Towards a New Marxism or a New Anthropology?

Some reflections on anthropological structural Marxism

“…Godelier 1972), harsh criticism was reserved for internecine battles and much of the most revealing work in and around ASM paid little heed to Marxist credentialism. The influential contributions contained in Bloch's (1975) and Kahn and Llobera's (1981) volumes represent examples of all three of the tendencies flagged in Terray's (1972), as well as strong indications of how the explanatory horizon could be extended. The work of Kahn (1975) and Friedman (1975) in particular invoked a globalist perspective that decisively pushed the object of anthropological analysis outside of a debate confined to ‘the local‐level’ system and regulated by the obedient theoretical vocabulary of the kind of empiricism associated with British structure functionalism.…”

“…One consequence of the awkward forcing of definitional and explanatory tendencies under a single heading was that purely ‘theoretical’ work seemed to be far more voluminous than empirically based work. Additionally, there was some sense in which economic anthropology approached from a Marxist perspective was regarded as being implacably ‘economically deterministic’ at the expense of appreciation of ‘culture’, yet the empirical studies produced ‘under the influence’ (see, e.g., the contributions to Bloch 1975; Kahn & Llobera 1981 25 ) do not actually exhibit this mechanical dependence. Additionally, the accusation of economic determinism seems particularly disingenuous in an era of ascendant neoliberalism in which the market prevails and a highly culturalist anthropology seems to thrive.…”

“…An optimistic stocktaking was offered in Kahn and Llobera's (1981) collection, and ASM seemed to be a strong candidate for combining the advances in synchronic analysis (which borrowed from structure functionalism, structuralism, and systems theory 26 ) and analysis over time ( longue durée as well as ‘the history of events’, à la Braudel). The prospect of a maturing ASM in which theoretical advance – which is to say, refinement of an explanatory agenda – proceeded with a systematic realignment with the results of the growing body of ethnographic material was short‐lived.…”

Stepchildren of Progress: The Political Economy of Development in an Indonesian Mining Town.

“…For a review of writings on ethnicity see Kahn 1981. 2. I use the term 'sociocultural identity' rather than 'ethnic identity' because the latter term has become synonomous with a notion of a primordial attachment, and I wish to argue for a more contingent relation between past and current cultural forms than this seems to allow.…”

Warfare, oracles and iron: a case study of production among the pre-colonial Klowe, in the light of some recent Marxist analyses

“…This belief has coexisted with the recognition that the works which supposedly define the genre are by no means all of a piece, but the assumption has been that enough similarities do exist between them to not only warrant their identification as a single group, but also to justify their differentiation from the broad mass of anthropological works. This is the view, for example, of Kahn and Llobera (1981), who claim that the works of the leading French writers in the field (Godelier, Terray, Meillassoux, Dupre and Rey) are marked on the one hand by a recognizable commitment to 'traditional anthropology' (as represented in concepts such as 'lineage' and 'society', and procedures such as 'fieldwork'), and on the other, by a more or less rigorous adherence to the tenets of historical materialism. Yet, as Kahn and Llobera's subsequent discussion makes clear, the notion that there is a core of materialist assumptions in all these works is as contentious in reality as the idea that there exists something recognizable as 'traditional anthropology'.…”