Editing Structuralism (section)

==In anthropology==

{{Main|Structural anthropology}}
{{Anthropology|expanded=theories}}<!-- This section is linked from [[Social anthropology]] -->
According to structural theory in [[anthropology]] and [[social anthropology]], [[Meaning (semiotics)|''meaning'']] is produced and reproduced within a culture through various practices, phenomena, and activities that serve as systems of signification. 

A structuralist approach may study activities as diverse as food-preparation and serving rituals, religious rites, games, literary and non-literary texts, and other forms of entertainment to discover the deep structures by which meaning is produced and reproduced within the culture. For example, [[Claude Lévi-Strauss|Lévi-Strauss]] analysed in the 1950s cultural phenomena including mythology, kinship (the [[alliance theory]] and the [[incest taboo]]), and food preparation. In addition to these studies, he produced more linguistically-focused writings in which he applied Saussure's distinction between [[langue and parole|''langue'' and ''parole'']] in his search for the fundamental structures of the human mind, arguing that the structures that form the "deep grammar" of society originate in the mind and operate in people unconsciously. Lévi-Strauss took inspiration from [[mathematics]].<ref>[[François Dosse|Dosse, François]]. 1997. [https://books.google.com/books?id=UoXZ8aIeZpgC ''History of Structuralism: Volume 1: The Rising Sign, 1945-1966'']. University of Minnesota Press. p. 24.</ref>

Another concept used in structural anthropology came from the [[Prague Linguistic Circle|Prague school of linguistics]], where [[Roman Jakobson]] and others analysed sounds based on the presence or absence of certain features (e.g., voiceless vs. voiced). Lévi-Strauss included this in his conceptualization of the universal structures of the mind, which he held to operate based on pairs of [[binary opposition]]s such as hot-cold, male-female, culture-nature, cooked-raw, or marriageable vs. tabooed women.

A third influence came from [[Marcel Mauss]] (1872–1950), who had written on [[Gift exchange|gift-exchange]] systems. Based on Mauss, for instance, Lévi-Strauss argued an [[Alliance theory|''alliance'' theory]]—that kinship systems are based on the exchange of women between groups—as opposed to the '''descent'-based'' theory described by [[Edward Evans-Pritchard]] and [[Meyer Fortes]]. While replacing Mauss at his ''[[Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes]]'' chair, the writings of Lévi-Strauss became widely popular in the 1960s and 1970s and gave rise to the term "structuralism" itself.

In Britain, authors such as [[Rodney Needham]] and [[Edmund Leach]] were highly influenced by structuralism. Authors such as [[Maurice Godelier]] and Emmanuel Terray combined [[Marxism]] with structural anthropology in France. In the United States, authors such as [[Marshall Sahlins]] and [[James Boon]] built on structuralism to provide their own analysis of human society. Structural anthropology fell out of favour in the early 1980s for a number of reasons. D'Andrade suggests that this was because it made unverifiable assumptions about the universal structures of the human mind. Authors such as [[Eric Wolf]] argued that [[political economy]] and [[colonialism]] should be at the forefront of anthropology. More generally, criticisms of structuralism by [[Pierre Bourdieu]] led to a concern with how cultural and social structures were changed by human agency and practice, a trend which [[Sherry Ortner]] has referred to as '[[practice theory]]'.

One example is Douglas E. Foley's ''Learning Capitalist Culture'' (2010), in which he applied a mixture of structural and Marxist theories to his ethnographic [[fieldwork]] among high school students in Texas. Foley analyzed how they reach a shared goal through the lens of social solidarity when he observed "Mexicanos" and "Anglo-Americans" come together on the same football team to defeat the school's rivals.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=E. Foley|first=Douglas|title=Learning Capitalist Culture: Deep in the Heart of Tejas|publisher=University of Pennsylvania|year=2010|isbn=978-0-8122-2098-8|location=Baltimore, MD|oclc=461631692}}</ref>{{Rp|36-7}} However, he also continually applies a marxist lens and states that he, "wanted to wow peers with a new cultural marxist theory of schooling."<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|176}}

Some anthropological theorists, however, while finding considerable fault with Lévi-Strauss's version of structuralism, did not turn away from a fundamental structural basis for human culture. The [[Biogenetic Structuralism]] group for instance argued that some kind of structural foundation for culture must exist because all humans inherit the same system of brain structures. They proposed a kind of [[neuroanthropology]] which would lay the foundations for a more complete scientific account of cultural similarity and variation by requiring an integration of [[cultural anthropology]] and [[neuroscience]]—a program that theorists such as [[Victor Turner]] also embraced.