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Introduction to Semiotics of Cultures, 2010
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Structural Anthropology 1:
Chapter I, Anthropology and History
Vesa Matteo Piludu
University of Helsinki
Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009)
Lévi-Strauss in Brazil
(Claude) Lévi-Strauss hasn’t invented the famous jeans …
the founder of the company was Levi (Loeb) Strauss
Structural Anthropology 1
 French edition: 1958 (Durkheim’s centenary)
 5 parts
 17 scientific articles written between 1944 and 1957.
 Less fragmentary than Barthes’ myths.
 Field: ethnic cultures, native American cultures, general theory
 Relations between anthropology, history, linguistic
 Conscious and unconscious social and mental processes of
which cultural institutions are external manifestation
 Holistic goal: analytical theory potentially valid for all society
 The generalization depart from empirical, ethnographic data and
always return to it
Barthes and Strauss: ideals/writing/goals
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Mythologies’ Bathes (´50)
critic of middle class and media discourse
Great writer in French, use of neologism, humor
Importance of history
Negative attitude toward myths
Discourse limited to modern popular culture
Poor discussion on previous general cultural theory
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Lévi-Strauss
there are no “simple” and “sophisticate” societies
The ethnic cultures have a complicate, different logic
It’s relevant to give the ethnic cultures the same status of Western
ones
Great writer in French, use of neologism, humor
Importance of history
Complex attitude toward myths
general theory able to compare the most different culture
Rich discussion on previous general cultural theories
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Chapter I
Introduction: History and Anthropology
 This chapter is fundamental, it’s a kind of conceptual summa of the
whole book
Micro and medium analysis
 Ethnography: observation and analysis of human groups
considered as individual entities (small ethnic groups, small cultural
groups)
 Long field research: months or years
 The group are theoretically selected, often the studied society differs
from the researcher’s one
 Microanalysis
 Ethnology: utilize for comparative purpose the data collected by
ethnographers
 The comparison are between different ethic group of the same
cultural area (Finno-Ugrian, Pueblo Indians)
 Medium level analysis
Macro analysis
 Social Anthropology: devoted to the study of social institutions
considered as systems of representations
 Cultural Anthropology: study of the system of representation on
which cultural and social life is based
 Macro analysis: both are related to the comparison of different
cultures, speculative level
Anthropology and history
 Anthropology: even if it is focused on diachronic level (comparison
of cultures in the different historical times), often failed in historical
researches
 Problem: the anthropologists seems to be unable to trace the history
of the phenomena, to apply the historians’ methods
 Ethnic cultures seems to have less historical data than Western ones
The critics of Lévi-Strauss
 In the first part of the chapter, Lévi-Strauss criticize fiercely some
anti-historical attitudes of cultural anthropologist
Evolutionism
 Ideological and colonialist application of biology’s theories: social
Darwinism, that really differs from Darwin’s theories
 Western civilization on the top of the pyramid: the most advanced
expression if the “evolution” of societies
 WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Male Protestant) or WFC (White French
Male Catholic) was considered the most suitable dominator
 The “primitive” groups were considered only “survivals” of
earlier stages
 The “social evolution” was a justification for colonialist’s power: the
“primitive” culture should be “civilized” to reach the next step in the
evolution
 Typical evolutionist book: Golden Bought by Sir Frazer
 http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/frazer/
Lévi-Strauss vs. evolutionism
 Lévi-Strauss fiercely opposed all the evolutionist’s theories
 Native peoples aren’t considered “less sophisticate”:
 for L-S Intuit are excellent technicians, the native Australians great
sociologist
Lévi-Strauss vs. Tylor (evolutionism-diffusionism)
 Sir Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917):
 all cultural elements are a species, related to each other by
diffusionism
 history isn’t necessary, is necessary to understand only the function
of the tools
 Tylor: ”the bow and arrow are species, the habit of flattening skulls
is a species …” (Primitive culture, I, 7)
 Tylor’s classics: Researches into the Early History of Mankind and
the Development of Civilization (1865), Primitive Culture (1871),
Anthropology (1881)
 Lévi-Strauss: an ax doesn’t generate an ax
 Two identical tools could have a different function in different
societies
 Detailed history of each tool is absolutely necessary
Lévi-Strauss on totemism
 Totemism isn’t the lowest step of religious or cultural evolution
 Totemism is a rare social fact, related to few, special cases
 Totemism should be considered different from the general logic and
aesthetic tendency to classify into categories the physical, biological
and social entities
Evolutionists vs. Historians
 Both evolutionism and diffusionism have a great deal in common:
both approaches differs from the historian’s methods
 Historians studies individual problems: persons, events, groups,
phenomena precisely located in space and time
 Evolutionist: breaks the individual problems in species, categories,
stages: all the “steps” (animism) are product of abstractions that
lack the corroboration of empirical evidence
 The evolutionist studies are superficial: they not teach us about
the conscious and unconscious processes in concrete
individual or collective experiences
Who’s who?
Franz Boas (1858-1942): relativism
 Boas:
 Geographer/anthropologist/ethnographer
 History of native peoples as reconstruction (American
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Anthropologist n. XXXVIII)
To be legitimate, the anthropological researches should be restricted
to a small region with clearly defined boundaries, and comparison
should not be extended beyond the area of studies
Similar customs or institutions cannot be always held as a proof of
contacts
Limited distribution in time and space is useful for a deepest
research
Originality of each social system
Versus universal laws of human development (Tylor)
 Lévi-Strauss:
 Taken to an extreme, Boas’ position would lead to historical
agnosticism
 But Boas’ position could also include history
Franz Boas (1858-1942): problems
 Boas:
 It’s important not only how things are, but how they are come to be
 Relation between the objective world and man’s subjective
world (semiotics) as it had been taken in different cultures
(anthropology)
 Lévi-Strauss:
 The follower of Boas has often forgotten history or written micro
histories of one Native American people
 Risks of a too rigorous ethnology that is nothing more than basic
ethnography
 Synchronic more relevant than diachronic
Who’s who?
Who’s who’s result
 Franz Boas posing for figure in US Natural History Museum exhibit
entitled "Hamats'a coming out of secret room" (1895 or before).
Malinowski (functionalism) vs. Boas
 Bronisław Kasper Malinowski (1884-1942):
 complete different attitude to the field work
 Disdains study of any source material or regional bibliography before
going to the field
 Wonderful intuition
 Herodotage: curiosity for primitive eccentricities of man
 In search of eternal truths about the function of social institutions
 The functions are often too biological
 Lévi-Strauss:
 The critics of Lévi-Strauss about Malinovski are somewhat similar to
the Barthes’ ones about fake ethnographical films: exoticism and
“natural” mythology
Who’s who?
Who’s who?
Lévi-Strauss on history
 Only the study of historical development permits the weighting and
evaluation of the interrelationship among the components of the
present-day society
 Even a little history in anthropology is better than no history at all
 To understand modern habits it’s necessary to known their cultural
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history:
The modern French apéritif should be connected with the values of
spiced wines in the Middle age
Analyzing the Italian wine-cult (ure) should be considered the values
of wine in Ancient Greece (wine as blood of Dionysus) and Christian
faith (wine as blood of Jesus)
The relevance of beer in Nordic society should be connected with
Viking or Finno-Ugrian cultic elements
We should compare modern dress with previous taste to understand
the changes and continuity in fashion
Lévi-Strauss and the drinks’ long history …
Lévi-Strauss vs. functionalism
 Say that a society functions is truism; but to say that everything in a
society functions is an absurdity (Structural anthropology; p. 13)
 Cultural institution haven’t only a primal, biological function
(nutrition, defense, comfort, mating and propagation), but also a
secondary, symbolic one
 Certain characteristic are obviously universal (gardening): but
the anthropologist should be able to understand the different
meanings of gardening in different societies (Ancient Rome,
Renaissance, English gardens, American gardens)
 For Malinowski the anthropologist have no need to study the
complicate symbolism of marriage, because marriage is only a public
expression that two people enter in “a state of marriage” …
 so the deep meaning of marriage is … marriage!
 Why is necessary to travel to Melanesia, if all is so easy?
Anthro-truism
Lévi-Strauss vs. functionalism 2
 For Lévi-Strauss is not so relevant the universality of the function, but
the fact that customs are so varied
 the empirical observation of a single society will not make possible to
understand universal motivation
 The Trobrianders’ complex ideas about the values of each sex are
simplified by Malinowski in this way: “for the continuation and very
existence of family, woman as well man is indispensable;
therefore both sexes are regarded by the native of equal value
and importance”
 First statement: truism
 Second: false, the Trobrianders hold male superiority
Lévi-Strauss vs. Margaret Mead
 Margaret Mead classified North American Indian tribes as
competitive, cooperative, individualistic
 Lévi-Strauss
 It seems a taxonomy of old zoologists grouping animals as solitary,
gregarious or social
 Barthes has done the same critics to the Blue Guide’s writers
taxonomy of Spanish types
Anthropology and History: similarities
 Same subject: social life
 Same goal: understanding of man
 Same methods: collection of sources and comparison
 Both are concerned with societies that differs from the researchers’
one: remoteness of time or cultural heterogeneity
 Same goal: the exact reconstruction of what happened requires
skills, precision, sympathetic approach
 The historian avoids mistakes comparing as much sources as
possible
 The anthropologist avoid mistakes comparing as much
ethnographical texts as possible, from a certain number of different
regions. Some groups are studied from different point of views and
generation
 The historian could also use ethnographical writings as sources
Anthropology and History: differences
 Lévi-Strauss:
 History organize its data in relation to conscious expressions of
social life
 Anthropology proceeds by examining the unconscious foundations
of social life
Definition of Culture by Tylor
 Culture:
 Complex whole wich include knowledge, belief, art, morals, law,
custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a
member of society
Unconscious elements of ethnic cultures
 Lévi-Strauss:
 Few social groups are able to offer a rational explanation for any
cultural custom and institution
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When the natives are questioned, they answer:
The things have always been this way
Such was the command of the gods
Such was the teaching of ancestors
Unconscious elements of European cultures
 Lévi-Strauss:
 Few social groups are able to offer a rational explanation for any
cultural custom and institution
 In our European society there are cultural elements that are
generally accepted, as:
 Table manners
 Social etiquette
 Religious attitudes
 This customs are generally accepted by everyone, although their real
origin and function are not often critically examined
 The Europeans think according to habit
 Resistance to departure from customs is due mostly to mental inertia
Modern thought
 Lévi-Strauss admit that the Modern thought has favored that critical
examination of custom
 According to him, this is also a result of the development of
anthropology
 But at the same time he states that even secondary elaborations
(modern theories) acquire an unconscious quality rapidly:
psychoanalysis was accepted by popular culture with surprizing
rapidity
Boas, language and unconscious culture
 According to Lévi-Strauss, Boas was the first anthropologist able to
connect properly unconscious, culture and language
 According to Boas, the structure of a language became unknown
until the introduction of a scientific grammar
 The language is imposing conceptual schemes which are taken as
objective categories
 The linguistic classification never rise to consciousness
 In ethological phenomena, although the same unconscious origins
prevails, these often rise on consciousness (Boas’ opinion, not LéviStrauss)
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)
 Lévi-Strauss admires the Cours de linguistique générale (1916),
which marked the advent of structural lingusitics
 The structural linguist extract from words the phonemic « reality » of
phoneme
 The anthropologis should fsomething similar to phonems in culture
 Something that is not immediately evident
Phonemes: is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form
meaningful contrasts between utterances:
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)
Saussure-comics
Lévi-Strauss
 In culture there should be an imposing form upon contents
 It’s necessary to grasp the unconscious structure underling each
institutions and custom to obtain a principle of interpretation valid
for other institution and other customs
 By showing institutions in the process of transformation (in history) …
it is possible to find out what remains the same …
 The structure that remains permanent in the historical turmoil, in the
succession of events
Example: dual societies
 A structural theme existing and operating in different spatial and
temporal context
 The village is divided in two exogamic groups, they have a relation of
both competition and cooperation:
 Gifts, marriages, reciprocity
Village
Example: stability in instability
 New Guinea: Mekeo, Motu and Koita
 Seligman demonstrated that they have a highly complex
organization constantly troubled by various factors: warfare,
migrations, religious schism: some clans are destroyed and new
groups emerged continuously
 Even if the social units are constantly varying, the formal character of
their relationship is maintained
 Even if there are wars and exterminations, the cycle of reciprocal
gifts exchange and marriages logic is restored as soon as possible
with new groups and new partners
 The identical social structure is not perceived easily, it must be
isolated by constant observation through the years
Lévi-Strauss’ citation of Marx
 “Men make their own history, but they don’t know that they are
making it”
Marxadamus spoke again
The ghost of Marx and Obama
Accumulate and eliminate
 Anthropology couldn’t be indifferent to history and conscious
expression of social phenomena
 But the anthropologist should eliminate, by a backward course, the
conscious elements (wars, instability) to find out the complete range
of unconscious one (fixed social rules, restored after the chaos)
 The unconscious possibilities are not unlimited
 After the collection of an enormous amount of complex elements, the
anthropologist should be able to simplify (bricolage)
History and unconsciuos
 The unconscious element are useful also for historians, as they are
not satisfied any more with chronology of dynasties, political history
 Economical history is the history of unconscious elaborations
 Thus any historical book should be saturated with anthropology
 Lucien Febre in Le Probléme de l’incroyance au XVI siècle refers to
psychological attitudes and logical structures
Same journey
 The historian and the anthropologist travel together ”on the road
toward the understanding of man”
 But under “a different light”
 Historian: transition from the implicit to the explicit
 Anthropologist: from the particular to the universal
 Same direction, different orientation: the historian is fixed on the
concrete, the anthropologist goes forward “more and more into the
unconscious”
 the difference is in the organization of the data
Anthropology as Heart of Darkness
Sigmund Freud and
in the uncanny world of unconscious
Written / Unwritten
 Anthropology isn’t only the science of people “without” writing
 Anthropology is also concerned with populations which possess
writing: Ancient Mexico, Arab world, Far East
 It in many cultures (Zulu) exist a strong tradition of oral history
 Lévi-Strauss hoped for a deep collaboration between the two
discipline
 This “hope” is actually realized in many recent studies on oral history
(memorials of war, for example)
After a lecture about Lévi-Strauss,
the student is ready for his unconscious travel