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ter 2 History of

Anthropological Theory

CHAPTER OUTLINE

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istorians of anthropology often trace the birth of the discipline to the 16th-century encounters between Europeans and native peoples in Africa andthe Americas. For Europeans, these peoples and their practices oftenseemed bizarre or irrational, yet to live and work with them, it was impor-tant to understand their cultures. This need for cross-cultural understand-ing was one of the roots of anthropology. The other was the emergingfocus on evolution. The recognition that species were not stable butchanged over time emerged in parallel with the idea that societies changedover time. Together, these ideas launched the notion that other culturescould be changed, that they could and should be “civilized.” The move-ment by Europeans to “civilize” others between the 16th and 19th cen-turies destroyed some of the world’s cultural diversity, but the field ofanthropology emerged out of those efforts. As we shall see, we haveknowledge of those cultures that were changed or destroyed by the “civi-lizing” efforts of European explorers and colonists largely because of theefforts of early anthropologists.

While anthropology may have been born out of its largely colonialistbackground, anthropologists are now overwhelmingly inclined to supportthe value of other ways of life and try to support the needs of peoples for-merly colonized or dominated by powerful nation-states.

As we review the history of anthropological ideas, keep in mind that, al-though many of the early points of view were later rejected and replaced,not all ideas suffer the same fate. Evolutionary theory, for example, hasbeen modified substantially over the years, but much of the theory of nat-ural selection put forward by Darwin in the mid-1800s has been supportedby empirical evidence and has withstood the test of time. Also keep inmind that some of the ideas we discuss are more properly theoretical ori-entations rather than theories. A tthheeoorreettiiccaall oorriieennttaattiioonn is a general ideaabout how phenomena are to be explained; theories, as we discuss morefully in the next chapter, are more specific explanations that can be testedwith empirical evidence. � � �

THE EVOLUTION OF EVOLUTIONOlder Western ideas about nature’s creatures were very different from Charles Darwin’stheory of evolution, which suggested that different species developed, one from another,over long periods of time. In the 5th millennium B.C., the Greek philosophers Plato andAristotle believed that animals and plants form a single, graded continuum going frommore perfection to less perfection. Humans, of course, were at the top of this scale. LaterGreek philosophers added the idea that the creator gave life or “radiance” first to humans,but some of that essence was lost at each subsequent creation.1 Macrobius, summarizingthe thinking of Plotinus, used an image that was to persist for centuries, the image of what

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16 PART I � Introduction

came to be called the “chain of being”: “The attentiveobserver will discover a connection of parts, from theSupreme God down to the last dregs of things, mutuallylinked together and without a break. And this is Homer’sgolden chain, which God, he says, bade hand down fromheaven to earth.”2

Belief in the chain of being was accompanied by theconviction that an animal or plant species could not be-come extinct. In fact, all things were linked to one anotherin a chain, and all links were necessary. Moreover, the no-tion of extinction threatened people’s trust in God; it wasunthinkable that a whole group of God’s creations couldsimply disappear.

The idea of the chain of being persisted through theyears, but philosophers, scientists, poets, and theologiansdid not discuss it extensively until the 18th century. Thosediscussions prepared the way for evolutionary theory.Ironically, although the chain of being did not allow forevolution, its idea that nature had an order of things en-couraged studies of natural history and comparativeanatomical studies, which stimulated the development ofthe idea of evolution. People were also now motivated tolook for previously unknown creatures. Moreover, hu-mans were not shocked when naturalists suggested thathumans were close to apes. This notion was perfectly con-sistent with the idea of a chain of being; apes were simplythought to have been created with less perfection.

Early in the 18th century, an influential scientist, CarolusLinnaeus (1707–1778), classified plants and animals in asystema naturae, which placed humans in the same order(Primates) as apes and monkeys. Linnaeus did not suggestan evolutionary relationship between humans and apes; hemostly accepted the notion that all species were created byGod and fixed in their form. Not surprisingly, then, Lin-naeus is often viewed as an anti-evolutionist. But Linnaeus’shierarchical classification scheme, in descending order fromkingdom to class, order, genus (a group of related species),and species, provided a framework for the idea that hu-mans, apes, and monkeys had a common ancestor.

Others did not believe that species were fixed in theirform. According to Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829),acquired characteristics could be inherited and thereforespecies could evolve; individuals who in their lifetime devel-oped characteristics helpful to survival would pass thosecharacteristics on to future generations, thereby changingthe physical makeup of the species. For example, Lamarckexplained the long neck of the giraffe as the result of succes-sive generations of giraffes stretching their necks to reachthe high leaves of trees. The stretched muscles and bones ofthe necks were somehow transmitted to the offspring of theneck-stretching giraffes, and eventually all giraffes came tohave long necks. But because Lamarck and later biologistsfailed to produce evidence to support the hypothesis thatacquired characteristics can be inherited, this explanation ofevolution is now generally dismissed.3

By the 19th century, some thinkers were beginning to ac-cept evolution whereas others were trying to refute it.For ex-ample,Georges Cuvier (1769–1832) was a leading opponentof evolution. Cuvier’s theory of catastrophism proposedthat a quick series of catastrophes accounted for changes in

the earth and the fossil record. Cataclysms and upheavalssuch as Noah’s flood had killed off previous sets of livingcreatures, which each time were replaced by new creations.

Major changes in geological thinking occurred in the19th century. Earlier, geologist James Hutton (1726–1797)had questioned catastrophism, but his work was largely ig-nored. In contrast, Sir Charles Lyell’s (1797–1875) volumesof the Principles of Geology (1830–1833), which built onHutton’s earlier work, received immediate acclaim. Theirconcept of uniformitarianism suggested that the earth isconstantly being shaped and reshaped by natural forces thathave operated over a vast stretch of time. Lyell also discussedthe formation of geological strata and paleontology. Heused fossilized fauna to define different geological epochs.Lyell’s works were read avidly by Charles Darwin before andduring Darwin’s now-famous voyage on the Beagle. The twocorresponded and subsequently became friends.

After studying changes in plants, fossil animals, andvarieties of domestic and wild pigeons, Charles Darwin(1809–1882) rejected the notion that each species was cre-ated at one time in a fixed form. The results of his investi-gations pointed clearly, he thought, to the evolution ofspecies through the mechanism of natural selection. WhileDarwin was completing his book on the subject, naturalist

The giraffe’s long neck is adaptive for eating tree leaves highoff the ground. When food is scarce, longer-necked giraffeswould get more food and reproduce more successfully thanshorter-necked giraffes; in this environment, natural selectionwould favor giraffes with longer necks.


Chapter 2 � History of Anthropological Theory 17

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) sent him a manuscriptthat came to conclusions about the evolution of species thatmatched Darwin’s own.4 In 1858, the two men presentedthe astonishing theory of natural selection to their col-leagues at a meeting of the Linnaean Society of London.5

In 1859, when Darwin published The Origin of Speciesby Means of Natural Selection,6 he wrote, “I am fully con-vinced that species are not immutable; but that those be-longing to what are called the same genera are linealdescendants of some other and generally extinct species,in the same manner as the acknowledged varieties of anyone species.”7 His conclusions outraged those who be-lieved in the biblical account of creation, and the resultwas bitter controversy that continues to this day.8

Until 1871, when his The Descent of Man was pub-lished, Darwin avoided stating categorically that humanswere descended from nonhuman forms, but the implica-tions of his theory were clear. People immediately beganto take sides. In June 1860, at the annual meeting of theBritish Association for the Advancement of Science,Bishop Wilberforce saw an opportunity to attack the Dar-winists. Concluding his speech, he faced Thomas Huxley,one of the Darwinists’ chief advocates, and inquired, “Wasit through his grandfather or his grandmother that heclaimed descent from a monkey?” Huxley responded,

If . . . the question is put to me would I rather havea miserable ape for a grandfather than a man highlyendowed by nature and possessing great means andinfluence and yet who employs those faculties andthat influence for the mere purpose of introducingridicule into a grave scientific discussion—I unhesi-tatingly affirm my preference for the ape.9

Although Huxley’s retort to Bishop Wilberforce displaysboth humor and quick wit, it does not answer the bishop’squestion very well. A better answer, and one we pursue inthe chapter on genetics and evolution, is that Darwinistswould claim that we descended from monkeys neitherthrough our grandmother or our grandfather, but thatboth we and monkeys are descended from a common an-cestor who lived long ago. Darwinists would further arguethat natural selection was the process through which thephysical and genetic form of that common ancestor di-verged to become both monkey and human.

EARLY ANTHROPOLOGICALTHEORY

In anthropology, as in any discipline, there is a continualebb and flow of ideas. One theoretical orientation willarise and may grow in popularity until another is pro-posed in opposition to it. Often, one orientation will capi-talize on those aspects of a problem that a previousorientation ignored or played down. In our survey ofmany of the orientations that have developed since theemergence of anthropology as a professional discipline,we follow an approximate historical sequence. As we dis-cuss each school of thought, we will indicate what kindsof information or phenomena it emphasizes (if it does)as explanatory factors. Some of these orientations havepassed into history by now; others continue to attractadherents.

Early EvolutionismIn the early years of anthropology, Darwinism had astrong impact on theory. The prevailing view was that cul-ture generally develops (or evolves) in a uniform and pro-gressive manner, just as Darwin argued species did. It wasthought that most societies pass through the same seriesof stages, to arrive ultimately at a common end. Thesources of culture change were generally assumed to beembedded within the culture from the beginning, andtherefore the ultimate course of development was thought

Although Darwin’s idea of evolution by natural selection wasstrongly challenged when first published (particularly, as illus-trated here, the idea that humans and primates shared a com-mon ancestor), it has withstood rigorous testing and is thefoundation of many anthropological theories.



to be internally determined. Two 19th-century anthropol-ogists whose writings exemplified the theory that culturegenerally evolves uniformly and progressively wereEdward B. Tylor (1832–1917) and Lewis Henry Morgan(1818–1881).

Tylor maintained that culture evolved from the simpleto the complex and that all societies passed through threebasic stages of development: from savagery through bar-barism to civilization.10 “Progress” was therefore possiblefor all. To account for cultural variation, Tylor and otherearly evolutionists postulated that different contemporarysocieties were at different stages of evolution. According tothis view, the “simpler” peoples of the day had not yetreached “higher” stages. Tylor believed there was a kind ofpsychic unity among all peoples that explained parallelevolutionary sequences in different cultural traditions. Inother words, because of the basic similarities common toall peoples, different societies often find the same solu-tions to the same problems independently. But Tylor alsonoted that cultural traits may spread from one society toanother by simple diffusion—the borrowing by one cul-ture of a trait belonging to another as the result of contactbetween the two.

Another 19th-century proponent of uniform and pro-gressive cultural evolution was Lewis Henry Morgan. Alawyer in upstate New York, Morgan became interested inthe local Iroquois Indians and defended their reservationin a land-grant case. In gratitude, the Iroquois “adopted”Morgan.

In his best-known work, Ancient Society, Morgan pos-tulated several sequences in the evolution of human cul-ture. For example, he speculated that the family evolvedthrough six stages. Human society began as a “horde livingin promiscuity,” with no sexual prohibitions and no realfamily structure. Next was a stage in which a group ofbrothers was married to a group of sisters and brother-sister matings were permitted. In the third stage, groupmarriage was practiced, but brothers and sisters were notallowed to mate. The fourth stage was characterized by a

loosely paired male and female who still lived with otherpeople. Then came the husband-dominant family, inwhich the husband could have more than one wife simul-taneously. Finally, the stage of civilization was distin-guished by the monogamous family, with just one wifeand one husband who were relatively equal in status.11

However, Morgan’s postulated sequence for the evolutionof the family is not supported by the enormous amount ofethnographic data that has been collected since his time.For example, no recent society generally practices groupmarriage or allows brother-sister mating. (In the chapteron marriage and the family, we discuss how recent cul-tures have varied in regard to marriage customs.)

The evolutionism of Tylor, Morgan, and others of the19th century is largely rejected today. For one thing, theirtheories cannot satisfactorily account for cultural variation.The “psychic unity of mankind” or “germs of thought”that were postulated to account for parallel evolution can-not also account for cultural differences. Another weak-ness in the early evolutionist theories is that they cannotexplain why some societies have regressed or even becomeextinct. Finally, although other societies may have pro-gressed to “civilization,” some of them have not passedthrough all the stages. Thus, early evolutionist theory can-not explain the details of cultural evolution and variationas anthropology now knows them.

“Race” TheoryEvolutionism also influenced another branch of anthro-pological theory, one that posited that the reason humancultures differed in their behaviors was because they rep-resented separate subspecies of humans, or “races.” Thisidea was also influenced by the fact that, by the 19th cen-tury at least, it became clear that few cultures were being“civilized” in the way Europeans expected. Rather than at-tribute this to the strength of cultural tradition, someattributed it to the innate capabilities of the people—inother words, to their “race.” Members of “uncivilized

The 19th-century belief that progress wasa universal in social change had a pro-found impact on early anthropologicaltheorists such as Edward B. Tylor andLewis Henry Morgan.



races” were, by their very nature, incapable of being “civ-ilized.” Such ideas were widely held and supported dur-ing the late 19th and early 20th centuries and, as we shallsee, American anthropology played a large role in show-ing that “race” theory was unsupported in a variety ofcontexts. Unfortunately, “race” theory persists in somedisciplines.

The roots of “race” theory are fairly easy to trace.12 Asdiscussed earlier, the classification of plants and animalsinto distinct biological groups began with the work ofLinneaus. In his systema natura, humans are classified intofour distinct “races” (American, European, Asiatic, andAfrican), each defined not only by physical characteristicsbut also by emotional and behavioral ones. Similarly, Jo-hann Blumenbach (1752–1840), a founder of the field ofbiological anthropology, divided humans into five “races”(Caucasian, Mongolian, Malayan, Ethiopian, and Ameri-can). Interestingly, each of his races relates to peoples ofrecently colonized areas, and Blumenbach makes clearthat the purpose of his division of humanity is to helpclassify the variety of humans that European colonistswere encountering at the time.

Samuel Morton (1799–1851), a Philadelphia physi-cian, was the first to explicitly link “race” with behaviorand intelligence. Morton collected and measured theskulls of Native Americans, and, in Crania Americana(1839), concluded that not only were Native Americans aseparate “race,” but their behavioral differences from Eu-ropean Americans were rooted in the physical structuresof their brains. Expanding his study, he examined skullsof ancient Egyptians, and, in Crania Aegyptiaca (1844),concluded that “race” differences were ancient andunchanging.

The presumed fixity of these “race” differences was es-sential, not only to justify the exploitive relationships of

colonialism and slavery, but also to fight against Darwin’sidea of evolution. If God created the world in a fixed andstable form, then “races” should be fixed as well. Thus, notsurprisingly, one of the 19th century’s strongest critics ofevolution, Harvard naturalist Louis Agassiz (1807–1873),was also one of the century’s most outspoken supportersof “race” theory. Between 1863 and 1865, Agassiz meas-ured thousands of Civil War soldiers, and used the data hecollected to argue that significant and stable differencesexisted between people of African versus European de-scent. He implied that these differences illustrated God’screation of human “races.”

By the turn of the 20th century, “race” theory wasbeing used in attempts to shape the structure of society.Eminent British scientist Francis Galton (1822–1911)promoted a social and political movement aimed atmanipulating “races” by selectively breeding humanswith desirable characteristics and preventing those withundesirable ones from having offspring. Eugenics, as thismovement was called, was widely accepted in Europe, andhad strong supporters in the United States, support thatcontinues to this day. For example, in The Bell Curve(1994), Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray assertthat there are “race” differences in IQ (and, consequently,success in life), and suggest that social policies should dis-courage “races” deemed to have low IQs from havingmany children.

The scholarly use of “race” theory declined precipi-tously following World War II, when the Nazi genocideagainst “races” that they viewed as inferior exposed theidea’s dangerous potential. At the same time, advances inbiological anthropology began to demonstrate that “race”itself was an analytical concept with very little utility. Bythe 1970s, biologists were able to show that purely geneticraces of humans are not clearly identifiable, and therefore

Race theory was used to justify the exploitive relationships of slavery and colonialism. In this 19th-century adver-tisement, a slave gathers cocoa beans to be made into chocolate for European consumption.



not applicable to humans.13 Still, “race” theory has notdisappeared completely.14

DiffusionismIn the late 19th and early 20th centuries, although the cul-tural evolutionism of Tylor and Morgan was still popularand “race” theory was at its height, diffusionism began totake hold among anthropologists in several parts of theworld. The two main schools with a diffusionist viewpointwere the British and the German-Austrian.

The main spokesmen for the British school of diffu-sionism were G. Elliott Smith, William J. Perry, and W. H. R. Rivers. Smith and Perry stated that most aspectsof higher civilization were developed in Egypt (which wasrelatively advanced because of its early development ofagriculture) and were then diffused throughout the worldas other peoples came into contact with the Egyptians.15

People, they believed, are inherently uninventive andinvariably prefer to borrow the inventions of anotherculture rather than develop ideas for themselves. Thisviewpoint was never widely accepted, and it has now beenabandoned completely.

Inspired by Friedrich Ratzel, Fritz Graebner and FatherWilhelm Schmidt led the early 20th-century German-Austrian diffusionist school. This school also held thatpeople borrow from others because they are basically un-inventive. In contrast to Smith and Perry of the Britishschool, who assumed that all cultural traits originated inone place (Egypt) and filtered out to cultures throughoutthe world, the German-Austrian school suggested the exis-tence and diffusion of several different cultural complexes(Kulturkreise, plural in German).16 Like the British diffu-sionists, however, the Kulturkreis (singular) school pro-vided little documentation for the historical relationshipsit assumed.

A separate American diffusionist school of thought, ledby Clark Wissler and Alfred Kroeber, also arose in the firstfew decades of the 20th century, but it was more modestin its claims. The American diffusionists attributed thecharacteristic features of a culture area to a geographicalculture center, where the traits were first developed andfrom which they then diffused outward. This theory ledWissler to formulate his age-area principle: If a given traitdiffuses outward from a single culture center, it followsthat the most widely distributed traits found to existaround such a center must be the oldest traits.17

Although most anthropologists today acknowledge thespread of traits by diffusion, few try to account for mostaspects of cultural development and variation in terms ofdiffusion. For one thing, the diffusionists dealt only in avery superficial way with the question of how culturaltraits are transferred from one society to another. The fail-ing was a serious one, because one of the things we want toexplain is why a culture accepts, rejects, or modifies a traitthat one of its neighbors has. Also, even if it could bedemonstrated how and why a trait diffused outward froma cultural center, we would still be no closer to an explana-tion of how or why the trait developed within that centerin the first place.

LATER ANTHROPOLOGICALTHEORY

The beginning of the 20th century brought the end ofevolutionism’s reign in cultural anthropology. Its lead-ing opponent was Franz Boas (1858–1942), whose maindisagreement with the evolutionists involved theirassumption that universal laws governed all human cul-ture. Boas pointed out that these 19th-century indi-viduals lacked sufficient data (as did Boas himself)to formulate many useful generalizations. Boas alsostrongly opposed “race” theory, and made significantcontributions to the study of human variation thatdemonstrated how supposedly “racial,” and supposedlybiological, characteristics actually varied depending onwhere a person grew up. Boas almost single-handedlybrought about the decline of “race” theory in America,as well as trained the first generation of American an-thropologists, including (among others) Alfred Kroeber,Robert Lowie, Edward Sapir, Melville Herskovits, andMargaret Mead.18

Historical ParticularismBoas stressed the apparently enormous complexity ofcultural variation, and perhaps because of this complex-ity he believed it was premature to formulate universallaws. He felt that single cultural traits had to be studied inthe context of the society in which they appeared. In1896, Boas published an article entitled “The Limitationof the Comparative Method of Anthropology,”19 whichdealt with his objections to the evolutionist approach. Init, he stated that anthropologists should spend less timedeveloping theories based on insufficient data. Rather,they should devote their energies to collecting as muchdata as possible, as quickly as possible, before culturesdisappeared (as so many already had, after contact withforeign societies). He asserted that valid interpretationscould be made and theories proposed only after this bodyof data was gathered.

Boas expected that, if a tremendous quantity of datawas collected, the laws governing cultural variation wouldemerge from the mass of information by themselves.According to the method he advocated, the essence of sci-ence is to mistrust all expectations and to rely only onfacts. But, the “facts” that are recorded, even by the mostdiligent observer, will necessarily reflect what that individ-ual considers important. Collecting done without somepreliminary theorizing, without ideas about what toexpect, is meaningless, for the facts that are most impor-tant may be ignored whereas irrelevant ones may berecorded. Although it was appropriate for Boas to criticizeprevious “armchair theorizing,” his concern with innu-merable local details did not encourage a belief that itmight be possible to explain the major variations inculture that anthropologists observe.

Psychological ApproachesIn the 1920s, some American anthropologists began tostudy the relationship between culture and personality.



Although there are varying opinions about how theculture-and-personality school got started, the writings ofSigmund Freud and other psychoanalysts were undoubt-edly influential. Edward Sapir, one of Boas’s earliest stu-dents, reviewed psychoanalytical books and seems to haveinfluenced two other students of Boas—Ruth Benedictand Margaret Mead—who became early proponents of apsychological orientation.20

In seminars at Columbia University in the 1930s and1940s, Ralph Linton, an anthropologist, and Abram Kar-diner, a psychoanalyst, developed important ideas for cul-ture-and-personality studies. Kardiner suggested that thereis a basic personality in every culture that is produced byprimary institutions (such as type of household, subsis-tence, and childrearing practices). In other words, just aschildren’s later personalities may be shaped by their earlierexperiences, the personalities of adults in a society shouldbe shaped by common cultural experiences. In turn, thebasic personality gives rise to other institutions (such as art,folklore, and religion), called secondary institutions, whichare viewed as projections from basic personality. JohnWhiting and Irvin Child independently put forward a sim-ilar and somewhat more elaborated theoretical frameworksomewhat later.21 If similar primary institutions exist, itfollows that similar personality outcomes and similar sec-ondary institutions should be predicted. Indeed, as we willsee in the chapter on culture and the individual, manysubsequent cross-cultural studies have supported theseconnections.

As time went on, the focus of the psychological ap-proach broadened and diversified. There was more interestin diversity of personality within societies and in universalsacross human societies. Through this focus on universals,human development from infancy through adolescence, aswell as thought processes and emotional responses, wasexamined to understand human nature. The interest incultural differences did not disappear but focused more onparticular societies—particularly their ethnopsychologies(native psychological concepts and theories), or conceptsof the self and emotion.22

To generalize about the psychological approach to cul-tural anthropology, then, we may say that it explicitlyemploys psychological concepts and methods to help un-derstand cultural differences and similarities.23 In thechapter on culture and the individual, we discuss psycho-logical approaches in more detail.

FunctionalismIn Europe, the reaction against evolution was not as dra-matic as in the United States, but a clear division betweenthe diffusionists and those who came to be known as func-tionalists emerged by the 1930s. Functionalism in socialscience looks for the part (function) that some aspect ofculture or social life plays in maintaining a cultural sys-tem. Two quite different schools of functionalism arose inconjunction with two British anthropologists—BronislawMalinowski (1884–1942) and Arthur Reginald Radcliffe-Brown (1881–1955).

Malinowski’s version of functionalism assumes that allcultural traits serve the needs of individuals in a society;that is, they satisfy some basic or derived need of the mem-bers of the group. Basic needs include nutrition, repro-duction, bodily comfort, safety, relaxation, movement,and growth. Some aspects of the culture satisfy these basicneeds and give rise to derived needs that must also be sat-isfied. For example, culture traits that satisfy the basicneed for food give rise to the secondary, or derived, needfor cooperation in food collection or production. Societieswill in turn develop forms of political organization andsocial control that guarantee the required cooperation.How did Malinowski explain such things as religion andmagic? He suggested that, because humans always livewith a certain amount of uncertainty and anxiety, theyneed stability and continuity. Religion and magic are func-tional in that they serve those needs.24

Unlike Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown felt that the vari-ous aspects of social behavior maintain a society’s socialstructure rather than satisfying individual needs. By socialstructure, he meant the total network of existing social re-lationships in a society.25 The phrase structural-functional-ism is often used to describe Radcliffe-Brown’s approach.To explain how different societies deal with the tensionsthat are likely to develop among people related throughmarriage, Radcliffe-Brown suggested that societies do oneof two things: They may develop strict rules forbiddingthe people involved ever to interact face-to-face (as do theNavajos, for example, in requiring a man to avoid hismother-in-law). They may also allow mutual disrespect

The presence or absence of fathers has important conse-quences for psychological development, and some societieshave much more father presence than others. This Tongan fa-ther in the South Pacific is shown with his family.



and teasing between the in-laws. Radcliffe-Brown sug-gested that avoidance is likely to occur between in-lawsof different generations, whereas disrespectful teasing islikely between in-laws of the same generation.26 Bothavoidance and teasing, he suggested, are ways to avoid realconflict and help maintain the social structure. (Americanmother-in-law jokes may also help relieve tension.)

The major objection to Malinowski’s functionalism isthat it cannot readily account for cultural variation. Mostof the needs he identified, such as the need for food, areuniversal: All societies must deal with them if they are tosurvive. Thus, although the functionalist approach maytell us why all societies engage in food-getting, it cannottell why different societies have different food-gettingpractices. In other words, functionalism does not explainwhy certain specific cultural patterns arise to fulfill a needthat might be fulfilled just as easily by any of a number ofalternative possibilities.

A major problem of the structural-functionalist ap-proach is that it is difficult to determine whether a partic-ular custom is in fact functional in the sense of contributingto the maintenance of the social system. In biology, thecontribution an organ makes to the health or life of an an-imal can be assessed by removing it. But we cannot sub-tract a cultural trait from a society to see if the trait really

does contribute to the maintenance of that group. It isconceivable that certain customs within a society may beneutral or even detrimental to its maintenance. Moreover,we cannot assume that all of a society’s customs are func-tional merely because the society is functioning at the mo-ment. Even if we are able to assess whether a particularcustom is functional, this theoretical orientation fails todeal with the question of why a particular society choosesto meet its structural needs in a particular way. A givenproblem does not necessarily have only one solution. Wemust still explain why one of several possible solutions ischosen.

NeoevolutionThe evolutionary approach to cultural variation did notdie with the 19th century. Beginning in the 1940s, Leslie A.White (1900–1975) attacked the Boasian emphasis on his-torical particularism and championed the evolutionistorientation.

Though quickly labeled a neoevolutionist, White re-jected the term, insisting that his approach did not departsignificantly from the theories adopted in the 19th century.What White did add to the classical evolutionist approachwas a conception of culture as an energy-capturing system.

In working among the Abelam ofNew Guinea, Richard Scaglion waspuzzled why they invest so much en-ergy in growing giant ceremonialyams, sometimes more than 10 feetlong. As well, why do they abstainfrom sex for six months while theygrow them? Of course, to try to un-derstand, we need to know muchmore about the Abelam way of life.Scaglion had read about them, livedamong them, and talked to them,but, as many ethnographers have dis-covered, answers to why questionsdon’t just leap out at you. Answers, atleast tentative ones, often come fromtheoretical orientations that suggesthow or where to look for answers.Scaglion considers several possibili-ties. As Donald Tuzin had suggestedfor a nearby group, the Plains Ara-pesh, yams may be symbols of, orstand for, shared cultural understand-ings. (Looking for the meanings ofsymbols is a kind of interpretative

approach to ethnographic data.) TheAbelam think of yams as having soulsthat appreciate tranquillity. Yams alsohave family lines; at marriage, thejoining of family lines is symbolizedby planting different yam lines in thesame garden. During the yam-growing cycle (remember that yamsappreciate tranquillity), lethal warfareand conflict become channeledmostly into competitive but nonlethalyam-growing contests. So yam grow-ing may be functional in the sensethat it helps to foster harmony.

Then again, ceremonial yam grow-ing may have adaptive ecologicalconsequences. Just as the Tsembagapig feasts seemed to keep humanpopulation in line with resources,Scaglion thinks that ceremonial yamgrowing did too. Growing pig popu-lations damage gardens and createconflicts, but pigs are also given awayduring competitive yam ceremonies,so the pig population declines. Wild

Evaluating Alternative Theories

current research and issues

animals that are hunted also have achance to replenish themselves be-cause hunting is frowned upon duringthe yam-growing cycle.

As Scaglion’s discussion illustrates,theoretical orientations help re-searchers derive explanations. Theydo not have to be “rival” explana-tions, in the sense that one has to beright and others wrong; more thanone theory may help explain somephenomenon. But we can’t assumethat a theory is correct and helps usto understand just because it soundsgood. The important point is that weneed something more to evaluatetheory. As we discuss in the nextchapter, we have to find ways to testa theory against evidence. Until wedo that, we really don’t know howmany, or if indeed any, of the theoriesavailable are helpful.

Source: Scaglion 2009a.



According to his “basic law” of cultural evolution, “otherfactors remaining constant, culture evolves as the amount ofenergy harnessed per capita per year is increased or as the effi-ciency of the instrumental means of putting the energy towork is increased.”27 In other words, a more advanced tech-nology gives humans control over more energy (human,animal, solar, and so on), and cultures expand and changeas a result.

White’s orientation has been criticized for the same rea-sons that the ideas of Tylor and Morgan were. In describingwhat has happened in the evolution of human culture, heassumed that cultural evolution is determined strictly byconditions (preeminently technological ones) inside theculture. That is, he explicitly denied the possibility of envi-ronmental, historical, or psychological influences on cul-tural evolution. The main problem with such an orientationis that it cannot explain why some cultures evolve whereasothers either do not evolve or become extinct. White’s the-ory of energy capture sidesteps the question of why onlysome cultures are able to increase their energy capture.

Julian H. Steward (1902–1972), another later evolu-tionist, divided evolutionary thought into three schools:unilinear, universal, and multilinear.28 Steward believedthat Morgan and Tylor’s theories exemplified the unilin-ear approach to cultural evolution, the classical 19th-century orientation that attempted to place particularcultures on the rungs of a sort of evolutionary ladder.Universal evolutionists such as Leslie White, on the otherhand, were concerned with culture in the broad sense,rather than with individual cultures. Steward classifiedhimself as a multilinear evolutionist: one who deals withthe evolution of particular cultures and only with demon-strated sequences of parallel culture change in differentareas.

Steward was concerned with explaining specific cul-tural differences and similarities. Consequently, he wascritical of White’s vague generalities and his disregard ofenvironmental influences. White, on the other hand, as-serted that Steward fell into the historical-particularisttrap of paying too much attention to particular cases.

Marshall Sahlins (born 1930) and Elman Service(1915–1996), who were students and colleagues of bothWhite and Steward, combined the views of those twoindividuals by recognizing two kinds of evolution—specific and general.29 Specific evolution refers to theparticular sequence of change and adaptation of a par-ticular society in a given environment. General evolu-tion refers to a general progress of human society, inwhich higher forms (having higher-energy capture) arisefrom and surpass lower forms. Thus, specific evolution issimilar to Steward’s multilinear evolution, and generalevolution resembles White’s universal evolution. Al-though this synthesis does serve to integrate the twopoints of view, it does not give us a way of explainingwhy general evolutionary progress has occurred. But, un-like the early evolutionists, some of the later evolution-ists did suggest a mechanism to account for the evolutionof particular cultures—namely, adaptation to particularenvironments.

StructuralismClaude Lévi-Strauss (born 1908) has been the leadingproponent of an approach to cultural analysis calledstructuralism. Lévi-Strauss’s structuralism differs fromthat of Radcliffe-Brown. Whereas Radcliffe-Brown con-centrated on how the elements of a society function as asystem, Lévi-Strauss concentrates more on the origins ofthe systems themselves. He sees culture, as expressed inart, ritual, and the patterns of daily life, as a surface repre-sentation of the underlying structure of the human mind.Consider, for example, how he tries to account for whatanthropologists call a moiety system. Such a system is saidto exist if a society is divided into two large intermarryingkin groups (each called a moiety, probably derived fromthe French word moitié, meaning “half”). Lévi-Strausssays that moiety systems reflect the human mind’s predis-position to think and behave in terms of binary oppo-sitions (contrasts between one thing and another).30

Clearly, a moiety system involves a binary opposition: Youare born into one of two groups and you marry someonein the other. The problem with Lévi-Strauss’s explanationof moieties is that he is postulating a constant—thehuman mind’s supposed dualism—to account for a cul-tural feature that is not universal. Moiety systems arefound in only a relatively small number of societies, sohow could something that is universal explain somethingelse that is not?

Lévi-Strauss’s interpretations of cultural phenomena(which tend to be far more involved and difficult to followthan the example just described) have concentrated on thepresumed cognitive processes of people, the ways in whichpeople supposedly perceive and classify things in theworld around them. In studies such as The Savage Mindand The Raw and the Cooked, he suggested that even tech-nologically simple groups often construct elaborate sys-tems of classification of plants and animals, not only forpractical purposes but also out of a need for such intellec-tual activity.31

Structuralism has influenced thinking not only inFrance; Britain too has been receptive. But the Britishstructuralists, such as Edmund Leach, Rodney Needham,and Mary Douglas, do not follow Lévi-Strauss in lookingfor panhuman or universal principles in the human mind.Rather, they concentrate on applying structural analysis toparticular societies and particular social institutions.32 Forexample, Mary Douglas discusses an argument that tookplace in her home over whether soup is an “appropriate”supper. She suggests that meals (in her household andin culturally similar households) have certain structuralprinciples. They have contrasts—hot and cold, bland andspiced, liquid and semiliquid—and various textures. Theymust incorporate cereals, vegetables, and animal protein.Douglas concludes that, if the food served does not followthese principles, it cannot be considered a meal.33

Some structuralist writings have been criticized fortheir concentration on abstruse, theoretical analysis atthe expense of observation and evidence. For example, itis not always clear how Lévi-Strauss derived a particular



structuralist interpretation, and in the absence of anysystematically collected supporting evidence, readersmust decide whether the interpretation seems plausible.Thus, Lévi-Strauss’s studies have come to be regarded bymany as vague and untestable, as self-contained intellec-tual constructs with little explanatory value. Moreover,even if some universal patterns underlie cultural phe-nomena, universals or constants cannot explain culturaldifferences.

Ethnoscience and CognitiveAnthropology

Lévi-Strauss’s structuralist approach involves intuitivelygrasping the rules of thought that may underlie a givenculture. An ethnographic approach known as ethnoscienceattempts to derive these rules from a logical analysis ofethnographic data that are kept as free as possible from con-tamination by the observer’s own cultural biases. Ratherthan collecting data according to a predetermined set ofanthropological categories (referred to as an etic view),ethnoscientists seek to understand a people’s world fromtheir point of view (an emic view). Studying their languageusing systematic elicitation techniques, ethnoscientists tryto formulate the rules that underlie the cultural domains.The rules are believed to be comparable to the grammaticalrules that generate the correct use of the language. Researchcommonly focuses on kinship terms, plant and animal tax-onomies, and disease classification. Ethnoscience was anearly kind of cognitive anthropology.34 Later researchers

developed techniques to test whether the rules presumablyuncovered were being followed by other members of the so-ciety and how much“cultural consensus”there was on theserules. (As we will see later, techniques for evaluating culturalconsensus also provide ways of choosing the best people tointerview, who are likely to be most knowledgeable aboutthe culture.) Cognitive anthropologists also branched outto studying decision making, cultural goals and motiva-tions, and discourse analysis.35

Many ethnoscientists think that, if we can discover therules that generate cultural behavior, we can explain muchof what people do and why they do it. Probably individu-als do generally act according to the conscious and uncon-scious rules they have internalized. But we still need tounderstand why a particular society has developed theparticular cultural rules it has. Just as a grammar does notexplain how a language came to be what it is, an ethnosci-entific discovery of a culture’s rules does not explain whythose rules developed.

Cultural EcologySome anthropologists are concerned mostly with theinfluence of environment on culture. Julian Steward wasone of the first to advocate the study of culturalecology—the analysis of the relationship between a cul-ture and its environment. Steward felt that the explanationfor some aspects of cultural variation could be found inthe adaptation of societies to their particular environ-ments. But rather than merely hypothesize that the envi-ronment did or did not determine cultural variation,

Sometimes you can have too many pigs. A pig feast solves this problem and maintains or creates close ties between groups. Here wesee preparations for a pig feast on the island of Tanna in the New Hebrides.



Steward wished to resolve the question empirically—thatis, he wanted to carry out investigations to evaluate hisviewpoint.36

Steward felt, however, that cultural ecology must beseparated from biological ecology, the study of the rela-tionships between organisms and their environment.Later cultural ecologists, such as Andrew Vayda and RoyRappaport, wished to incorporate principles of biologi-cal ecology into the study of cultural ecology to make asingle science of ecology.37 In their view, cultural traits,just like biological traits, can be considered adaptive ormaladaptive. Cultural ecologists assume that culturaladaptation involves the mechanism of natural selection—the more frequent survival and reproduction of the bet-ter adapted. Environment, including the physical andsocial environments, affects the development of culturetraits in that “individuals or populations behaving in cer-tain different ways have different degrees of success insurvival and reproduction and, consequently, in thetransmission of their ways of behaving from generationto generation.”38

Consider how culture and environment may interactamong the Tsembaga, who live in the interior of NewGuinea.39 The Tsembaga live mainly on the root crops andgreens they grow in home gardens; they also raise pigs.The pigs are seldom eaten; instead, they keep residentialareas clean by consuming garbage, and they help preparethe soil for planting by rooting in it. Small numbers of pigsare easy to keep and require; they run free all day, return-ing at night to eat whatever substandard tubers are foundin the course of their owners’ harvesting of their daily ra-tions. But problems arise when the pig herd grows large.Often there are not enough substandard tubers, and thenthe pigs must be fed human rations. Also, a large herd islikely to intrude upon garden crops. If one person’s pig in-vades a neighbor’s garden, the garden owner often retali-ates by killing the offending pig. In turn, the dead animal’sowner may kill the garden owner, the garden owner’s wife,or one of his pigs. As the number of such feuds increases,people begin to put as much distance as possible betweentheir pigs and other people’s gardens.

Rappaport suggests that, to cope with the problem ofpig overpopulation, the Tsembaga developed an elaboratecycle of rituals involving the slaughter of large numbers ofsurplus pigs. The cultural practice of ritual pig feasts canbe viewed as a possible adaptation to environmental fac-tors that produce a surplus pig population. But it is hardto know if the ritual pig feasts are more adaptive thanother possible solutions to the problem of pig overpopula-tion. For example, it might be more adaptive to slaughterand eat pigs regularly so that pig herds never get too large.Without being able to contrast the effects of alternative so-lutions, a cultural ecologist studying a single society mayfind it difficult to obtain evidence that a custom already inplace is more adaptive than other possible solutions to theproblem.

More recent ecological anthropologists have criticizedthe earlier ecologists for having an overly narrow view of abounded culture in an isolated environment and have con-sidered the environment in a broader context—moving

well beyond the local ecosystem to national and even in-ternational levels.40 As we will discuss shortly, hardly anypeople on earth are unaffected by larger political, social,and environmental forces.

Political EconomyLike cultural ecology, the school of thought known aspolitical economy assumes that external forces explain theway a society changes and adapts. But it is not the naturalenvironment, or the social environment in general, that iscentral to the approach of political economy. What is cen-tral is the social and political impact of those powerfulstate societies (principally Spain, Portugal, Britain, andFrance) that transformed the world by colonialism andimperialism after the mid-1400s, and fostered the devel-opment of a worldwide economy or world system.41

Scholars now realize that imperialism is at least 5,000 yearsold; most, if not all, of the first civilizations were imperial-istic. Imperialistic expansion of the first state societies waslinked to expanding commercialization, the growth ofbuying and selling.42 Today, of course, the entire world islinked commercially. Not surprisingly, the political econ-omy orientation grew in importance as the global reach ofcapitalism accelerated.

Some of the earliest figures associated with the politicaleconomy approach in anthropology were trained atColumbia University when Julian Steward was a professorthere. For those students, Steward’s cultural ecology wasinsufficiently attentive to recent world history. Forexample, Eric Wolf and Sidney Mintz argued that thecommunities they studied in Puerto Rico developed asthey did because of colonialism and the establishment ofplantations to supply sugar and coffee to Europe andNorth America.43 And Eleanor Leacock, who studied theMontagnais-Naskapi Indians of Labrador, suggested thattheir system of family hunting territories was not an oldcharacteristic, present before European contact, but devel-oped instead out of the Indians’ early involvement in theEuropean-introduced fur trade.44

Central to the later and continuing intellectual devel-opment of political economy in anthropology are thewritings, published in the 1960s and 1970s, of two polit-ical sociologists, André Gunder Frank and ImmanuelWallerstein. Frank suggested that the development of aregion (Europe, for example) depended on the suppres-sion of development or underdevelopment of other re-gions (for example, the New World, Africa). He arguedthat, if we want to understand why a country remainsunderdeveloped, we must understand how developednations exploit it.45 Frank is concerned with what hap-pened in the underdeveloped world. Wallerstein is moreconcerned with how capitalism developed in the privi-leged countries and how the expansionist requirementsof the capitalist countries led to the emergence of theworld system.46

The political economy or world-system view has in-spired many anthropologists to study history more explic-itly and to explore the impact of external political andeconomic processes on local events and cultures in the



underdeveloped world. In the past, when anthropologistsfirst started doing fieldwork in the far corners of theworld, they could imagine that the cultures they werestudying or reconstructing could be investigated as ifthose cultures were more or less isolated from external in-fluences and forces. In the modern world, such isolationhardly exists. The political economy approach has re-minded us that the world, every part of it, is intercon-nected, for better or worse.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN ANTHROPOLOGICAL

THEORYIn recent years, anthropology has seen a range of new ap-proaches incorporated into anthropological theory. Manyof these approaches have been adopted from other disci-plines, such as evolutionary biology and literary criticism.They are providing anthropology with an increasing breadthof thought from which to address the many questions ofinterest to anthropologists today.

Evolutionary Ecology ApproachesThe various approaches discussed here share the ideathat natural selection can operate on the behavioral orsocial characteristics of populations, not just on theirphysical traits. If so, some of the human behavior we ob-serve, including those behaviors that vary by society,might be explained by evolutionary principles. Two im-portant works by biologists introduced these ideas to an-thropology: Edward O. Wilson’s book Sociobiology: TheNew Synthesis and Richard D. Alexander’s article “TheSearch for a General Theory of Behavior.”47 Sociobiologywas the term for this evolutionary approach. More re-cently, scholars have introduced varying theoreticalmodifications. The main theoretical perspectives arebehavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology, and dual-inheritance theory.48

Before looking at how these orientations differ fromeach other, let us first see how evolutionary ecologicaltheories, particularly behavioral ecology and evolution-ary psychology, differ from cultural ecology. Althoughboth orientations assume the importance of natural se-lection in cultural evolution, they differ in importantways. Cultural ecology focuses mostly on what biologistswould call group selection: Cultural ecologists talkmostly about how a certain behavioral or social charac-teristic may be adaptive for a group or society in a givenenvironment. (A newly emergent behavioral or socialtrait that is adaptive is likely to be passed on to futuregenerations by cultural transmission.) In contrast, evolu-tionary ecology focuses more on what biologists callindividual selection: Evolutionary ecologists talk mostlyabout how a certain characteristic may be adaptive foran individual in a given environment.49 Adaptive meansthe ability of individuals to get their genes into future

generations. This viewpoint implies that behavior istransmitted in some way (by genes or learning) to peoplewho share your genes (usually offspring).50 If a certainbehavior is adaptive for individuals in a particular envi-ronment (or a particular historical context in which theseindividuals are able to reproduce more than others), itshould become more widespread in future generationsas the individuals with those traits increase in number.Whereas a cultural ecologist such as Rappaport mightconsider how ritual pig feasts were adaptive for the Tsem-baga as a whole, evolutionary ecologists would insist thatto speak of adaptation it must be shown how the pigfeasts benefited individuals and their closest kin.

Behavioral ecology typically tries to understand the re-lationship of human behavior to the environment.51 Inaddition to the principle of individual selection, behav-ioral ecologists point to the importance of analyzing eco-nomic tradeoffs because individuals have limited timeand resources. As we will see later in the economics chap-ter, the theory of optimal foraging is used to explain thedecision-making behavior of recent hunter-gatherers.Evolutionary psychology, on the other hand, is moreinterested in universal human psychology. It is arguedthat human psychology was primarily adapted to theenvironment that characterized most of human history—our hunting-gathering way of life.52 Dual-inheritancetheory, in contrast to the other evolutionary perspectives,gives much more importance to culture as part of theevolutionary process. Dual inheritance refers to bothgenes and culture playing different but nonethelessimportant and interactive roles in transmitting traits tofuture generations.53

The behavioral ecological approaches have led to an ac-tive program of research in anthropology. However, theseapproaches have aroused considerable controversy, partic-ularly from those cultural anthropologists who do not

Women have recently become a more important focus of re-search in anthropology. A Trobriand Island woman in PapuaNew Guinea stacks yams during the yam harvest festival.



Applied anthropology in the UnitedStates goes back to the late 1800s,when the government focused on“applied ethnology” to help with theadministration of programs dealingwith Native Americans, but it was onlyduring and after the Great Depressionand World War II that applied anthro-pological work increased significantly.Applied work during this earlier timeusually involved research and consul-tation, with no active role in bringingabout change. However, by the 1950sand afterward, applied anthropolo-gists began to be more involved in di-rected social change.

Applied anthropology came tomaturity at the same time that anthro-pology was re-discovering the impor-tance of theory. As the influence ofBoas and historical particularismwaned, American anthropologistsbegan to explore new areas of theory,and began to collaborate with ecolo-gists, economists, and others to de-velop the variety of theoreticalperspectives that populate the disci-pline today. In putting anthropologyto use, applied anthropologists drawupon theoretical orientations andspecific theories within those orienta-tions. To illustrate this, we will drawupon examples from nutritional

anthropology, a field that involves an-thropologists from all the major sub-disciplines.

Applied nutritional anthropologistsare actively engaged in matters ofpublic health, such as how infants arefed and grow, gender inequality in ac-cess to food, dietary insufficiencies,and serious malnutrition and starva-tion. Three of the most important the-oretical perspectives involve ecology,evolutionary adaptation, and politicaleconomy. The ecological perspectivenot only emphasizes the effects of thephysical and social environment onwhat people grow, the technologythey use, and their patterns of con-sumption, but also considers the ef-fects of these patterns on theenvironment. Adaptation can involvegenetic changes, such as the ability ofsome populations to digest raw milk,or cultural adaptations such as devel-oping processing techniques to makecertain plants edible (i.e., bitter man-ioc that contains toxic amounts ofcyanide prior to processing). The po-litical economy perspective points toinequalities in nutrition due to classand status differences within societiesand the increasing disparity betweenthe developed and undeveloped so-cieties around the world. In working

The Relationship Between Theory and Practice

applied anthropology

on change programs to improve nutri-tion, applied anthropologists have tobe pragmatic—to try to find theoriesthat may help understand and there-fore help solve some problem. Theyoften work with practitioners from dif-ferent fields and are not likely to bedogmatic about which theoretical ori-entation to draw upon.

Applied anthropologists do not seethemselves as simply borrowing the-ory; they see their work as central tothe task of theory building. For onething, the work of applied anthropolo-gists provides a “natural laboratory”for evaluating theory, where hypothe-ses can be tested empirically. Further,in applying new aspects of or chal-lenges to the theory, ones not en-countered in more academic or pureresearch settings, are often brought tolight. Finally, because theory is closelylinked to methods (as the informationthat a theory identifies as being im-portant will shape the way researcherscollect information), applied anthro-pologists are often at the forefront ofmethodological innovation.

Sources: Eddy and Partridge 1987; C. Hill2000; Himmelgreen and Crooks 2005;Pelto et al. 2000; Van Willigen 2002, 25–30.

believe that biological considerations have much to dowith understanding culture.

Feminist ApproachesWomen have played an important role in the history ofanthropology. Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and MaryDouglas are just a few of the women who have made last-ing contributions to the discipline. Yet the study ofwomen and women’s roles in other cultures was relativelyrare, and, by the 1960s, women anthropologists beganasking why women were not a more important focus ofresearch. It was not accidental that this movement coin-cided with the “women’s movement” in the United States.One group of scholars argued that women were in sub-servient positions in all cultures, and hence were largely

“invisible” to anthropologists studying those cultures.Another group argued that, although women historicallyheld positions of power and authority in many cultures,the impact of colonization and capitalism had movedthem into subservient positions. In either case, it becameclear to these scholars that a focused effort on studyingthe roles of women was necessary, and feminist anthro-pology was born.

Feminist anthropology is a highly diverse area of re-search. Feminist anthropologists share an interest in therole of women in culture, but vary widely in how theyapproach this common interest. Some feminist anthro-pologists take an overtly political stance, seeing theirtask as identifying ways in which women are exploitedand working to overcome them. Others simply try tounderstand women’s lives and how they differ from



those of men. Despite the diversity, feminist anthropol-ogy shares a critical assessment of traditional scholar-ship and understanding the importance of power.54 Inthese ways, feminist anthropology shares a good dealwith the political economy perspective as well as post-modernism, which we discuss shortly. In some cases,entirely new understandings of other cultures havecome from feminist scholarship. For example, AnnetteWeiner studied the same culture that Malinowski had, inthe Trobriand Islands, and found that Malinowski hadoverlooked an entire women-run economic system.55

Similarly, Sally Slocum pointed out that, although hunt-ing was a focus for paleoanthropologists interested inhuman origins, the gathering of wild foods, typically afemale activity, was hardly discussed at all, even thoughgathered foods are more important than hunted foodsin the diets of some recent foragers. Slocum’s workforced paleoanthropologists to consider the role ofgathered foods and, consequently, of women, in humanevolution.56

One of the most important effects feminist researchhas had on anthropology is the recognition that percep-tions of other cultures are shaped by the observer’sculture and how the observer behaves in the field.Male researchers may not be able to ask about or observesome women’s roles, just as women may not be able toask about or observe some men’s roles. More broadly,feminist scholarship suggested that the scientific ap-proach was only one way of studying other cultures, andthat different ways of studying other cultures might leadto different understandings. From this insight grew twopowerful theoretical agendas that continue to affect an-thropology today.

One agenda stemming from feminist scholarship isthat science is inherently male in its orientation and thatits impact on the world has been to further the subjuga-tion of women. But female scientists would strongly dis-agree: Science is neither male nor female. A secondagenda, less radical than the first, is to experiment withalternative ways of studying and describing other cul-tures, ways that give more voice to the people being stud-ied and that allow for the feelings, opinions, and insightsof the observer to be openly expressed in anthropologicalwriting. Many of these feminist anthropologists haveused personal narratives, storytelling, and even poetry asways to express their understanding of the cultures theyhave studied.57

Interpretive ApproachesThe “literary turn” in anthropology, in which anthropolo-gists began to experiment with fiction, personal insights,and even poetry as forms of ethnography, did not comesolely out of feminist anthropology. Since the 1960s, writ-ers in the field of literary criticism have influenced thedevelopment of a variety of “interpretive” approaches incultural anthropology, particularly with respect to ethnog-raphy.58 Clifford Geertz (1926–2006) popularized the ideathat a culture is like a literary text that can be analyzed for

meaning, as the ethnographer interprets it. According toGeertz, ethnographers choose to interpret the meaning ofthings in their field cultures that are of interest to them-selves. Then they try to convey their interpretations of cul-tural meaning to people of their own culture. Thus,according to Geertz, ethnographers are a kind of selectiveintercultural translator.59

For many interpretive anthropologists, the goal of an-thropology is to understand what it means to be a personliving in a particular culture, rather than to explain whycultures vary. The task of understanding meaning, thesescholars claim, cannot be achieved scientifically, but canonly be approached through forms of literary analysis.Among the most important of these is hermeneutics—the study of meaning. Using hermeneutics, anthropo-logists might examine a particular behavior, closelyexamining the interactions of people, the language theyuse, and the symbols they employ (both physical and lin-guistic) to derive what that behavior means to the peopleengaged in it. One of the most famous examples isGeertz’s analysis of cockfighting on the Indonesian islandof Bali, which he suggests reflects, and thus allows us tocomprehend, the Balinese worldview.60

A key facet of interpretive analyses is that they areopenly subjective and personal. Geertz’s interpretation ofthe Balinese cockfight is neither right nor wrong—it issimply his. Another anthropologist viewing the same phe-nomenon might come to a completely different interpreta-tion. Interpretive anthropologists accept this as part of thenature of being human. They suggest that no human seesthe world in quite the same way, so that no interpretationof human behavior can or should be the same. Anthropol-ogy, then, becomes a reflection of the anthropologist asmuch as it is a description of other peoples. For manyanthropologists, this self-centered approach makes inter-pretive anthropology very unappealing; for others, it is theonly truthful way to work.

Some anthropologists think that interpretation is theonly achievable goal in cultural anthropology becausethey do not believe it is possible to describe or measurecultural phenomena (and other things involving humans)in objective or unbiased ways. Scientific anthropologistsdo not agree. To be sure, interpretive ethnographies mightprovide insights. But we do not have to believe what an in-terpretation suggests, no matter how eloquently it isstated. (We are rarely given objective evidence to supportthe interpretation.) Scientific researchers have developedmany techniques for minimizing bias and increasing theobjectivity of measurement. Thus, interpretative anthro-pologists who deny the possibility of scientific under-standing of human behavior and thinking may not knowhow much has been achieved so far by scientific studies ofcultural phenomena, which we try to convey in the chap-ters that follow.

As Dan Sperber has suggested, the task of interpreta-tion in cultural anthropology is clearly different from thetask of explanation.61 The goal of interpretation is to con-vey intuitive understanding of human experiences in aparticular culture (intuitive in the sense of not requiring



conscious reasoning or systematic methods of inquiry).Thus, interpretative ethnographers are like novelists (orliterary critics). In contrast, the goal of explanation is toprovide causal and general understanding of cultural phe-nomena (causal in the sense of mechanisms that accountfor why something comes to be shared in a population,and general in the sense of applying to a number of simi-lar cases).

Does the goal (interpretation vs. explanation) precludeor invalidate the other? We don’t think so. We shareSperber’s view that interpretation and explanation are notopposed goals: They are just different kinds of under-standing. Indeed, an intuitive interpretation described incausal and general terms might turn out, when scientifi-cally tested, to be a powerful explanation.

Postmodernist ApproachesPostmodernism in its broadest sense rejects “modernism.”There are many postmodern movements—in the arts, inliterature, in philosophy, in history, and in anthropology,among others. In anthropology, post-structuralism is aclosely related term. It is difficult to summarize what post-modernism is in anthropology because postmodernism it-self rejects authoritative definitions and any one narrativeof events.62 Not only is all knowledge subjective in the post-modern view, it is also actively shaped by the politicalpowers-that-be. One of the most influential postmoderntheorists is the French philosopher Michel Foucault(1926–1984). Foucault argued that those in political powerwere able to shape the way accepted truths were defined. Inthe modern age, truth is defined through science, andscience, in turn, is controlled by Western political andintellectual elites.63 Science, then, is not only a way ofunderstanding the world, it is a way of controlling and dom-inating it. Many of the others who had an influence on post-structuralism or postmodernism also were importantFrench intellectuals—for example, Pierre Bourdieu, RolandBarthes, Jacques Lacan, and Jacques Derrida. Whereasstructuralism was implicitly comparative—looking forsimilarities in underlying structure—post-structuralismemphasizes extreme relativity, not only between, but alsowithin cultures.

Postmodernism questions the whole enterprise ofethnography. Ethnography is viewed as being “constructed,”almost as a work of fiction.64 For anthropologists who ac-cept the postmodern view of science, anthropology is justanother tool used by dominant powers to control others.By studying others “objectively,” we dehumanize the peo-ple being studied. Turning people into objects for study al-lows them to become objects that can be molded and usedby the political powers-that-be. Postmodern anthropolo-gists have not given up writing about other cultures, buthave experimented with different styles of ethnography,such as having a variety of different people speak forthemselves.65

Not surprisingly, the postmodern movement in an-thropology, which effectively questioned all the descrip-tive work from the past and present, as well as all the

attempts to test and evaluate theory, created an enormousschism in anthropology, one that is still present today.How can anthropology continue to exist if its efforts con-tribute to the domination and control of others? Post-modern scholars answer that anthropology must transformitself into a purely activist discipline that seeks to expressthe voices of the dominated rather than to study or inter-pret them. Anthropology should be a conduit for the dis-enfranchised and subjugated to be heard. Even so, doesthat preclude anthropology from being scientific?

The Pragmatic ApproachMany, perhaps most, anthropologists do not have a par-ticular theoretical orientation that drives their researchagenda. In the interest of being honest about our own ori-entations, we consider ourselves to be in this category. Wedo believe that anthropology can strive for humanistic un-derstanding and be scientific at the same time. The impor-tant priority for us is the research question. Whatever theresearch question you ask, it is important to see what oth-ers have said about that question. The various theoriesmay come from different orientations, but the importantthing is not where ideas come from, but where they leadyou and what you can predict. Similarly, for us, there isalso no one correct method of conducting research. Dif-ferent strategies have advantages and disadvantages, andprogress is most likely by examining theoretical ideas fromdifferent vantage points. To be sure, it is not likely that anyone researcher will be completely open to all points ofview. It is all the more important then for different re-searchers with different perspectives to tackle the sameresearch questions.

To a great extent, the scientific study of human behav-ior depends upon the belief that it is possible to find an-swers to puzzling questions about humans. If you do notbelieve that there are answers, you will not waste yourtime looking. Our belief that the scientific study ofhumans and their cultures is possible is bolstered by themany patterns we have already discovered. Althoughpostmodern, interpretive, and some feminist approacheshave challenged the very foundations of anthropology,anthropology as a discipline continues to thrive. In part,this is because anthropologists have learned importantlessons from the work of feminist, interpretive, and post-modern scholars. No anthropologist working today couldignore women’s roles, for example. It is no longer possibleto ignore half of humanity. Understanding meaning,along with explaining variation, is now a parallel goal ofanthropology. Anthropologists realize that their knowl-edge of others is possibly subjective and imperfect, butthat doesn’t mean it is impossible to study humans andtheir cultures scientifically.

The FutureIt is difficult to predict what anthropological theory willbe like in the future. Some ideas are likely to be discardedor ignored, and others revised. Scholarly disciplines and



theories are very much the products of their times, andunderstanding how and why ideas have changed is partof what we need to understand. But some theoreticalapproaches and theories lead to greater understandingbecause they are more predictive of the world around us.In the next chapter, we examine the logic of explanationand evidence and how theory can be tested by anthropo-logical research.

SUMMARY � � �

1. Which aspects of life anthropologists concentrate onusually reflects their theoretical orientation, subjectinterest, or preferred method of research.

2. A theoretical orientation is usually a general attitudeabout how cultural phenomena are to be explained.

3. Ideas about evolution took a long time to take holdbecause they contradicted the biblical view of events;species were viewed as fixed in their form by the cre-ator. But in the 18th and early 19th centuries, increas-ing evidence suggested that evolution was a viabletheory. In geology, the concept of uniformitarianismsuggested that the earth is constantly subject to shap-ing and reshaping by natural forces working over vaststretches of time. A number of thinkers during thisperiod began to discuss evolution and how it mightoccur.

4. The prevailing theoretical orientation in anthropol-ogy during the 19th century was based on a belief thatculture generally evolves in a uniform and progressivemanner; that is, most societies were believed to passthrough the same series of stages, to arrive ultimatelyat a common end. Two proponents of this early theoryof cultural evolution were Edward B. Tylor and LewisHenry Morgan.

5. The diffusionist approach, popular in the late 19thand early 20th centuries, was developed by two mainschools—the British and the German-Austrian. Ingeneral, diffusionists believed that most aspects ofhigh civilization had emerged in culture centers fromwhich they then diffused outward.

6. During the early 20th century, the leading opponentof evolutionism was Franz Boas, whose historical par-ticularism rejected the way in which early evolution-ists had assumed that universal laws governed allhuman culture. Boas stressed the importance of col-lecting as much anthropological data as possible, fromwhich the laws governing cultural variation wouldsupposedly emerge by themselves.

7. The psychological orientation in anthropology, whichbegan in the 1920s, seeks to understand how psycho-logical factors and processes may help us explain cul-tural practices.

8. Functionalism in social science looks for the part(function) that some aspect of culture or social lifeplays in maintaining a cultural system. There are twoquite different schools of functionalism. Malinowski’s

version of functionalism assumes that all culturaltraits serve the needs of individuals in a society.Radcliffe-Brown’s felt that the various aspects of socialbehavior maintain a society’s social structure ratherthan satisfying individual needs.

9. In the 1940s, Leslie A. White revived the evolutionaryapproach to cultural development. White believedthat technological development, or the amount of en-ergy harnessed per capita, was the main driving forcecreating cultural evolution. Anthropologists such asJulian H. Steward, Marshall Sahlins, and Elman Ser-vice have also presented evolutionary viewpoints.

10. Claude Lévi-Strauss has been the leading proponentof structuralism. Lévi-Strauss sees culture, as it is ex-pressed in art, ritual, and the patterns of daily life, as asurface representation of the underlying patterns ofthe human mind.

11. Whereas Lévi-Strauss’s structuralist approach involvesintuitively grasping the rules of thought that mayunderlie a given culture, an ethnographic approachknown as ethnoscience attempts to derive these rulesfrom a logical analysis of data—particularly the wordspeople use to describe their activities. In this way,ethnoscientists try to formulate the rules that generateacceptable behavior in a given culture. Cognitive an-thropology has its roots in ethnoscience.

12. Cultural ecology seeks to understand the relationshipsbetween cultures and their physical and social envi-ronments. Cultural ecologists ask how a particularculture trait may be adaptive in its environment.

13. The theoretical orientation called political economyfocuses on the impact of external political and eco-nomic processes, particularly as connected to colo-nialism and imperialism, on local events and culturesin the underdeveloped world. The political economyapproach has reminded us that all parts of the worldare interconnected for better or worse.

14. Evolutionary ecology involves the application of bio-logical evolutionary principles to the social behaviorof animals, including humans.

15. Feminist approaches were born from the realizationthat the study of women and women’s roles in othercultures was relatively rare. Some feminist anthropol-ogists take an overtly political stance, seeing their taskas identifying ways in which women are exploited andworking to overcome them. Others simply try tounderstand women’s lives and how they differ fromthose of men.

16. For many interpretive anthropologists, the goal ofanthropology is to understand what it means to be aperson living in a particular culture, rather than toexplain why cultures vary. The task of understandingmeaning, these scholars claim, cannot be achieved sci-entifically, but can only be approached through formsof literary analysis.

17. Postmodernists take the interpretative idea that allknowledge is subjective, further arguing that knowl-edge is actively shaped by the political powers-that-be.


18. There are anthropologists who do not follow any par-ticular theoretical orientation or prefer any particularsubject matter or method of research. These anthro-pologists think of themselves as having a pragmaticorientation, using different methods and theories toanswer different research questions.

GLOSSARY TERMS � � �

behavioral ecology 26cultural ecology 24dual-inheritance

theory 26ethnoscience 24eugenics 19evolutionary

psychology 26functionalism 21general evolution 23

genus 16group selection 26hermeneutics 28individual selection 26political economy 25sociobiology 26specific evolution 23structuralism 23theoretical

orientation 14

2. In anthropology, as in many other fields, one theoreti-cal orientation will arise and may grow in popularityuntil another is proposed in opposition to it. Is thiskind of rejection healthy for a discipline? If so, why? Ifnot, why not?

3. Although anthropology is holistic in including thestudy of humans as both biological organisms and ascultural or social organisms, cultural and biologicaltheories are rarely considered together. Why do youthink? Explain why you think that this helps or hin-ders anthropology.


Read Richard Scaglion, “Abelam: Giant Yams and Cycles ofSex, Warfare and Ritual” on MyAnthroLab and answer thefollowing questions:

1. Describe what Scaglion means by the “ethnographicpresent.” Does using that concept allow for studyingcultural change?

2. Pick two of the theoretical orientations you have readabout in this chapter, then indicate how they mightpoint toward an explanation of some aspects of theyam-growing cycle.”

CRITICAL QUESTIONS � � �

1. Does a theoretical orientation enhance one’s way oflooking at the world, or does it blind one to other pos-sibilities? Explain your answer.


chapter 2 h anthropological theory history of - pearson · early anthropological theory in...

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