Introduction to Semiotics of Cultures, 2010 Claude Lévi-Strauss Structural Anthropology 1: Chapter...
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Transcript of Introduction to Semiotics of Cultures, 2010 Claude Lévi-Strauss Structural Anthropology 1: Chapter...
Introduction to Semiotics of Cultures, 2010
Claude Lévi-StraussStructural Anthropology 1:Chapter I, Anthropology and HistoryPart 2
Vesa Matteo Piludu
University of Helsinki
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?
Pop Malinowski
Tales From The Jungle: Malinowski - Part 1 of 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f22VsAlOwbc
Young Indiana Jones and Bronislaw Malinowski http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucAsLa61mV8&feature=related
The young Indiana Jones met also Kafka, Pancho Villa, Freud…
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 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
Pop Mead
Tales From The Jungle: Margaret Mead - Part 1 of 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOa3ftAKnzo&feature=related
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
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 Lévi-Strauss)
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
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