Structural Anthropology

by Claude Lévi-Strauss

The “structural method,” first set forth in this epoch-making book, changed the very face of social anthropology. This reissue of a classic will reintroduce readers to Lévi-Strauss’s understanding of man and society in terms of individuals—kinship, social organization, religion, mythology, and art.

Genres: Anthropology, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Sociology, Theory, Science, History

410 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist, well-known for his development of structural anthropology. He was born in Belgium to French parents who were living in Brussels at the time, but he grew up in Paris. His father was an artist, and a member of an intellectual French Jewish family. Lévi-Strauss studied at the University of Paris. From 1935-9 he was Professor at the University of Sao Paulo making several expeditions to central Brazil. Between 1942-1945 he was Professor at the New School for Social Research. In 1950 he became Director of Studies at the Ecole Practique des Hautes Etudes. In 1959 Lévi-Strauss assumed the Chair of Social Anthroplogy at the College de France. His books include The Raw and the Cooked, The Savage Mind, Structural Anthropology and Totemism (Encyclopedia of World Biography).

Some of the reasons for his popularity are in his rejection of history and humanism, in his refusal to see Western civilization as privileged and unique, in his emphasis on form over content and in his insistence that the savage mind is equal to the civilized mind.

Lévi-Strauss did many things in his life including studying Law and Philosophy. He also did considerable reading among literary masterpieces, and was deeply immersed in classical and contemporary music.

Lévi-Strauss was awarded the Wenner-Gren Foundation's Viking Fund Medal for 1966 and the Erasmus Prize in 1975. He was also awarded four honorary degrees from Oxford, Yale, Havard and Columbia. Strauss held several memberships in institutions including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society (Encyclopedia of World Biography).

Reviews

[Cărăşălu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of Levi-Strauss' essays, studies and polemic articles often has a manifesto-like tone. However, the chapters vary in style and substance. Some are more ethnographical, others (more numerous) are more theoretical and have a programmatic character. Although Levi-Strauss' analyses are highly competent and thorough and his position supported by solid and sound arguments, I find it hard to subscribe to the approach to anthropology that he advocates. He is a proponent of anthropology borrowing tools from structural linguistics and mathematics in order to penetrate deeper into its object of study and to refine its processing of material. However cool that may sound and however impressive the application of this stance (as illustrated in many chapters of the book), I couldn't help feeling some kind of reluctance to accept it. It may be perhaps because of my lack of knowledge and theoretical abilities that I failed to fully grasp the advantages of his method.
I don't advise laymen or beginners in the field of anthropology to take on the whole book. Some chapters, nonetheless, are brilliant and accessible enough and one should not miss out on them only because the book as a whole seemed to intimidating. Most of the chapters can be read separately and are definitely worth the effort.

[Anthony Buckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is just a masterpiece. Particularly his study of myth in this book is just astonishing. His study of myth in Structural Anthropology II is even more astonishing.

[Andrew]

Yes yes, I know this is a remarkably important book, but it was a slog, and a slog I tended to disagree with. While I admire the tenacity of his research and I admire the historical step of applying Saussure's linguistic method to culture, I can't help but be annoyed by Levi-Strauss' hard-line structuralism. Seriously, the chapter on the structure of myth pissed me off.

[Wilson prata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Antes de ler o livro criei uma expectativa muito forte sobre seu conteúdo. Acabei de ler O Cru e o cozido, já tinha lido partes de O Pensamento selvagem e alguns artigos soltos de autoria do Levi-Strauss e sobre sua obra. Sabia que precisava de uma leitura de base a respeito da abordagem estruturalista. Considerando que As estruturas elementares do parentesco possui um objeto bem específico, a escolha óbvia era pela Antropologia Estrutural. Por esse motivo, esperava algo mais didático, próximo de um passo a passo de como realizar uma análise estrutural de determinado objeto. De certa a tive e não tive minha expectativa atendida. O livro é um conjunto de artigos, alguns deles bem didáticos, outros nem tanto. Levi-Strauss efetivamente apresenta muito de seu instrumental teórico, mas ele se encontra disperso ao longo dos mais de 15 capítulos. Em termos de embasamento teórico, a leitura evidenciou uma lacuna minha, a falta de um estudo mais aprofundado da linguistica estrutural, algo que o autor aborda, mas muito superficialmente ou considerando que o leitor já domina os temas e a proposta. Em outros momentos, tive dificuldade parecida ao ler os artigos sobre parentesco, momento em que me pareceu faltar As estruturas... De qualquer forma, recomendo a leitura de todos os artigos, mesmo os mais complexos e de objetos muito específicos contém passagens esclarecedoras sobre a antropologia, o espírito cientifico e o pensamento humano.

[Suncan Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good Introduction to structural (and other types of) anthropology (I am sure Claude would hate me for saying that). I think the only downside is that it is one of the founding texts of anthropology, which means it is a bit outdated (some chapters in the book were written as articles in the 40s, and since then anthropology has evolved in leaps). But, yes, a classic, so if you are interested in anthropology is is a must read. (Even tough I wrote at the beginning it is an introduction to..., I guess it helps if you have read some other texts before).

[Slava Skobeloff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Structuralism was a mistake.

[Lautaro Marcotti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sin lugar dudas cuando uno empieza a leer el libro ya siente que tiene entre manos algo importante y de gran trascendencia. Se trata de la reconstrucción metodológica de todo el campo antropológico y del inicio de una escuela (el estructuralismo) que trasciende con mucho a esta sola disciplina. Estos ensayos y conferencias de Levi Strauss responden a ese objetivo y hay que decir que lo cumple, ya que la cantidad de elementos teóricos (e innovadores) de la obra es brutal. Personalmente, por no venir de la antropología y quizás por no leer con más detenimiento cada capítulo, hay cuestiones que se me escaparon. La escritura de Levi Strauss muchas veces es árida y demasiado cargada conceptualmente. Cierto que da ejemplos, pero muchas veces no queda claro como ejemplifican lo que dijo anteriormente. Será cuestión de volver a leer, claro. El capítulo dos, sobre lenguaje y parentesco, es el más famoso de la obra y sin dudas es el que me gustó más por cómo da claridad sobre cómo pueden ser usados los avances de la lingüística para el estudio de la estructura del parentesco en la antropología. La famosa teoría del tío materno (avunculado), las investigaciones de Radcliff-Brown, el incesto como regla universal de las sociedades y las etnografías de tribus al rededor del mundo le dan oportunidad para empezar a desentrañar que entiende por el método estructuralista y por lo que llamamos "antropología estructural". Dejo abajo dos citas de dicho capitulo que me gustaron y me parece resumen todos los elementos importantes:

"El carácter primitivo e irreductible del elemento de parentesco tal como lo hemos definido resulta, en efecto, de manera inmediata de la existencia universal de la prohibición del incesto. Esto equivale a decir que, en la sociedad humana, un hombre únicamente puede obtener una mujer de mano de otro hombre, el cual la cede bajo la forma de hija o hermana. No es necesario pues, explicar cómo el tío materno hace su aparición en la estructura de parentesco: no aparece sino que está inmediatamente dado, es la condición de esa estructura. El error de la sociología tradicional, como el de la lingüística tradicional, consiste en haber considerado los términos y no las relaciones entre los términos".

"Hemos interpretado el avunculado como un rasgo característico de la estructura elemental. Está, resultante de las relaciones definidas entre cuatro términos, es, en nuestra opinión, el verdadero átomo del parentesco (...) todo sistema de parentesco es elaborado a partir de esta estructura elemental, que se repite o se desarrolla por integración de nuevos elementos".

[James F · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anthropologie structurale is not a treatise but a collection of seventeen articles, originally published in the decade following World War II, organized into five sections. Many of the articles are translated from English, as he was teaching in the United States during part of this period. He has updated them all, at least with notes, mainly responding to criticisms.

The first article, "Introduction: Histoire et ethnologie" and the four articles grouped under the heading "Langage et parenté", together with the three articles in the last section, "Problèmes de méthode et d'enseignement", attempt to define the subject of anthropology and in particular the concept of (unconscious) "structure" which underlies his project of "structural anthropology". These are the most important articles for understanding his method and theories, and how they were influenced by the rise of structural linguistics. The other sections are on "Organisation sociale", three rather technical articles mainly concerned with kinship structures, which elaborate on and modify somewhat the ideas presented in Structures élémentaires de la parenté, the first of his books which I read last year; "Magie et religion", four articles trying to find underlying structures of myths and rituals; and "Art", two articles on specific styles/themes in "primitive" art.

This book is important for understanding the aims and methods of the structuralist school in anthropology. I was interested to read in his reply to criticisms by Maxime Rodinson that he considered his theoretical work to be within the Marxist tradition. These articles are all much better than Tristes tropiques which I was not impressed by.

[Andrew Noselli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Levi-Strauss' contention and, by extension, that of the structuralists in general, is that language is a social convention and that much of linguistic behavior takes place on a subconscious level and also, that it is not affected by the presence of an observer as a negative participant who directly affects the outcome of a given speech-situation. The reason he is important is that, when language is conceived as an object of scientific analysis, this leads the philosopher to discover systems of relationship -- what Levi-Strauss terms basic fundamental realities -- that are based upon this unconscious process and it becomes a question of whether, through the creation of socio-historical texts, can his critique of primitive societies be extended to include all forms of social phenomena? The question he presents the reader with is manifest: "Can we conclude that all forms of social life consist of systems of behavior that represent the projection, on the level of conscious and socialized thought, of universal laws that regulate the unconscious mind?" Do the post-structuralists simply abandon this problem or do they seek to engrave it in their tablature? Rather, their productions testify to the belief that truth, meaning and all criteria for judgment is an impossible project. Post-structuralists recognize, perhaps falsely, that the various structuralist projects are benighted with a conception of totality that is largely a social illusion. From an argument that the natural basis of the phonemic system resides in the structure of the brain to the concentration of postmodern thought in wild schizophrenic dithyrambics, surely you don't have to be a Levi-Straussian to see what we've lost in this fatal progression. However, when Levi-Strauss cites as evidence for his thesis that the highly concentrated presence of polynucleotides in the nerve cells of individuals predisposed to psychosis, it should be understood that post-structuralism is really post-Marxism and that what he is really calling for is a new regime of science that puts the old epistemological debates as to the value of knowledge on a level beneath the concerns of his postmodern ideology.

[Firas Jabbour · Rating 4 out of 5]

الأنتروبولوجيا البنيوية أحد الكتب المميزة جداً جداً التي قرأتها هذا العام..
الجانب النظري أو التنظيري كان معقداً في إطار البحث عن المنهج وعلاقته بمناهج العلوم الأخرى فكانت الطروحات والنقاشات دقيقة للغاية إلا أن الاستشهاد بحالات كان أغلبها من نصوص ميثولوجية كندية أو أسترالية أو أميركية (هندية) ترك فجوة إدراك لمحيط النموذج المطلوب سبره..
كتاب مميز وملهم ويستحق قراءة متأنية للغاية..

[Alexander Theofanidis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sweat and Uphill Struggle (in the Reading)

Claude Lévi-Strauss’s Structural Anthropology is widely regarded as a seminal text for understanding the structuralist approach within anthropology. In this ambitious work, Lévi-Strauss endeavours to apply methods drawn from linguistics and structural thought to the study of social and cultural systems, offering a sweeping interpretive framework for myths, kinship, and cultural organisation.

The intellectual daring of the work is undeniable. Lévi-Strauss seeks out universal patterns beneath the surface-level diversity of human cultures, and his analyses of kinship and myth are often impressive both in their systematic precision and imaginative reach. His search for deep, unconscious structures underlying cultural practices evokes comparisons to psychoanalysis or even the deep grammar of language, underscoring the breadth of his intellectual project.

So far, so good. But…

The work is not without its issues (hence the rather modest rating assigned). Lévi-Strauss’s theoretical approach frequently veers into abstraction and, at times, an excessive formalism. Often, the relationship between his theoretical constructions and ethnographic data appears more confirmatory than interpretive — one has the distinct impression of a scholar retrofitting data to suit a preordained framework. (“Call me ‘Clever Mike’ and I’ll cook the data ‘however… I like’,” as one might say in a less formal register.)

Then there’s the structural irony: this is not a unified monograph, but rather a collection of essays and studies — something I personally find frustrating in any context. Others may take no issue with such a format, but for me, it renders the reading experience uneven and lacking in cohesion (should one speak, perhaps ironically, of the book’s “structure”? LOL, as the younger scholars might put it). Some chapters feel more like intellectual vignettes than parts of a coherent theoretical programme. Exhausting.

That said, I must concede — and here I do so with a touch of grudging admiration — that the impact of the work on anthropology and the social sciences more broadly has been profound. And yet, I can’t help but note, with a hint of schadenfreude, that structuralism as an interpretive framework today enjoys limited currency, often dismissed as either anachronistic or excessively deterministic.

What we are left with, then, is a landmark work — unquestionably important for the history of anthropological thought — but one that is difficult to absorb and uneven in its effectiveness. It might even be fair to say that it feels a bit passé. If you find yourself staring at it on your bookshelf with mounting dread and wondering whether it’s worth the effort, I hope this review has offered some clarity — and perhaps a gentle nudge towards reading something else. If it’s not even on your shelf, you may well be a normal person.

* * * * *

Ιδρώτας και ανήφορος στην ανάγνωση, το Structural Anthropology του Claude Lévi-Strauss θεωρείται ότι αποτελεί θεμελιώδες έργο για την κατανόηση της δομιστικής προσέγγισης στην ανθρωπολογία. Ο Lévi-Strauss επιχειρεί να εφαρμόσει τις μεθόδους της γλωσσολογίας και της δομικής σκέψης στις κοινωνικές και πολιτισμικές δομές, παρουσιάζοντας έναν φιλόδοξο τρόπο ανάγνωσης των μύθων, της συγγένειας και της πολιτισμικής οργάνωσης.

Αναντίρρητα, το έργο διακρίνεται για τη διανοητική του τόλμη, καθώς ο Lévi-Strauss αναζητά καθολικά μοτίβα πίσω από την επιφανειακή ποικιλομορφία των πολιτισμών. Οι αναλύσεις του γύρω από τη συγγένεια και τους μύθους είναι συχνά εντυπωσιακές στη συστηματικότητα (αλλά και στη φαντασία τους). Η προσπάθεια να βρει βαθιές, ασυνείδητες δομές πίσω από τις πολιτισμικές πρακτικές θυμίζει την ψυχανάλυση ή ακόμη και τη δομή της γλώσσας, αναδεικνύοντας το εύρος της σκέψης του. Μέχρις εδώ όλα καλά, αλλά…

Το έργο δεν είναι χωρίς προβλήματα (εξ ου και το τριαράκι στη βαθμολογία). Η θεωρητική προσέγγιση του Lévi-Strauss δείχνει αφηρημένη και συχνά υπερβολικά φορμαλιστική. Σε πολλές περιπτώσεις, η σύνδεση ανάμεσα στις θεωρητικές του κατασκευές και τα εθνογραφικά δεδομένα μοιάζει να είναι περισσότερο επιβεβαιωτική παρά ερμηνευτική (με λένε Ρίζο κι όπως θέλω τα… μαγειρεύω). Έπειτα είναι και το γεγονός ότι δεν πρόκειται για ενιαίο σύγγραμμα ή μελέτη, αλλά για μια συλλογή άρθρων και μελετών (κάτι που με εκνευρίζει σε κάθε περίπτωση). Άλλοι μπορεί να είναι ΟΚ με κάτι τέτοιο, αλλά για μένα καθιστά την ανάγνωση ανομοιογενή (να πω για την «δομή» του βιβλίου; LOL), με κάποια κεφάλαια να φαντάζουν περισσότερο ως στιγμιότυπα παρά ως μέρη ενός συνεκτικού θεωρητικού προγράμματος. Ουφ.

Εντάξει, θα κλείσω παραδεχόμενος ότι η επίδραση του έργου υπήρξε αναμφισβήτητα μεγάλη στην εξέλιξη της ανθρωπολογίας και των κοινωνικών επιστημών εν γένει, αλλά χαιρέκακα θα θυμίσω ότι ο δομισμός ως ερμηνευτικό πλαίσιο έχει σήμερα περιορισμένη απήχηση, καθώς θεωρείται πολλές φορές αναχρονιστικός ή υπερβολικά ντετερμινιστικός.

Οπότε έχουμε μεν ένα έργο-ορόσημο, σημαντικό για την ιστορία της ανθρωπολογικής σκέψης, αλλά δύσκολο στην πρόσληψη και άνισο στην αποτελεσματικότητά του, το οποίο ίσως να είναι και λίγο πασέ. Αν το βλέπετε με δυσφορία στο ράφι και αναρωτιέστε κατά πόσο πρέπει να το ξεκινήσετε, ε, ελπίζω να σας κάλυψα και να επιλέξετε κάτι άλλο. Αν δεν το βλέπετε καν στο ράφι, μάλλον είστε νορμάλ άνθρωπος.

[Irini Gergianaki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ενδιαφέρον μεν κουραστικό και μονότονο δε.

[Zoë Feigel · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5)

[Sean James McLean · Rating 4 out of 5]

It would be difficult to overstate Lévi-Strauss’s influence on postwar continental thought. Without Lévi-Strauss, there would have been no structuralism as we know it; and without structuralism, no poststructuralism.

Not that Lévi-Strauss invented structuralism. Structural linguistics was developed by Saussure in the late nineteenth century, then extended and modified by the Prague Circle (Jakobson, Trubetzkoy, etc.) and others in the first half of the twentieth. But it was Lévi-Strauss who demonstrated how the methods of structural linguistics could be imported into other social sciences. And, throughout the postwar period, he became the tireless evangelist of structuralism, the Saint Paul of phonemes.

Tools, weapons, marriage, myths, religious practices, table manners, clothing—in a word, the whole wealth of objects studied by the anthropologist—were for Lévi-Strauss and his disciples so many products of “systems of representations.” Just as language was reducible to its basic signifying elements, namely phonemes, so too could kinship systems be reduced to “atoms of kinship,” mythological systems to “mythemes,” dietary systems to “gustemes,” fashion systems to “vestemes” (Barthes), home decor systems to “technemes” (Baudrillard), and knowledge systems to “epistemes” (Foucault).

Thus Lévi-Strauss initiated an orgy of structural analysis in the French intellectual world of the fifties and sixties. He and his disciples set about stripping all social phenomena of their diachronic clothing in order to reveal their synchronic bums. They peaked under the long, flowing dress of History, trying to catch glimpses of her/his binary oppositions. They celebrated the “death of man,” the “death of the author,” and the “death of God” (though the latter was already old news). They knocked the thinking/speaking/acting subject off its high phenomenological horse and set it dancing as the puppet of autonomous, unconscious systems of representation. They declared that it is not the individual who speaks, but language which speaks through the individual.

The next generation of French thinkers (along with many of Lévi-Strauss’s own disciples) recoiled from the massive edifice that the structuralists had built. It was all too totalizing, they proclaimed, as they gaped at the hyper-reductive, hyper-formulaic, hyper-analytical System of signifying systems. And so the poststructuralists stole tools from their parents’ toolshed only to turn them toward the work of deconstruction: smashing systems, dismantling grand theories, levelling ontologies. They historicized, they relativized, they let things flow. As for the thinking/speaking/acting subject, they left that poor schlub hanging from its puppet strings.

The great irony of structuralism—a movement which sought to uncover the ahistorical underpinnings of all social phenomena—was that it enjoyed such a short history. A couple of decades, then it burned itself out. But not without leaving its mark on modern thought. And not without leaving a bunch of tools lying around. Tools that we can still pick up and—who knows?—maybe even find useful.

On an unrelated note, when Lévi-Strauss was living in New York City in the nineteen-forties, he kept getting phone calls from people trying to order jeans.

[Kevin Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the greatest Structuralist classics. :') The outmoded language is really not that bad aside from the use of the word "primitive" and the obvious presence of the white gaze constantly at work. The overall suggestion of this presence, why it might make the reading uneasy, is that none of the knowledge we call "anthropological" seems at all trustworthy.

But this is exactly what Lévi-Strauss chooses to address at the very beginning, unfolding his methodology in the familiar French Hegelian style. Not necessarily calling it the "white gaze," his critique of the prior attempts to assimilate the definition of "anthropology" with the scientific method is merciless. You can never predict where his reasoning is gonna go next... For someone with a more postcolonial leaning hermeneutics, a quite complicated dialectic ensues within the consideration of anthropological study, the white gaze, and knowledge-as-such. Eye-opening on a number of levels, this work is really good for understanding some of Lacan's more cryptic statements about the Enlightenment, and perhaps why he sought so persistently to get psychoanalysis ratified as a "science."

[José Azuaje-FIdalgo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Claude Lévi-Strauss’s Structural Anthropology brilliantly reveals how universal patterns of human thought emerge through cultural myths and social structures. What is fascinating is how his methodology applies vividly across diverse contexts—from Portuguese folk traditions to the rich cosmologies of Angolan ethnic groups and the Timoto-Cuica peoples of the Andes. For example, Portuguese popular narratives often revolve around binaries such as sacred/profane or Christian/pagan, echoing Lévi-Strauss’s idea of resolving contradictions through myth. Similarly, Angolan ritual systems and kinship patterns reflect deep symbolic oppositions that maintain social cohesion amidst ethnic diversity. The Timoto-Cuica, with their complex agricultural and spiritual practices, offer a striking illustration of how nature and culture interplay within structuralist frameworks. This cross-cultural lens not only enriches our understanding of Lévi-Strauss’s theories but also affirms the profound interconnectedness of human cultures despite geographical and historical distances.

— José Azuaje-Fidalgo

[Elias Nachtmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Besides exploring human kinship structure through incestuous behavior, the two chapters about Americanism and the Reciprocity principle also shares some enlightments:
I. The inclination of 'younger' in the United States () is casting a shadow over its own culture. Both the power and the appeal are dominated by a frank and straightforward movement consciousness - an united idea that you have to follow the law of unified progress or being brutally dropped, the individualism was pre-defined by a collective structure rather than contributing to it.
II. The Reciprocity principle says: The group itself accepts the potential for leadership that predates power: physical shape, energy or even origin. The (perhaps) subversive point is that - communities are generated by a star-studded attraction to a “leader’s charisma,” rather than the opposite of what common sense would suggest, that communities were formed first to generate the need for leader.

[João Antonio · Rating 5 out of 5]

The bulk of the essays compiled in this book were composed in response to other people's research and, while it guarantees that the average reader is bound to feel somewhat lost now and then, it also makes this book the anthropology professor's paradise.

CLS provides his reader with an overview of both his methodology & that of his peers, while also writing ridiculously well. I must say I was rather surprised by how well he writes in this book, as I was expecting that drab kind of prose scientific writing makes us all get used to. CLS's prose, however, surpasses most, and so do his thoughts.

I would like to highlight Magic and Religion as the part of the book of which I am fond of the most.

[Waris Ahmad Faizi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pioneering!

In "Structural Anthropology," Claude Lévi-Strauss introduces readers to the groundbreaking idea of structuralism, a concept he borrowed from linguistics and applied to the study of culture, myth, and human societies. Through a series of diverse essays, Lévi-Strauss explores the underlying patterns and universal structures that govern human behavior, thought, and communication.

One of the book's core arguments is that there are universal structures in the human mind that shape the way we think, perceive, and relate to the world around us.

[Samuel Rhodes · Rating 3 out of 5]

In terms of the enjoyment of the reading experience, I give 3 stars. In terms of value for someone interested in structuralism outside of linguistics, it's a must-read, if for no reason other than historical value. It's a bit uneven as well, but I found myself highlighting a lot of passages.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like most of Levi-Strauss it's a bit difficult to read, takes some time to analyze his points but once understood it's well worth the effort of finishing this book. His perspective & understanding of the human condition should be mandatory teaching.

[Lai J · Rating 5 out of 5]

I forgot everything that’s in this book.

This was a required reading for Anthropology 201 at Reed College.

I scored an A for the class so I guess I must have really understood this book therefore this is a good book.

[Serge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strangely enough for a structuralist manifest this book is very poorly structured. Basically it’s just a collection of Levi-Strauss’ previously published papers on different subjects relating to anthropology.
It’s not an easy read...I’d say Pick up Marvin Harris or Malinowski instead.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A COLLECTION OF THE FRENCH STRUCTURALIST’S PAPERS ON SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009) was a French social anthropologist and ethnologist who was an important figure in the development of Structuralism. He wrote in the Introduction to this 1958 book, “we can formulate the problem of the relationship between the anthropological sciences and history as follows: Either anthropology is focused on the diachronic dimension of phenomena… of their temporal order, and thus is unable to trace their history; or anthropologists attempt to apply the method of the historian, and the time dimension escapes them. The problem of reconstructing a past whose history we are incapable of grasping confronts ethnology more particularly; the problem of writing the history of a present without a past confronts ethnography. That is, at any rate, the dilemma which has too often halted the development of these sciences in the course of the last fifty years.” (Pg. 3)

He observes, “The problem can … be formulated as follows: Although they belong to another order of reality, kinship phenomena are of the same type as linguistic phenomena. Can the anthropologist, using a method analogous IN FORM (if not in content) to the method used in structural linguistics, achieve the same kind of progress in his own science as that which has taken place in linguistics?” (Pg. 34)

He explains, “in the Indo-European case we have a very simple structure (marriage rules), but that the elements (social organization) which must be arranged in this structure are numerous and complicated, whereas in the Sino-Tibetan case the opposite prevails:… And to the separation between the STRUCTURE and the ELEMENTS correspond, on the level of terminology---which is a linguistic level---antithetic features as to the framework (subjective versus objective) and to the terms themselves (numerous versus few). Now it seems to me that if we formulate the situation in these terms, it is at least possible to start a useful discussion with the linguists.” (Pg. 79)

He suggests, “If this analysis is correct, we must see magical behavior as the response to s situation which is revealed to the mind through emotional manifestations, but whose essence of intellectual. For only the history of the symbolic function can allow us to understand the intellectual condition of man, in which the universe is never charged with sufficient meaning and in which the mind always has more meanings available than there are objects to which to relate them. Torn between these two systems of reference… man asks magical thinking to provide him with a new system of reference, within which the thus-far contradictory elements can be integrated.” (Pg. 184)

He explains, “Myth is the part of language where the formula ‘traduttore, tradittore’ reaches its lowest truth value… it should be place in the gamut of linguistic expressions at the end opposite to that of poetry, in spite of all the claims which have been made to prove the contrary. Poetry is a kind of speech which cannot be translated except at the cost of serious distortions; whereas the mythical value of the myth is preserved even through the worst translation… a myth is still felt as a myth by any reader anywhere in the world. Its substance does not lie in its style, its original music, or its syntax, but in the STORY which it tells. Myth is language, functioning on an especially high level where meaning succeeds practically at ‘taking off’ from the linguistic ground on which it keeps on rolling.” (Pg. 210)

He asserts, “From the structuralist point of view which one has to adopt if only to give the problem its meaning, it would be hopeless to try to reach a valid definition of social structure on an inductive basis, by abstracting common elements from the uses and definitions current among all the scholars who claim to have made ‘social structure’ the object of their studies. If these concepts have a meaning at all, they mean, first, that the notion of structure has a structure.” (Pg. 278)

He acknowledges, “A structural model may be conscious or unconscious without this difference affecting its nature. It can only be said that they the structure of a certain type of phenomena does not lie at a great depth, it is more likely that some kind of model, standing a a screen to hide it, will exist in the collective unconscious. For conscious models, which are usually known as ‘norms,’ are by definition very poor ones, since they are not intended to explain the phenomena but to perpetuate them. Therefore, structural analysis is confronted with a strange paradox well known to the linguist, that is: the more obvious structural organization is, the more difficult it becomes to reach it because of the inaccurate conscious models lying across the path which leads to it.” (Pg. 281)

He says, “But actually our ultimate purpose is not so much to discover the unique characteristics of the societies that we study, as it is to discover in what way these societies differ from one another. As in linguistics, it is the DISCONTINUITIES which constitute the true subject matter of anthropology.” (Pg. 328)

This book will be of great interest to those studying Lévi-Strauss.

[jorge kyriakides · Rating 1 out of 5]

this book sucks, cant wait to finish it. This book just exudes small dick energy. His insecurity just shows just way too much. Using algebraic formulas to explain myths ? You're trying way to hard my dude.

[Rolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

An important entry for anyone interested in anthropology. While of course the particulars are dated, it is still incredible how much of the way we structure the discipline of anthropology in the categories and ways of thinking Lévi-Strauss outlines here.

[Janice]

Friend/enemy.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some great essays, some highly specialised and a bit inaccessible - 4 stars though for the great ones

[māris šteinbergs · Rating 4 out of 5]

motherfucker, šis bija grūts

[meera · Rating 3 out of 5]

yes honey everything is dialectical now can you go back to making jeans