Structuralism And Structuralists

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Structuralism Summary

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Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology

Structuralism and structuralists

The success, ambitions, and even failures of Lévi-Strauss’s structuralism are perhaps now being seen in some sort of perspective, but in the period from the 1960s to the early 1980s it dominated not only anthropology but many other domains. There was a structuralist vogue in literature, in philosophy, in history, even in cinema. Such very diverse writers as †Barthes, †Foucault, †Lacan, †Althusser and many literary critics have sometimes been seen as inspired by Lévi-Strauss and described as ‘structuralist’, even by themselves. Now, it is very difficult to see what they have in common except that they were contemporaries and they were French. Much of what was written about structuralism in literature and the arts is ridiculous. Lévi-Strauss has for the most part denounced such enthusiasm for his work, sometimes with a good deal of irony, fuelled by his marked distaste for the intellectual fashions of the moment.

More serious have been the claims by a number of anthropologists to be following his principles. These can be divided into three groups.

The first are mainly *French anthropologists and keep closely to certain aspects of the Lévi-Straussian enterprise. Thus F.Héritier and her collaborators have developed some aspects of his earlier work on kinship (Héritier 1981). A number of writers have developed his analyses of myth and symbolism, several of whom are represented in the work edited by Izard and Smith called Between Belief and Transgression (1982 [1979]). It is notable, however, that these close followers seem to steer clear of the wider theoretical claims of structuralism and limit themselves to specific applications of a structuralist methodology.

Then there is the group of writers who, in the 1970s and 1980s, attempted to marry the renewed *Marxism of the time with structuralism. Lévi-Strauss himself claims that he has been much influenced by Marxism, though this is far from obvious in much of his writing. The link was, however, first emphasized by a close collaborator, L.Sebag, who stressed how the notions of †Hegelian dialectics, which so influenced Marx, are present in a similar way in Lévi-Strauss (Sebag 1964). The theme was then taken up by a number of writers, most prominent of whom is M.Godelier (1973). Godelier understood structuralism to apply to the Marxist †superstructure only, and to be quite compatible with a theory of infrastructural causation by the *modes of production.

The third group was mainly British and is associated with the names of †Edmund Leach and †Rodney Needham. Leach was an advocate as well as a critic of the theories of Lévi-Strauss and became their main exponent to the English-speaking world (Leach 1970). He also attempted a number of analyses which he himself described as ‘structuralist’. In particular he published several studies of biblical texts which demonstrated structures and transformations between related texts (Leach and Aycock 1983). These studies differ from those of Lévi-Strauss in a number of ways. First of all, they are studies of written texts; something which Lévi-Strauss did not believe would be fruitful. Second, the notion of transformation is used in a simpler way than it is in Lévi-Strauss’s own work. Third and most important, Leach is always eager to demonstrate the social significance of the myths he analyses in a way which is closer to functionalism than structuralism.

Needham was also an early advocate of the theories of Lévi-Strauss and defended them strongly against functionalist criticisms (Needham 1962). Later on he also attempted a number of analyses which have often been called structuralist because of similarity with some aspects of Lévi-Strauss’s work. This type of analysis can be found in the work of a number of other anthropologists who were closely associated with Needham, such as D.Maybury Lewis (1967) and J.Fox (1975). In fact it is doubtful whether these types of work have any great relation to the ideas of Lévi-Strauss. They demonstrate that the symbols of certain societies can be shown to form master patterns, often of a binary character, which organize the general cognitive outlook of the people concerned. Such an approach is more †Durkheimian than structuralist in that it assumes a unified culture existing beyond the mind of individuals; while Lévi-Strauss stresses how culture never forms coherent wholes, how it is a matter of continual communication and modification between individuals which leads to endless transformation, and how its nature is a consequence of specific neurological requirements of living people.

MAURICE BLOCH

Structuralism And Structuralists

Structuralism and structuralists

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