecologists.
Social structure, social groups, ecological and technological factors explain culture. The
individual as a component in the explanatory system is quite expendable– explain human
interaction.
8. Nomothetic inquiry. With the emphasis on etic data, anthropology is considered to be
thoroughly scientific, solidly empirical, and capable of producing causal explanations and laws.
9. Evolutionary context. Not only are ecological and technological factors the driving forces in
human interaction, they are fundamental to the historical development of society, and indeed can
be fruitfully tied to an evolutionary perspective.
Key Figures
1. Leslie A White (1900-1975)
White treated societies, or sociocultural systems, as entities that evolved in relatireadon to the
amount of energy captured and used by each member of society. This energy is directed toward
the production of resources for their survival. In White’s words, “Culture evolves as the amount
of energy harnessed per capita per year is increased, or as the efficiency of the instrumental
means of putting the energy to work is increased” ([1949] 1971, 368). In other words, the degree
of societal development is measured by the amount of energy harnessed by these sociocultural
systems. The greater energy resources available, the more highly evolved the sociocultural
system.
White’s hypothesis of cultural evolution explained the differences in levels of societal
development by examining differences in technology and energy production. For example, he
hypothesized that small-scale hunting and gathering societies had not developed complex
sociocultural systems because they depended primarily on human energy for production.
Because of a limited energy source for producing resources, their societies were simple, meager,
and undeveloped. But following the agricultural revolution and the capture of energy through the
domestication of plants and animals, sociocultural systems changed dramatically. The
agricultural revolution represented an efficient use of human energy in harnessing new energy
reserves, such as using draft animals to pull plows. In turn, these technological changes led to the
emergence of cities, complex states, powerful political and religious elites, and new ideologies.
According to White, tracing the modern industrial age, as fossil-fuel technology developed, new
forms of energy such as coal, oil, and natural gas were used, and sociocultural changes
accelerated. Up until the Industrial Revolution, the changes in agricultural societies had been
gradual, taking several thousand years. In contrast, the Industrial Revolution has taken less than
five hundred years to produce widespread global transformations. Because White focused on
sociocultural change on the global level, rather than in particular societies, his approach has been
called general evolution.
2. Julian Steward and Cultural Ecology (1902-1972)
Julian Steward’s contribution to the study of cultural evolution is unique. At about the same
period of time, anthropologist Julian Steward turned his attention to the evolution of society.
Steward was instrumental in establishing the field of cultural ecology. Also called ecological
anthropology, cultural ecology stresses the interrelationship among the natural conditions in the
environment—rainfall, temperature, soils—and technology, social organization, and attitudes
within a particular sociocultural system.
In his book Theory of Culture Change (1955), Steward classified evolutionism suggested by
different scholars at different times into three categories. The first one is the unilineal evolution
that is suggested by Tylor and Morgan. The second one is the neo-evolutionism suggested by
Leslie White. Steward termed it as universal evolution as Leslie White, in his theory, did not
focus on any particular/individual culture and used the term culture in a broad sense. Steward
‘classified himself as a multilineal evolutionist: one who deals with the evolution of particular
cultures and only with demonstrated sequences of parallel culture change in different areas’.
Steward mentioned that ‘a social system is determined by its environmental resources’. He
focused on how specific sociocultural systems adapt to environmental conditions. Steward’s
cultural-ecology framework divides sociocultural systems into two different spheres: the culture
core and secondary features. The culture core consists of those elements most closely related to
subsistence: the environment, technology, and economic arrangements. The other characteristics,
such as social organization, politics, and religion, constitute secondary features of society.
Because Steward investigated the detailed characteristics of different environments, his approach
is referred to as specific evolution, as opposed to White’s general evolution. One of his most
illustrative case studies involved the Shoshone Indians of the Great Basin of the western United
States.
3. Marvin Harris (1927–2001) Cultural materialism (Marvilianism)
According to Harris (1991:23), cultural materialism focuses on and assigns causal priority to the
material conditions of life, such as food and shelter. The underlying assumption, echoing Karl
Marx, is that before there can be poetry and philosophy, people must eat and be protected from
the elements. Materialism in this context has nothing in common with its more popular
connotation: the greedy accumulation of expensive objects. Human activity organized to satisfy
the material conditions of life is affected and limited by our biological make-up, the level of
technology, and the nature of the environment, which in turn generate ideological and social
organizational responses.
Like Steward and White, Harris downplays the importance of emic data. People’s
consciousness, their subjective dispositions, perspectives, interpretations, ideas, attitudes, and
emotions, never explain their actions (Harris 1975:6, 62). The refusal of Indians to eat their
cattle has often been interpreted as a perfect example of just how irrational cultural practices can
be. Supposedly it is the Hindu doctrine of ahimsa which compels Indians to worship their cattle
rather than eat them, even if they are starving. In other words, spiritual obsession obliterates
material welfare. No such thing, Harris counters.
His argument is that India’s undersized cattle are far less important as a source of food than they
are as a source of power and transportation; cow dung, moreover, provides fertilizer for crops
and fuel for cooking.
Harris concludes that the undersized, undernourished cattle in India are perfectly suited to the
difficult environmental conditions they face. And the sacred cattle complex, rather than being
irrational, plays a positive and critical economic role in India. In fact, Harris concludes, ‘India
makes more efficient use of its cattle than the United States does’ (1975:31).
4. John Bennett and Roy Rappaport
The litmus test in anthropology always involves the ethnographer in the fieldwork setting, which
brings us to the works of Bennett and Rappaport.
In Northern Plainsmen (1969), Bennett undertook an ecological investigation of ranchers,
farmers, Hutterites, and Plains Cree Indians .He drew a sharp distinction between general or
natural ecology and human ecology. He argued that the former is not applicable to humans; this
is because it cannot accommodate the degree to which humans, qua innovators, are constantly
changing the ecosystems in which they live. In other words, Bennett recognized that culture not
only adapts to ecological conditions, it also modifies them.
In Bennett’s approach the key to cultural ecology is adaptation. But adaptation is not restricted to
the reciprocal links between culture and environment. Groups or categories of people like the
Hutterites, farmers, ranchers, and Indians in the Jasper region must also adapt to each other, as
well as to external factors such as fluctuating prices for their goods and changing patterns of food
consumption. Bennett introduced an important distinction between adaptive strategies and
adaptive processes, which correspond to the emic and etic distinction.
Adaptive strategies are conscious; they concern decision making: whether to consume or not,
whether to innovate or stick with the old ways, whether to stay on the homestead or migrate.
Adaptive processes consist of the long-term trends resulting from adaptive strategies which are
observed and analysed by the anthropologist.
To Bennett’s credit, his study is enriched not only by its historical dimension (his study covers a
period of more than half a century), but also by its synthesis of subjective and objective data.
According to Rappaport, The centrepiece in Pigs for the Ancestors is ritual. Ritual mediates
between the Tsembaga people and their environment. More specifically, ritual regulates
competition for scarce resources between people and pigs, redistributes land, facilitates the
exchange of economic goods and people in the territory, and even is the guiding hand behind
warfare.
As the pig population builds up, threatening the equilibrium between people and pigs, warfare
with neighbouring groups erupts, decimating the population of both humans and animals, and
restoring it to a level compatible with the carrying weight of the ecological niche.
For example, Rappaport distinguishes between operational (etic) models and cognized (emic)
models, which are comparable to Bennett’s adaptive strategies and adaptive processes, but
essentially ignores cognized data – the attitudes, beliefs, values, and interpretations of the
Tsembaga themselves. There is, moreover, an explicit emphasis in Pigs for the Ancestors on
equilibrium and system maintenance, rather than on adaptation and change.
In Rappaport’s words, ‘the study has been concerned with regulation, or processes by which
systems maintain their structure, rather than adaptation, or processes by which the structure of
systems change in response to environmental pressures’.
Finally, there is the matter of the relationship of cultural or human ecology to natural or general
ecology. Reacting to an article by Rappaport and his mentor Andrew Vayda (who wrote a
foreword to Pigs for the Ancestors), Kaplan and Manners (1972:86) question the soundness of an
approach that fails to recognize the unique capacity of humans to manipulate and shape the
ecosystem itself. In the end, then, we are left with the old debate as to whether the study of
human beings requires procedure and assumptions unnecessary for the study of other species, or
whether the effort to do so is nothing more than unfounded romanticism.
Criticisms of Cultural Ecology
A number of anthropologists have criticized the cultural ecology approach for a variety of
reasons. Early critics claimed that in emphasizing the role of the environment, cultural ecologists
do not take into account historical or political factors (Geertz 1963a; Friedman 1974; Keesing
1981; Hefner 1983). Thus, for example, cultural ecologists can explain how Shoshone culture
represents an adaptation to a desert environment, but they cannot explain how or why the
Shoshone came to reside in an environment with scarce resources. An explanation of this kind
would require detailed historical research examining local and global political factors. Another
criticism is that cultural ecology reduces human behavior to simple adaptations to the external
environment. Because of the emphasis on adaptation, cultural ecologists tend to view every
cultural element as the best of all possible solutions to the problems of subsistence and energy
requirements.
In fact, many sociocultural adaptations may involve compromises at the time that turn out later to
be maladaptations. For example, a number of early cultural ecologists have used their models to
explain the development of warfare in different societies. Some hypothesize that warfare is
associated with land ownership, population size, and resource shortages (Vayda 1961; Sweet
1965; Meggitt 1977). As populations expand in areas with scarce resources, societies resort to
warfare to secure additional resources and thereby restore stability to the sociocultural system.
Critics suggest that this explanation ignores various historical, political, and cultural factors that
contribute to warfare, such as conflicting political or religious ideologies. Furthermore, they
suggest that this is an extreme form of adaptationism. In most cases, warfare is definitely
maladaptive.
5. Neo-Marxist theory
It must be emphasized that current neo-Marxist anthropologists do not accept the unilineal model
of evolution suggested by Marx. For example, most neo-Marxist anthropologists recognize that
Marx’s prediction regarding the evolution of the socialist and communist stages of society from
the capitalist stage is wrong. Historically, socialist and communist revolutions occurred in the
Soviet Union and China, which were by no means industrial-capitalist societies. The industrial
societies that Marx had focused on, such as Great Britain and Germany, did not develop into
what Marx conceived of as socialist or communist societies.
Nevertheless, modern neo-Marxist anthropologists view as valid Marx’s analytical approach to
understanding societal development and some of the inherent problems of capitalist society. His
critical perspective on the institutions of society, the modes of production, and the results of
group conflict has inspired many fruitful hypotheses regarding social and cultural evolution and
development. Unlike the functionalists, who assumed that society’s institutions were balancing
conflicting interests, the Marxist anthropologists have demonstrated that conflict is an inherent
aspect of human behavior and culture. In later chapters dealing with globalization issues, we will
discuss some of neo-Marxist anthropological explanations.
Chapter Three
Structuralism
3.1. General meaning of the term
Structuralism in the 1960s and 1970s was a theoretical perspective with a distinctive conceptual
and methodological approach that emerged in several disciplines, including anthropology,
linguistics, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, and philosophy.
Another influential school in anthropology is the structuralist school. In anthropology, the main
scholar of structuralism is the famous French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. structuralism
is ‘a way of thinking that works to find the fundamental basic units or elements of which
anything is made’. Hence, the term structuralism; is the belief that things cannot be understood in
isolation – they have to be seen in the larger context of the larger structures they are part of. The
primary goal of structuralism is to investigate the thought processes of the human mind in a
universal context; consequently, it is a field that overlaps psychological anthropology.
Key Figures
Structuralism in anthropology was established almost single-handedly by Lévi-Strauss, a cultural
hero in his own right in France, who was born in Belgium in 1908. Lévi-Strauss set out to
redefine the entire approach to the discipline. He challenged the empirical, positivistic tradition,
arguing that culture is more like a language or logical system of signs than a biological organism,
which had been the analogy preferred by the structural functionalists. Structuralism in
anthropology was established almost single-handedly by Lévi-Strauss, a cultural hero in his own
right in France, who was born in Belgium in 1908. Lévi-Strauss set out to redefine the entire
approach to the discipline, because, there are several reasons, according to Lévi- Strauss, for not
focusing on surface structure.
One is that at the level of observable human interaction there are too many facts, too much going
on. Another is that these almost limitless facts are only loosely governed by cause and effect; in
other words, at the empirical level there is a degree of randomness that makes systematic
analysis exceedingly difficult. Moreover, everyday life, everyday consciousness, is shot through
with rationalizations, as people attempt to justify their actions and beliefs to others and to
themselves. It makes little sense, therefore, to tap into people’s interpretations of their lives,
because such interpretations will not likely correspond with behaviour. In redirecting
anthropological analysis to deep structure, to the unconscious, structuralism guards the
investigator from getting bogged down in the (misleading data).
While Lévi-Strauss threw fresh light on a number of classical anthropological topics, from
kinship to social structure, totemism, and the logic of pre-industrial thought, he is best known for
his imaginative analysis of mythology. He assumed that myths constitute a kind of language, one
that stands midway between conventional language and the human mind. Myths, in other words,
are vehicles which supposedly take the analyst close to the workings of the brain. His interest, in
other words, was not so much in what humans think as in how they think, although one of his
major assertions was that myths revolve around fundamental human dilemmas and
contradictions, such as that to live means to die.
3.2. The premises of Structuralism
Structuralism focuses on deep structure versus surface structure, Rather than focusing on
empirical, observable behavior (surface structure), structuralists examine the underlying
principles and variables (deep structure) that presumably generate behaviour. These principles
characteristically take the form of oppositions: nature versus culture, male versus female, left
hand versus right hand, earth versus sky, hot (thermodynamic) versus cold (static). Structuralists
are interested in the unconscious and conscious patterns of human thinking. Little attempt is
made to examine the attitudes and ideas of people, or the norms that supposedly guide them, the
assumption being that what motivates people lies beyond their consciousness at the level of deep
structure. The Freudian overtones here will be apparent.
Etic versus Emic Analysis; Structuralism not only places priority on etic analysis, on the
structures that lie beneath the surface of everyday behaviour, but also relegates to the
explanatory sidelines the individual human being, whose motives and actions are seen as largely
irrelevant and merely a distraction to the investigator. Structuralists Emphasis on synchrony
versus diachrony; Rather than focusing on change or diachrony, structuralists are concerned with
repetitive structures. The assumption is that different forms of social organization are produced
over and over again by the underlying principles, which themselves remain relatively constant.
Regarding Reversibility of time; A distinction is drawn between chronological (or historical) and
mechanical (or anthropological) time. Chronological time is cumulative; events unfold across
history. Mechanical time is repetitive; events unfold across space. The underlying assumption,
eminently challengeable, is that mechanical time fits the rhythm of the pre-industrial societies on
which anthropologists have concentrated, where the social organization supposedly is faithfully
reproduced generation after generation. In the transformational analysis; It is assumed that the
different institutions of human existence – economic organization, marriage systems,
architecture, play, and ritual are merely transformations of each other, manifestations of the same
finite set of underlying principles.
Structualists were known in their Linguistic analogy. Culture is like a language in two respects.
First, just as there is no intrinsic relationship between the sound of a word and its meaning –
instead meaning rests on the relationship of a word to the words surrounding it – aspects of
culture derive their meaning in the context of the overall system of relationships in which they
are embedded.
Structuralism in its basis focus on mental life; While structuralist studies of social organization
(including economic life and kinship) exist, the overwhelming emphasis has been on belief
systems, cognitive maps, and oral or written thought. Undoubtedly the main focus has been on
mythology, understood as a distinctive ‘language’ or ‘code’ that reflects the way the human brain
operates and articulates fundamental themes, dilemmas, and contradictions in life.
This school of thought was contributed in Nature-Culture Bridge. One of the characteristics of
structuralists has been their willingness to tackle deep, philosophical problems. What makes
humans human? How did they make the leap from nature to culture? Is there any difference
between humans and other animals? Therefore, structural distinctions between “nature” and
“culture” are found in all societies. It demonstrated how religious mythologies universally
invoke symbols that have a dual aspect, representing nature and culture. c underlying these
diverse cultural ideas and practices. Within all of these practices and beliefs, Lévi-Strauss
maintains that there are important logical and deep structural distinctions between nature and
culture. Even though the rules and norms that structure these ideas and practices may appear
arbitrary, Lévi-Strauss believed that a “deep universal structure” underlies these cultural
phenomena. Thus, this universal structure of the mind produces similar thinking and cognition
throughout the world.
Criticisms of structuralism
Lévi-Strauss was criticized because of focusing on human mind only. According to many
scholars, his theories are difficult to understand. Specially, the postmodernists do not believe in
this universality.
