BRITISH ANTHROPOLOGIST - CLAUDE LÉVI-STRAUSS

Question: What was the reaction of British anthropologists to Lévi-Strauss’s work?

Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908) was and is the pope of structuralism, to quote Marcel Hénaff. (1998:2) As my account of his contribution to the shaping of this ‘method’ or ‘tool’ – as he himself insisted on calling it (Kuper 1996:175, Hénaff 1998:6) – later in this essay illustrates, that is something that can hardly be disputed. It is not so self-evident, however, what the overall importance of his work for social anthropology was, and how well-received his ideas were at the time of their emergence. In this essay, I will focus on the latter question in the context of Britain, in particular with reference to Edmund Leach (1910-1989).

To come to an answer to this question, I will first briefly describe the British anthropological landscape before the introduction of Lévi-Strauss’s concept of structuralism. Then I will give an outline of Lévi-Strauss’s ideas and his applications thereof, and assess of every aspect of Lévi-Strauss’s work to what extent it was valued, adopted and applied by British anthropologists such as Leach.

It is hereby necessary that I pay attention to the positive reactions as well as the substantial criticism Lévi-Strauss received from British anthropologists. Finally, by summarizing previously made points, I will hopefully be able to assess whether the reaction of Leach and others to Lévi-Strauss’s structuralism and the ideas it brought forward was predominantly positive or negative and what the overall impact of Lévi-Strauss on Leach’s anthropology was.

Needless to say, Lévi-Strauss was not the first French theorist whose ideas would have noticeable influence in British anthropology. In the first half of the 20th century, after the ‘fall’ of