Marxist anthropology developed as a response to growing dissatisfaction with contemporary theory. It shifted the focus away from seeing small-scale societies as isolated units and toward understanding them as integrated elements of a colonial and post-colonial world.
Key Theoretical Critiques
- Against Isolation: Marxist scholars questioned treating societies as suspended in time and space.
- Against Functionalism: They rejected the tendency to attribute equal force to every element in a social system.
- Against Structuralism: They challenged the idea that social life is driven by thought structures rather than the practical outcome of human actions.
The Materialist Debate: Structural Marxism vs. Cultural Materialism
A central debate in the 1960s and 70s focused on the relationship between material conditions and human ideas (consciousness).
| Feature | Structural Marxism | Cultural Materialism |
| Key Figures | Godelier, Friedman | Marvin Harris |
| Role of Ideas | Ideas and material conditions react back upon each other. | Material conditions strictly determine consciousness. |
| Kinship | Part of both infrastructure and superstructure. | Subordinate to technology and demography. |
| Perspective | Internal/Integrated. | Etic (Observer-based) judge of reality. |
Marvin Harris and the “Etic” Perspective
Marvin Harris uncompromisingly rejected the idea that thoughts can transform material conditions. He placed primary emphasis on:
- Technology: The tools used for production.
- Demography: Population levels and reproductive rates.
- Etic Perspective: The hallmark of elevating the observer to the ultimate judge of concepts, dismissing the emic (insider) view as an “obscuring of tenets.”
Primitive Communalism Reassessed
Until the 1960s, hunter-gatherers were thought to live a precarious, near-starvation existence. Startling data from northern Australia and Tanzania turned this view upside-down.
The “Original Affluent Society”
- Limited Objectives: Sahlins (1974) concluded that hunter-gatherers had an “economy of limited objectives,” foraging only until they had enough for the time being.
- Efficiency: * Aboriginal camps: 4–5 hours of work per day.
- Hadza (Tanzania): Less than 2 hours per day.
- !Kung San (Dobe): 2 hours 9 minutes per day.
- Conclusion: One person’s labor could support 4 to 5 people, making it as efficient as French farming prior to World War II.
Immediate vs. Delayed Return Systems
Woodburn (1982) identified two distinct political-economic systems:
- Immediate Return: People forage for daily needs; no storage; simple technology; highly egalitarian and flexible social groupings (e.g., Hadza).
- Delayed Return: Labor is invested in assets (boats, fish traps, crops). Rights are held over these assets, leading to differences in power between owners and non-owners.
The Lineage Mode of Production
The concept of the lineage mode of production, introduced by Meillassoux (1964), describes societies where households are bound by inherited property and joint management.
- Political Consequences:
- Authority of Elders: Junior members are subject to elders to inherit subsistence resources.
- Strategic Marriage: Women are often used as pawns in marriage exchanges to maintain inter-lineage alliances.
- Ideology: Kinship provides the justification for group membership and coordinates labor.
Modes of Production and Colonial Impact
Eric Wolf (1982) classified human societies into three primary modes to analyze the impact of Europe since AD 1400.
| Mode of Production | Core Characteristic |
| Kin-ordered | Social kinship locates people into labor relationships from birth. |
| Tributary | Centralized states where rulers extract surplus from primary producers via coercion. |
| Capitalist | Land and labor become commodities; owners of capital reinvest profits to expand. |
The Transformation of Slavery
Between the 17th and 19th centuries, the slave trade was a “triangular” predatory relationship controlled by Europe.
- Asante Confederation: Benefited from New World crops and transformed from a lineage-based society to a centralized polity based on slave supply.
- Internal Mechanisms: Traditional “pawnship” (settling debts through labor) was exploited to feed the massive demand for slaves on Caribbean sugar plantations.
Capitalism in the Rural Economy: A Case Study
Duffield’s (1981) study of Maiurno (Sudan) demonstrates the corrosive effects of capitalism on rural life.
Social Stratification via Technology
- Introduction of Irrigation: In the 1950s, colonial authorities introduced irrigated cotton.
- Displacement: Wealthy families (like the son of Mai Wurno) were granted leases, while poor peasants were displaced to “rain land.”
- Tractorization: In the 1960s, tractors allowed the wealthy to clear more land, eliminating the fallow phase and causing long-term soil impoverishment.
The “Moral Economy of the Peasant”
James Scott (1976) argues that peasants use two strategies to reduce risk: relying on reliable traditional crops and instituting social arrangements like reciprocal work parties. Capitalism is inimical to both, as it prioritizes resource extraction for the “metropolitan power” over the subsistence needs of the local population.