The Idea of Structuralism by Claude Levi Strauss. Then came the Culture Personality School and then came the Cultural Materialism School by Marvin Harris. So if we look at immediately backwards, so these were the schools that were there. So Structuralism was talking about that the culture is the product of mind. It is embedded in the psyche of the individual. So it is the product of the mind. But there was a shift afterwards because where structuralism and culture, personality school was involved. They were talking about the psychological aspect. They had added the psychological aspect to the culture itself. And it was talking about the non¬-material aspect. But when cultural materialism came in, it had again taken the the the whole evolution, the whole culture to material aspect. So there was a shift, there was a shift in methodology.
So when the symbolic and interpretive theory came in first they rooted it back to the non-material aspect. That means they again believe that there is the role of this psychology or the mind or the non-material philosophical. Ideological part of the culture is important. So again the methodological shift is there. That means somewhere down the line they are saying that non material aspect of culture, the ideology is also important. But then they also added the material aspect to it.
They criticize structuralism or Levy Strauss because they believe that Levi Strauss were saying culture is a product of mind. That means it is inside the mind of the individual. But symbolic and interpretive theory said no. It is not in the mind of the individual, it is out there. We can see it, we can observe it and it is for us to make meaningful conclusions out of that.
Then cultural materialism was giving a lot of emphasis on the material aspect of the culture. So again, because there is an element of psychology, there is an element of beliefs. So again they critique cultural materialism because they avoided the non material aspect of the culture.
what symbols are? there are two words symbol and sign. For example, if I say that somewhere I see smoke. What would be its logical conclusion? That there was fire. Because there is no smoke without fire. So if I see smoke, I would believe that there must have been some fire. That is why there is smoke. But to give an example of symbol, I can examin Vermilion (Sindur in Hindi). So whenever we see Sindur in someone’s head we attach it to the value that she's a married woman. This is what we believe. But this is not a sign, because sign is a very logical or, so to say, a very scientific conclusion. But Sindoor on forehead is not a very logical or scientific conclusion because if somebody from a Western culture comes in for the first time to India and see a Sindhoor, they might not be able to logically conclude the meaning of it. So that means symbols are very culturally determined. They are a product of culture. They are culturally driven. They have a value that is that is attached to it via culture. Hence they are not very logical because there are different cultures around the world, there are different practices around the world, and there are different symbols around the world.
Zoroastrianism
The same way, Zoroastrianism, there's a lot of value that is attached to fire. But we might not know it or attach the same value to fire in hindu clture. Similarly in Jainism there is a lot of value that is attached. So every culture, every different society has different symbols which you can only interpret in the culture itself or with the emic perspective. So symbol is a very culturally determined thing. Everything is out there, out there, manifested in the symbols of the cultures. The job of the anthropology anthropologist is to attach meanings to those symbols.
So you understand now what why they have critiqued cultural materialism and structuralism. Because materialism purely didn't attach any non-material aspect. The idea, the idea of beliefs, ideas were not at all given importance as structuralism it said it is in the culture, is in the psyche of individual. But symbolism and interpretive theory says culture is not in the psyche. It is out there in public, in the behavior, the actions of the people that are symbolic.
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