(Anthropology Paper I)

Syllabus Section: 6. Anthropological theories

 

What Is Cultural Materialism?

• Cultural materialism explains cultural similarities and differences as well as models for cultural change within a societal framework consisting of three distinct levels: infrastructure, structure and superstructure.
• Cultural materialism shows that cultures are primarily adaptive solutions to the material circumstances of life and hence people with similar technologies in similar environments will tend to evolve similar arrangements of labor in production and distribution, similar kinds of social grouping and similar value and belief systems
• Cultural materialism promotes the idea that infrastructure, consisting of “material realities” such as technological, economic and reproductive (demographic) factors mold and influences the other two aspects of culture.
• The “structure” sector of culture consists of organizational aspects of culture such as domestic and kinship systems and political economy, while the “superstructure” sector consists of ideological and symbolic aspects of society such as religion.
• Therefore, cultural materialists believe that technological and economic aspects play the primary role in shaping a society.
• Cultural materialism aims to understand the effects of technological, economic and demographic factors on molding societal structure and superstructure through strictly scientific methods.
• As stated by Harris, cultural materialism strives to “create a pan-human science of society whose findings can be accepted on logical and evidentiary grounds by the pan-human community"
• Cultural Materialists believe that all societies operate according to model in which production and reproduction dominate and determine the other sectors of culture (See Key Concepts ‘Priority of Infrastructure’), effectively serving as the driving forces behind all cultural development.
• They propose that all non-infrastructure aspects of society are created with the purpose of benefitting societal productive and reproductive capabilities.
• Therefore, systems such as government, religion, law, and kinship are considered to be constructs that only exist for the sole purpose of promoting production and reproduction.
• Calling for empirical research and strict scientific methods in order to make accurate comparisons between separate cultures, proponents of cultural materialism believe that its perspective effectively explains both intercultural variation and similarities

Principle Concepts of Cultural materialism

• Concept of Emic: This term denotes an approach to anthropological inquiry where the observer attempts to “get inside the heads” of the natives and learn the rules and categories of a culture in order to be able to think and act as if they were a member of the population. Cultural materialism focuses on how the emics of thought and the behavior of a native population are the results of etic processes (i.e., observable phenomena).
• Concept of Etic: This term denotes an approach to anthropological inquiry where the observer does not emphasize or use native rules or categories but instead uses "alien" empirical categories and rules derived from the strict use of the scientific method. Quantifiable measurements such as fertility rates, kilograms of wheat per household and average rainfall are used to understand cultural circumstances, regardless of what these measurements may mean to the individuals within the population. Cultural materialism focuses on the etics of thought and the etics of behavior of a native population to explain culture change.
• Etic behavioral mode of production: The etic behavioral mode of production involves the actions of a society that satisfy the minimal requirements for subsistence. The important thing to remember here is that these actions are determined and analyzed from a scientific perspective, without regard for their meaning to the members of the native society.
• Etic behavioral mode of reproduction: The etic behavioral mode of reproduction involves the actions that a society takes in order to limit detrimental increases or decreases to population. These actions are determined and analyzed from a scientific perspective by the observer, without regard for their meaning to the members of the native society.
• Infrastructure: The infrastructure consists of etic behavioral modes of production and etic modes of reproduction as determined by the combination of ecological, technological, environmental, and demographic variables.
• Structure: The structure is characterized by the organizational aspects of a culture consisting of the domestic economy (e.g., kinship, division of labor) and political economy. Political economy involves issues of control by a force above that of the domestic household whether it is a government or a chief.
• Superstructure: The superstructure is the symbolic or ideological segment of culture. Ideology consists of a code of social order regarding how social and political organization is structured. It structures the obligations and rights of all the members of society. The superstructure involves things such as ritual, taboos, and symbols.

Methodology

• Harris writes, "Empirical science is the foundation of the cultural materialist way of knowing".
• Cultural materialism focuses only on those entities and events that are observable and quantifiable.
• Using empirical methods, cultural materialists reduce cultural phenomena into observable, measurable variables that can be applied across societies to formulate nomothetic (general laws) theories.
• Harris’s basic approach to the study of culture is to show how Emic (native) thoughts and behaviors are a result of material considerations.

Accomplishments

• Cultural materialism can be credited with challenging anthropology to use more scientific research methods. Rather than rely solely on native explanations of phenomenon, Harris and others urged analysts to use empirical and replicable methods.
• Cultural materialism also promoted the notion that culture change can be studied across geographic and temporal boundaries in order to get at so- called universal, nomothetic theories.
• Etic approach to cultural phenomena may uncover vital information that would be otherwise missed by a wholly emic analysis.

Criticism

• Cultural materialism has been termed "vulgar materialism" by Marxists such as J. Friedman because opponents believe that the cultural materialists empirical approach to culture change is too simple and straightforward
• Idealists such as Structuralists (e.g., Durkheim and his followers) argue that the key to understanding culture change lies in the Emic thoughts and behaviors of members of a native society. Thus, in contrast to cultural materialists, they argue that there is no need for an etic/Emic distinction
• Postmodernists also argue vehemently against cultural materialism because of its use of strict scientific method. They argue that the use of any science is useless in studying culture, and that cultures should be studied using particularism and relativism (Harris 1995: 63). This is a direct attack on cultural materialism with its objective studies and cross- cultural comparisons.