Cultural materialism: what is this research approach and how does it work

Anthropology, especially throughout the 20th century, has developed a whole series of perspectives from which to approach analyzes.

One of the best known is that of cultural materialism. In this article we will review this concept, discover how it arose and what are the main characteristics that differentiate it from other ways of conducting anthropological studies, understanding the pros and cons of this methodology.

• Related article: "Anthropology: what is it and what is the history of this scientific discipline"

What is cultural materialism?

Cultural materialism refers to a specific way of guiding anthropological research, characterized by putting the focus precisely in the material issues of a society and thus be able to determine, based on them, the degree of development that said human group would have acquired.

Is about a concept created by author Marvin Harris, an American anthropologist who developed his career in the second half of the last century and whose ideas are still in vogue today

. Among all his contributions, that of cultural materialism is the one that had the most impact and for which he is usually known within this field of knowledge.

His approach to this system was first seen in the book The Development of Anthropological Theory, which he published in 1968. Later he continued to deepen this concept and developed it extensively, through the volume Cultural Materialism, which was published in 1979.

In order to create this idea, Marvin Harris had the influence of other currents, especially the socialist authors Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and also for the work Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power, by the author Karl August Wittfogel. He also collected ideas from other anthropologists, such as Lewis Henry Morgan, Sir Edward Burnett Tylor or Herbert Spencer.

The last influences that Marvin Harris took to develop the theory of cultural materialism were those of cultural evolution and cultural ecology. of the also American anthropologists, Julian Haynes Steward and Leslie Alvin White, providing the evolutionary touch from which his approach also draws.

Components of cultural materialism

For Marvin Harris, through cultural materialism a distinction can be established by levels of three different forms of society systems, which would be infrastructure, structure and superstructure.

1. Infrastructure

The infrastructure would be the most basic of them. This level is relative to the most basic needs of society and the way in which they are being satisfied.. This level would be acting as a foundation for others.

The infrastructure would have two main aspects, which would be production, in terms of the form of technology that said society uses and its ways of providing resources food and energy, and reproduction, referring to all issues related to the population level, either with measures that seek to increase, decrease or reduce it. keep it.

• You may be interested in: "Marvin Harris: Biography of this American Anthropologist"

2. Structure

Above the infrastructure, there would be the structure, the second level of cultural materialism. At this level, the anthropological analysis would already be contemplating other more complex features of the social group, such as the way it is organized at an economic or political level.

In that vision of the economic organization They range from domestic economies to the predominant global economic systems. Therefore, the exchange of resources at all levels will be studied. The same occurs with the political structure, which will go from the particular, analyzing the roles of individuals at the family level, to the social distribution of the entire group.

The relationships between different groups or societies, the forms of economic and political interaction will also be taken into account. Likewise, the way in which work is distributed among the inhabitants and the hierarchies that are formed will be studied.

3. Superstructure

The third step in this series of levels that analyze the composition of a society, we reach that of the superstructure. This is the most complex level of all, and it is supported by the previous two. In the superstructure, cultural materialism analyzes elements such as the ideology of the human group being studied, as well as the symbolic elements used.

It is at this level that artistic issues, games and sports, rituals, religions, concepts are included. taboos and any other question whose nature makes it be included in the set of aspects of the thought of a society.

It must be understood that this scheme has a pyramid structure, so the higher levels, although more complex, are subordinate to the lower ones. Each change in a level directly affects all those above it. In that sense, the level of infrastructure would be the most important of all, according to the thesis of cultural materialism.

However, Although a change in the infrastructure implies a modification at the structure and superstructure level, this alteration may not be immediate, but require time to become apparent. Likewise, it does not mean that for the second or third level to be modified, necessarily have to change the first one, because the changes can occur without necessarily having altered the base.

In any case, if the changes come through this second route, it is true that the modifications, according to the model of cultural materialism, must be compatible with the existing base, that is, with the infrastructure, because if not, it will not be possible for a change of that typology to occur, since the base will not be able to support it as it is not in accordance with he.

Its epistemological basis

Epistemology is the way in which you get to know a certain area. In this case, the epistemology of cultural materialism is realized by the scientific method. Marvin Harris, creator of the model, argues that this medium is the one that in some way guarantees the least number of mistakes and biases when obtaining knowledge, although it is not totally exempt from these problematic.

In addition, the author warns of the problem that both the one who carries out the study and the object of study itself are groups of human beings, since a person can behave differently when he is feeling evaluated and this is a variable that must be taken into account when studying the different cultures.

As a result of this question, Marvin Harris points out that it will be necessary to make a distinction between what people think and what they do, that is, between thoughts and behaviors. These two perspectives could be analyzed through the concepts emic and etic, which originally refer to the phonology and phonetics, but in this context they indicate whether the point of view is that of the native (emic) or that of the observer (etic).

In this way, cultural materialism can contemplate both the perspective of the society itself that is being analyzed, and that of the anthropologist who is analyzing said social group, In order to obtain the dimensions of thoughts and behaviors and to be able to unite both visions in a final scheme, supported by two different bases, which will enrich the information with which we count.

Criticisms of this perspective

Although cultural materialism has been a very popular theory, it does not mean that it was without detractors. There are different criticisms of this model. For example, author Jonathan Friedman finds this system too reductionist and puts all the weight on it. environmental context and in the forms of technology, making all other components of society develop in accordance with these.

Criticisms of Marvin Harris' model have also come from postmodernism, in this case due to the use of the scientific method, which for the defenders of this doctrine it would not be the only way to reach the truth and therefore there would be other ways of analyzing societies, getting different perspectives.

On his part, James Lett criticizes cultural materialism for epistemological reasons, considering that it cannot be really materialistic, since between the material and the immaterial, relations of causality. Instead, it indicates that one should speak of correlations.

Finally, author Stephen K. Sanderson is also skeptical of cultural materialism approaches, since he believes that Marvin Harris uses this model to deal with complex concepts such as birth differences or incest, when These phenomena belong, according to him, to the field of social biology.

These are some of the criticisms that this theory has faced, despite enjoying great popularity for other authors and sectors of anthropology.