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An anthropologist who influenced a wide range of social and aesthetic studies from the 1960s on, through his advocacy of a method usually called structuralism. |
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Claude Levi-Strauss was an anthropologist who influenced a wide range of social and aesthetic studies from the 1960s on, through his advocacy of a method usually called structuralism. |
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He was born in 1908 and trained in philosophy. In 1934, he was teaching at a secondary school in France when he was offered a post as Professor of Sociology at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, on the provision that he give his answer within three hours. He spent the next five years in Brazil, during which he made extensive field trips into remote areas of the country. |
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He was born in 1908 and trained in philosophy. In 1934, he was teaching at a secondary school in France when he was offered a post as Professor of Sociology at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, on the provision that he give his answer within three hours. He spent the next five years in Brazil, during which he made extensive field trips into remote areas of the country. |
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Much later, he explained his decision by saying, "I became an anthropologist, as a matter of fact not because I was interested in anthropology, but because I was trying to get out of philosophy." In considering philosophy, he felt he was stopping half-way--confining himself to the established Western tradition--while anthropology seemed to offer a chance to go to explore the fullest range of human thought. |
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Much later, he explained his decision by saying, "I became an anthropologist, as a matter of fact not because I was interested in anthropology, but because I was trying to get out of philosophy." In considering philosophy, he felt he was stopping half-way--confining himself to the established Western tradition--while anthropology seemed to offer a chance to explore the fullest range of human thought. |
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But what immediately struck him in the anthropological literature was a baffling welter of marriage customs. They couldn't be entirely meaningless, because versions of the same custom appeared all over the world, and yet their variety made the idea of consistent purpose seem absurd. His effort at structural analysis was an attempt to get these data in order. This theoretical work, combined with his field research, became the basis for the papers which brought him a reputation in the American branch of the discipline. |
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But what immediately struck him in the anthropological literature was a baffling welter of marriage customs. They couldn't be entirely meaningless, because versions of the same custom appeared all over the world, and yet their variety made the idea of consistent purpose seem absurd. His effort at structural analysis was an attempt to get these data in order. This theoretical work, combined with his field research, became the basis for the papers which brought him a reputation in the American branch of the discipline. |
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He returned to France for military service but, as a Jew, was forced to leave again when Germany occupied the country. He spent three years teaching at the New School for Social Research in New York City and, from 1946 to 1947, was cultural attache to the French embassy in Washington. |
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He returned to France for military service but, as a Jew, was forced to leave again when Germany occupied the country. He spent three years teaching at the New School for Social Research in New York City and, from 1946 to 1947, was cultural attache to the French embassy in Washington. |
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A preference for "functionalist" explanations dominated the social sciences through the 1950s, which is to say that anthropologist and sociologists tried to state what a social act or institution was for. The existence of a thing was explained if it fulfilled a function. The only strong alternative to that kind of analysis was historical explanation, accounting for the existence of a social fact by saying how it came to be. |
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A preference for "functionalist" explanations dominated the social sciences from the turn of the century through the 1950s, which is to say that anthropologists and sociologists tried to state what a social act or institution was for. The existence of a thing was explained if it fulfilled a function. The only strong alternative to that kind of analysis was historical explanation, accounting for the existence of a social fact by saying how it came to be. |
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The more influential functionalism of Bronislaw Malinowski described the satisfaction of individual needs, what a person got out participating in a custom. |
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The more influential functionalism of Bronislaw Malinowski described the satisfaction of individual needs, what a person got out of participating in a custom. |
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For Levi-Strauss, the choice was for the demands of the social order. He had no difficulty bringing out the inconsistencies and triviality of individualistic accounts. Malinowski said, for example, that magic beliefs came into being when people needed to feel a sense of control over events where the outcome was uncertain. In the Trobriand Islands, he found the proof of this claim in the rites surrounding abortions and weaving skirts. But in the same tribes, there is no magic attached to making clay pots even though it is no more certain a business than weaving. So the explanation is not consistent. Furthermore, these explanations tend to be used in an ad hoc, superficial way--you just postulate a trait of personality when you need it. |
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For Levi-Strauss, the choice was for the demands of the social order. He had no difficulty bringing out the inconsistencies and triviality of individualistic accounts. Malinowski said, for example, that magic beliefs come into being when people need to feel a sense of control over events where the outcome was uncertain. In the Trobriand Islands, he found the proof of this claim in the rites surrounding abortions and weaving skirts. But in the same tribes, there is no magic attached to making clay pots even though it is no more certain a business than weaving. So the explanation is not consistent. Furthermore, these explanations tend to be used in an ad hoc, superficial way--you just postulate a trait of personality when you need it. |
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For Levi-Strauss, the methods of linguistics became a model for all examinations of society. His analogies are usually from phonetics. |
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For Levi-Strauss, the methods of linguistics became a model for all examinations of society. His analogies are usually from phonetics. |
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Levi-Strauss' later works are more controversial, in part because they impinge on the subject matter of other scholars. He believed that modern life and all history was founded on the same categories and transformations that he had discovered in Brazilian back country--the raw and the cooked, from honey to ashes, the naked man (to borrow some titles from the MYTHOLOGIES). He also pointed out that the modern view of primitive cultures was simplistic in denying them a history. The categories of myth did not persist among them because nothing had happened--it was easy to find the evidence of defeat, migration, exile, repeated displacements of all the kinds known to recorded history. Instead, the mythic categories had encompassed these changes. In sum, he argued for a view of human life as existing in two timelines simultaneously, the eventful one of history and the long cycles in which one set of fundamental mythic patterns dominated and then another. In this respect, his work resembles that of Fernand Braudel, the historian of the Mediterranean and 'la longue duree,' the cultural outlook and forms of social organization that persisted for centuries around that sea. |
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Levi-Strauss' later works are more controversial, in part because they impinge on the subject matter of other scholars. He believed that modern life and all history was founded on the same categories and transformations that he had discovered in the Brazilian back country--[the raw and the cooked]?, [from honey to ashes]?, the [naked man]? (to borrow some titles from the MYTHOLOGIES). He also pointed out that the modern view of primitive cultures was simplistic in denying them a history. The categories of myth did not persist among them because nothing had happened--it was easy to find the evidence of defeat, migration, exile, repeated displacements of all the kinds known to recorded history. Instead, the mythic categories had encompassed these changes. |
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In sum, he argued for a view of human life as existing in two timelines simultaneously, the eventful one of history and the long cycles in which one set of fundamental mythic patterns dominates and then perhaps another. In this respect, his work resembles that of [Fernand Braudel]?, the historian of the Mediterranean and 'la longue duree,' the cultural outlook and forms of social organization that persisted for centuries around that sea. |
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