Marxs Influence on Anthropology

1

• Marxs Influence on Anthropology
• Cultural Materialism (Marvin Harris)
• Emic/Etic Mental Behavioral Typology
• Anthropological Political Economy
• Immanuel Wallerstein and World Systems Theory

2
1. What are the basic tenets of cultural
materialism, as developed and explicated by
Marvin Harris? What is similar to and/or
different from Marx? 2. How does Harris use
these ideas to explain a) cow veneration in India
and b) the view of pork as "unclean" in Middle
Eastern cultures?
3
What are the strengths and potential pitfalls of
emic and etic approaches? Link An interesting
diagram of Marvin Harris cultural materialism
theory
4
Anthropological Political Economy

• Eric Wolf Quote, pp. 58-59. What is Wolf saying
  about political economy and traditional
  anthropological research?
• What is distinctive about this kind of
  anthropology?

5
5. If we use Kuhn's terms, would you agree that
cultural materialism and political economy in
anthropology basically represent a kind of
Marxist "normal science" puzzle-solving applied
to non-Western societies? Or is something more
original involved? 6. What are the major
criticisms that have been leveled against
Marxist-inspired materialism in anthropology?
6
Contra Materialism

• Material life is culturally constructed. It is
  not separate from culture. Culture matters
  independently more than materialist theorists
  generally recognize.
• Seems to take agency away from people and
  locate it in the system
• Positivist tendencies may be problematic,
  particularly in giving etic perspectives the aura
  of science

7
Marx and Anthropology Has this marriage been a
fruitful one? (the Marx and MicroCase Exercise
explores some aspects of this)