Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
CULTURAL MATERIALISM (criticisms (termed as vulgar materialism …
CULTURAL MATERIALISM
embraces other school of thought -
cultural ecology
- Julian steward &
cultural evolution
- Leslie white
books
rise of anthropological theories
cannibals and kings (Aztecs of Mexico)
the sacred cow
the abominable pigs
historical background
reaction against
cultural relativism ,idealism and structuralism = remove culture from material space and put it into minds of people =
provide EMIC
founded by Marvin Harris
this theory provides
ETIC view
basic premises
create
pan human science of society
- findings accepted on logical and evidentiary grounds by community
explain
socio-cultural change
on the basis of
change in material culture
eg - women's role in post world war USA
methodology
observation , quantification and replication using empirical method = formulate
nomothetic theories
explain
organization aspects of - politics , economy
and
ideological , symbolic aspects
of society - result of combination variable relating to basic ideological needs of society
divided into
infrastructure
-
tech , practices
used for expanding and limiting the production of basic resources -
clothing,food,shelter.
structure
-
domestic economy
--- family structure,,domestic division of labor,age and gender role and
political
economy
--- organization,class,caste,police,military
superstructure
- philosophy,art,music,religion,ideas,literature,sports,games,science and values
structure and super structure
depends on infrastructure
, change in infra
leads to change in both
eg -
Hindu prohibition of killing cattle
infra
-
product of interaction
among environment , population and technology.
accomplishments
making
anthro more scientific
- explaining cultural phenomenon like
India's beef taboo
without invoking mystical or ephemeral
cultural change studied
across geography and temporal boundary
focused on
etic
approach and balanced
emic
approach - bringing anthro closer to science
criticisms
termed as
vulgar materialism
anthropology by Marxists
structuralists and idealists
criticized etic view of materialism
too simple and straight forward
Marxists - C.M heavily
relied on infrastructure and superstructure relationship
to explain cultural change
post modernist
- use of any
science
in understanding culture is
useless
case studies - analysis of many cultural puzzles
India's scared
cow myth
taboo against cow or beef consumption
demonstrates how economical and technological factors within infrastructure
affect str. and superstr.
cow valuable for
milk
,cow dung for cooking fuel,fertilizer for farm fields & ploughing fields >
dead - meat , hide only
= sacred status
prohibition of consumption of pigs meat
Muslims & Jews - pig=
non edible
w.Asian region mostly area is dry ,
ppl = pastoralists, few = agriculturalists
pig - directly
competing with humans
taking grains - source of food even for humans.
moreover - pig need wet forested area for survival -
economically unviable
woman in USA
joined workforce
after WW 2 , women earlier -
restricted
to household work.
cultural change happened due to
change in technology
-
enhanced the ability
of society to satisfy basic human needs
william ratze -
garbage project
EMIC
analysis of cultural phenomenon
overlooking vital information
that can only be uncovered by ETIC approach