,Week 9
LECTURE 9.1 Historical Materialism and Cultural Materialism
We need theories to come up with good questions, theories help us to formulate questions
Theories help us select materials that help us to answer these questions, and interpret materials.
> A synthesis of different theoretical perspectives can be extra enlightening
Comparison: comparing results from one study from different perspectives, and comparing results
from different studies of the same phenomenon (common in current anthropological research)
Important: reflect on how choice of theoretical perspective influences what you can observe and how
you observe it.
- Why do people do the things they do?
- Why do people think the way they do? What are their worldviews?
Cultural materialism and historical materialism are not really applicable anymore, very simplistic
Why ?
- Growing interest in:
> increasing socio-economic inequalities (e.g. China) in the past the poor were people without
fixed employment. Nowadays there are quite a lot of people who are poor but have academic
formation. Precariat: people without job security, due to neoliberalization of large parts of the
economy.
> impact of human activities on ecosystems and climate, we are beginning to see what the
global economy does to the ecosystem (smog cities)
> natural disasters
→ all of these are interrelated (e.g. losing job because of forest fire)
A lot of natural disasters are one of the symptoms of climate change but people are not prepared.
Political system is slow in preparing people, and also slow in cleaning up the mess after disasters.
Marxism
Political ideology - scientific theory
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels
Marxism, often associated with Lenin, Stalin and Mao.
China had major political and ideological conflict with the USSR tho
Marx saw humankind as going through multiple phases. Capitalism was the last stage before people
would rise up and find socialism. This could only happen in capitalist industrialised societies.
Lenin and Mao started a revolution in a country that was not industrialised at all.
Main principles of historical materialism
- Human society is determined by material conditions
> how people are related to the means of production (raw materials, land, machines, stuff people need
to make products)
> there is a group who owns these and a group that doesn’t
> capitalist society: bourgeoisie and proletarians. Proletarians sell their labour to the bourgeoisie.
These relations are the relations of production.
- Material base of where production is going on/happening determines the form of the
superstructure
- Superstructure: religion, arts, legal system, ideational aspect of culture
→ the base shapes, forms and maintains the superstructure AND vice versa: superstructure legitimises the
base. Which one is dominant? Superstructure or the base?
,Marx said material base determines the superstructure. The base is the most important.
More ideas:
- Human society evolves going through consecutive stages (modes of production, no need to
memorize all of these)
- Transition from one stage to the next is driven by class oppositions (class struggle)
- Dialectics (Hegel): thesis-antithesis resolved through new synthesis
Hegel
Hegel (super idealist): there are ideas in the world that conflict with one another. Each time this conflict is
resolved that brings a progression towards a final stage of “the world spirit” that comes to know itself in its
absolute pure form. (thesis + antithesis → synthesis)
Dialectic thinking with two opposite things that resolve is the thinking behind marxist evolutionary
thinking.
Stages on slide
- Primitive communism
- Slavery
- Feudalism
- Capitalism
- Socialism
- Communism, everything communally owned, classless society, end of history
→ we reach an ideal stade, ideal mode of production
Entfremdung: as soon as people start producing stuff for others, because they do not own the means of
production, the effect is: people become alienated from their own ambitions and also their products.
This is eventually solved in communism.
> workers did not realise, according to marx, what was going on. Mismatch between things that keep
you down, but not thinking about it. The existing worldview is against your own interest.
→ the class which has the means of material production also has control over the means of mental
production, because the ruling class is the ruling material and intellectual force. The ideas of
those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.
Marxist dialectic: class clash that would solve into communism eventually.
False consciousness
- Marx expected real awareness would increase as internal conflicts in capitalist societies would
intensify
- What he did not foresee:
> rise of large middle class (craftspeople, merchant)
> social legislation eliminating worst excesses of worker’s exploitation (child labour)
> introduction of universal suffrage (first for men, then women) → origins and influence of social
democratic parties (that want to achieve change through parliamentary instead of revolutions)
False consciousness also exists among intellectually employed people.
→ even when conscious of being exploited, people may refrain from taking effective action to bring about
change.
Critique and adaptations: Antonio Gramsci (1892-1937)
- Takes up and further theorises false consciousness
- Class struggle not resolved in a struggle over economic dominance but
> the struggle over ideological dominance: hegemony
, Hegemony: politically and economically dominant group has succeeded in imposing its
worldview/ideology on the dominated (subaltern) who have internalised and therefore accept their
dominated position as ‘normal’ and ‘natural’.
Ruling class has these means at their exposal and propagate the hegemony.
How to overcome hegemony? → counter hegemony (counter ideology)
Therefore: bringing about new power relations only possible by waging ideological struggle (counter-
hegemony)
> Hegemony is a very influential concept in contemporary social theory
Application in anthropology: French neo-marxist
- Leftist intellectual climate during 50s and 60s
- French anthropologists started thinking about applying Marxist theoretical insights to the
study of non-capitalist societies.
- Superstructure not just legitimating relations of production but also organising economy
(think of role of religion, kinship in economic arrangements)
- Strict distinction base - superstructure untenable
(Check slides on graeber)
Cultural Materialism (Harris)
● Main tenet: Societies and cultures with their specific beliefs and practises are shaped by
infrastructure: the way people organise their relations with ecological environment in such a
way that it ensures their survival
● In common with Marxist thinking: there is a material base that has primacy; superstructure
follows from ‘material’ conditions
● Differs from Marxist thinking: no dialectics of contradictions leading to progressive evolution
of society
Harris:
The foundation of such [socio-cultural] systems: the modes of production and reproduction in
interaction with the environment.
The mode of production: technology and work patterns, especially with regard to food and energy.
The mode of reproduction: population characteristics such as level and growth rate as well as social
practices that increase or limit population
Infrastructure: technologies and social practices by which a sociocultural system adapts to its
environment, regulating both the type and amount of resources needed to maintain the system.
→ As environments change, either through natural processes or human action, infrastructures must adapt.
Emic and etic according to Harris
- Emic Statements: logico-empirical systems whose phenomenal distinctions or “things” are
built up out of contrasts and discriminations significant, meaningful, real, accurate, or in some
other fashion regarded as appropriate by the actors themselves.
- Etic statements depend upon phenomenal distinctions judged appropriate by the community
of scientific observers.
He basically emphasises etic explanations because emic explanations can consist of lies, shame,
forgotten things etc. Etic perspectives are always needed.
Harris modes of ethnographic descriptions
LECTURE 9.1 Historical Materialism and Cultural Materialism
We need theories to come up with good questions, theories help us to formulate questions
Theories help us select materials that help us to answer these questions, and interpret materials.
> A synthesis of different theoretical perspectives can be extra enlightening
Comparison: comparing results from one study from different perspectives, and comparing results
from different studies of the same phenomenon (common in current anthropological research)
Important: reflect on how choice of theoretical perspective influences what you can observe and how
you observe it.
- Why do people do the things they do?
- Why do people think the way they do? What are their worldviews?
Cultural materialism and historical materialism are not really applicable anymore, very simplistic
Why ?
- Growing interest in:
> increasing socio-economic inequalities (e.g. China) in the past the poor were people without
fixed employment. Nowadays there are quite a lot of people who are poor but have academic
formation. Precariat: people without job security, due to neoliberalization of large parts of the
economy.
> impact of human activities on ecosystems and climate, we are beginning to see what the
global economy does to the ecosystem (smog cities)
> natural disasters
→ all of these are interrelated (e.g. losing job because of forest fire)
A lot of natural disasters are one of the symptoms of climate change but people are not prepared.
Political system is slow in preparing people, and also slow in cleaning up the mess after disasters.
Marxism
Political ideology - scientific theory
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels
Marxism, often associated with Lenin, Stalin and Mao.
China had major political and ideological conflict with the USSR tho
Marx saw humankind as going through multiple phases. Capitalism was the last stage before people
would rise up and find socialism. This could only happen in capitalist industrialised societies.
Lenin and Mao started a revolution in a country that was not industrialised at all.
Main principles of historical materialism
- Human society is determined by material conditions
> how people are related to the means of production (raw materials, land, machines, stuff people need
to make products)
> there is a group who owns these and a group that doesn’t
> capitalist society: bourgeoisie and proletarians. Proletarians sell their labour to the bourgeoisie.
These relations are the relations of production.
- Material base of where production is going on/happening determines the form of the
superstructure
- Superstructure: religion, arts, legal system, ideational aspect of culture
→ the base shapes, forms and maintains the superstructure AND vice versa: superstructure legitimises the
base. Which one is dominant? Superstructure or the base?
,Marx said material base determines the superstructure. The base is the most important.
More ideas:
- Human society evolves going through consecutive stages (modes of production, no need to
memorize all of these)
- Transition from one stage to the next is driven by class oppositions (class struggle)
- Dialectics (Hegel): thesis-antithesis resolved through new synthesis
Hegel
Hegel (super idealist): there are ideas in the world that conflict with one another. Each time this conflict is
resolved that brings a progression towards a final stage of “the world spirit” that comes to know itself in its
absolute pure form. (thesis + antithesis → synthesis)
Dialectic thinking with two opposite things that resolve is the thinking behind marxist evolutionary
thinking.
Stages on slide
- Primitive communism
- Slavery
- Feudalism
- Capitalism
- Socialism
- Communism, everything communally owned, classless society, end of history
→ we reach an ideal stade, ideal mode of production
Entfremdung: as soon as people start producing stuff for others, because they do not own the means of
production, the effect is: people become alienated from their own ambitions and also their products.
This is eventually solved in communism.
> workers did not realise, according to marx, what was going on. Mismatch between things that keep
you down, but not thinking about it. The existing worldview is against your own interest.
→ the class which has the means of material production also has control over the means of mental
production, because the ruling class is the ruling material and intellectual force. The ideas of
those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.
Marxist dialectic: class clash that would solve into communism eventually.
False consciousness
- Marx expected real awareness would increase as internal conflicts in capitalist societies would
intensify
- What he did not foresee:
> rise of large middle class (craftspeople, merchant)
> social legislation eliminating worst excesses of worker’s exploitation (child labour)
> introduction of universal suffrage (first for men, then women) → origins and influence of social
democratic parties (that want to achieve change through parliamentary instead of revolutions)
False consciousness also exists among intellectually employed people.
→ even when conscious of being exploited, people may refrain from taking effective action to bring about
change.
Critique and adaptations: Antonio Gramsci (1892-1937)
- Takes up and further theorises false consciousness
- Class struggle not resolved in a struggle over economic dominance but
> the struggle over ideological dominance: hegemony
, Hegemony: politically and economically dominant group has succeeded in imposing its
worldview/ideology on the dominated (subaltern) who have internalised and therefore accept their
dominated position as ‘normal’ and ‘natural’.
Ruling class has these means at their exposal and propagate the hegemony.
How to overcome hegemony? → counter hegemony (counter ideology)
Therefore: bringing about new power relations only possible by waging ideological struggle (counter-
hegemony)
> Hegemony is a very influential concept in contemporary social theory
Application in anthropology: French neo-marxist
- Leftist intellectual climate during 50s and 60s
- French anthropologists started thinking about applying Marxist theoretical insights to the
study of non-capitalist societies.
- Superstructure not just legitimating relations of production but also organising economy
(think of role of religion, kinship in economic arrangements)
- Strict distinction base - superstructure untenable
(Check slides on graeber)
Cultural Materialism (Harris)
● Main tenet: Societies and cultures with their specific beliefs and practises are shaped by
infrastructure: the way people organise their relations with ecological environment in such a
way that it ensures their survival
● In common with Marxist thinking: there is a material base that has primacy; superstructure
follows from ‘material’ conditions
● Differs from Marxist thinking: no dialectics of contradictions leading to progressive evolution
of society
Harris:
The foundation of such [socio-cultural] systems: the modes of production and reproduction in
interaction with the environment.
The mode of production: technology and work patterns, especially with regard to food and energy.
The mode of reproduction: population characteristics such as level and growth rate as well as social
practices that increase or limit population
Infrastructure: technologies and social practices by which a sociocultural system adapts to its
environment, regulating both the type and amount of resources needed to maintain the system.
→ As environments change, either through natural processes or human action, infrastructures must adapt.
Emic and etic according to Harris
- Emic Statements: logico-empirical systems whose phenomenal distinctions or “things” are
built up out of contrasts and discriminations significant, meaningful, real, accurate, or in some
other fashion regarded as appropriate by the actors themselves.
- Etic statements depend upon phenomenal distinctions judged appropriate by the community
of scientific observers.
He basically emphasises etic explanations because emic explanations can consist of lies, shame,
forgotten things etc. Etic perspectives are always needed.
Harris modes of ethnographic descriptions
