Cultural Materialism

Cultural Materialism

As anthropologists study cultures around the world, it can be difficult to understand where a specific cultural practice or ritual originated. Anthropologists not only seek to understand the "what" of culture, but also the "why." One of the methods that they use to grasp the purpose for each cultural practice is called cultural materialism. Cultural materialism states that the development of cultures are affected by material surroundings. Cultural materialism views cultural practices as a product of purely physical, environmental, or more broadly materialistic factors. Cultural materialism can explain similarities and differences of "infrastructure", "structure", and "superstructure" in given societies. Infrastructure refers to physical realities such as technology and demographics. Structure refers to the organization of a culture, particularly politics and kinship practices. Superstructure refers to religion and other symbolism (Buzney and Marcoux 2021) . In studying different cultures using the cultural materialist approach, anthropologists answer the question of how a practice helps the culture survive and thrive.

Examples

In his 1968 book The Rise of Anthropological Theory, Marvin Harris introduced the world to the concept of cultural materialism. Cultural materialists look at the world in a literal sense, they are most interested in how the environment impacts cultures. One example of this is in The Forest People (1961) by Colin Turnbull. Turnbull describes how the Ituri Forest takes root in the life of the Mbuti people. The forest provides them with everything they need to survive and thrive: food, shelter, and shade. The Mbuti can hardly imagine living without the forest; so much so, that when one Mbuti travels outside the Ituri Forest with Turnbull, he states how the lack of shade is negatively affecting him (Turnbull 1962).

Cultural materialism also helps explain religion in culture. Islam, for example, views heaven as an oasis with lush greenery and clear water. This is because Islam was founded in the Arabian Desert. To people living in the desert, an oasis provides them with safety and well-being. Similarly, Hindus in India view cows as sacred. From a cultural materialist perspective, cows are very useful for plowing in Indian agriculture and their manure helps fertilize the soil. Killing cows for meat would only do more harm than good (Lloyd 1985).

Finally, cultural materialism helps to refute scientific racism. Scientific racists claim that if one person of a certain race was born in a region where they would be a minority, they would still inherit the cultural traits of their native region. A cultural materialist believes that people born in a certain region, no matter their race or gender, will likely show some conformance or adaptation to the region they were born in (Behav 2007). Cultural materialism has given us a practical approach to anthropology that can further help to explain why things are the way they are.

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