A Discrete-Event Simulation of Claude Lévi-Strauss’ Structural Analysis of Myths Based on Symmetry and Double Twist Transformations

Abstract

This paper presents a modeling and simulation approach in order to perform a generative analysis of folktales aimed at validating Claude Lévi-Strauss’ theory and method. To this aim, a discrete-event simulation is proposed. The simulation is based on the development of a set of discrete-event models dedicated to generating a set of folktales from an initial one, according to Claude Lévi-Strauss’ structural analysis based on symmetry and double twist transformations. This paper describes in detail how these discrete-event models have been implemented in the framework of the DEVSimPy software environment by using myths of Native American mythology and folktales of Corsican oral literature. The validation involved the following steps: (i) definition of a reference folktale (according to Claude Lévi-Strauss’ methodology) (ii) generation of a set of folktales by performing their own transformations (iii) generation of a graph allowing to analyze the links that have been created after performing a set of folktales transformations. Finally, the computational validation of Lévi-Strauss’s method is intended to ground a new research that may reformulate structural analysis and elaborate a neo-structural model of canonical formalization based on transformational morphodynamics. The aim is to conceptualize and measure recursively the structural dynamics and the recurrent patterns of current identity transformations in liberal democracies, especially in US and EU contexts where ethnic/racial divisions and migration challenges are becoming more acute than ever.

Computational challenges to test and revitalize Claude Lévi-Strauss transformational methodology

“…In previous works on the reassessment of structural legacy in anthropology (Doja, 2008) and the critique of postmodernist rhetoric of post-structuralism (Doja, 2006), we have demonstrated the relevance of morphodynamic approach and transformational analysis (Doja, 2010), including the development of neo-structural models and software mechanisms to deal with morphodynamic structures applied to object-oriented narrative transformations (Santucci et al, 2020). Actually, among the numerous stellar thinkers, whose contributions over the past century have had revolutionary impacts upon the theoretical foundations of anthropology, there is almost none comparable with Lévi-Strauss, even though there may remain much misunderstanding regarding the substance and merit of Lévi-Strauss's thought.…”

“…In this section, we summarize how DEVS formalism is used in software approach to myth transformation as we detailed elsewhere (Santucci et al, 2020). The implementation is realized using the DEVSimPy environment presented in the previous section.…”

The New German-speaking School of Balkankompetenzen: Knowledge production and truth claims in post-colonial post-communist context

“…Above all, she failed to acknowledge the interactionalist and constructivist approach used for analyzing the instrumentality of religious shifting, since Albanian identity and cohesion are not postulated for pre-national periods and have nothing to do with later national interests, as she claims, but they are argued as action strategies for the social organization of cultural and religious similarities and differences (Doja, 2000b), better known in anthropology as ethnic boundary processes (Barth, 1969). A tendency is again in evidence here towards patronizing Albanian-born scholars with fashionable “international theories,” and failing to take into account how they might have examined the genealogies of poststructuralist takes (Doja, 2006d) that have misrepresented actual theoretical contributions of structural anthropology to general knowledge (See, for instance, Doja, 2005b, 2006f, 2006e, 2008a, 2008b, 2010a, 2018, 2019b, 2020; Doja et al, 2021; Doja and Abazi, 2021; Santucci et al, 2020). As part of a wider pattern of international scholarship, the tendency of Balkankompetent experts of the New German-speaking School to overlook or ignore Albanian scholars in academic debates may result from a simple insider/outsider classification of their biographies along eastern/western lines.…”

The Mytho-Logics of Othering and Containment: Culture, Politics and Theory in International Relations

“…In Lévi-Strauss's sense, both European powers and primitive peoples might have managed to work out a reasonable way to insert the irrationality of war and calamity into some kind of rationality. By means of their own ceaseless logical transformations, as outlined elsewhere (Doja 2008a;Santucci, Doja, and Capocchi 2020), in one case or another, myths generate the appearance of stability, an illusion of timelessness that cannot be affected by changes in the world. Therefore, the peace treaties as processes of ongoing logical transformations of the system of international relations also serve as a cooling mystification machine for the obliteration of hot history, "even and particularly that which might be thought to defy the system" (Lévi-Strauss 1966, 243).…”