Claude Lévi-Strauss

Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work laid the foundations of structural anthropology. He is best known for applying structuralist methods to the study of kinship, myth, and culture, arguing that underlying universal structures of the human mind shape social life. Lévi-Strauss profoundly influenced anthropology as well as philosophy, literary theory, and cultural studies, becoming one of the most significant intellectual figures of the twentieth century.

Background and Early Life

Claude Lévi-Strauss was born in 1908 in Brussels to French parents from a cultured and artistic background. He grew up in France and studied philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he was influenced by classical philosophy and emerging social thought. Initially trained as a philosopher, Lévi-Strauss developed an early interest in sociology and anthropology, disciplines that offered new ways to study human societies beyond speculative philosophy.

Early Career and Fieldwork

In the 1930s, Lévi-Strauss travelled to Brazil to take up an academic post, where he conducted ethnographic fieldwork among Indigenous peoples of the Amazon, including the Bororo and Nambikwara. These experiences were crucial in shaping his anthropological perspective. His encounters with non-European societies challenged ethnocentric assumptions and reinforced his belief that so-called “primitive” cultures possess complex and rational systems of thought comparable to those of industrial societies.
His fieldwork emphasised careful observation and documentation, but Lévi-Strauss became increasingly interested not only in social practices themselves but in the hidden structures that organise them.

Structuralism and Anthropological Theory

Lévi-Strauss is most closely associated with structuralism, an approach that seeks to uncover the underlying patterns governing cultural phenomena. Drawing inspiration from structural linguistics, particularly the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, Lévi-Strauss argued that cultural systems function like languages. Just as language is structured by rules and oppositions, social life is organised by deep mental structures that operate unconsciously.
According to Lévi-Strauss, the human mind tends to organise experience through binary oppositions such as nature and culture, raw and cooked, life and death. These oppositions provide the basic framework through which societies construct meaning. Anthropology, therefore, should focus on analysing relationships and structures rather than isolated customs or beliefs.

Kinship and Social Organisation

One of Lévi-Strauss’s earliest and most influential contributions was his analysis of kinship systems. In The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949), he examined marriage rules and patterns of alliance across societies. He argued that the prohibition of incest is a universal feature of human societies and that it forms the basis for systems of exchange between groups.
Marriage, in this view, is not simply a biological or personal arrangement but a social mechanism that creates alliances and networks of reciprocity. Lévi-Strauss’s structural analysis shifted the study of kinship away from biological descent towards systems of symbolic exchange.

Myth and the Human Mind

Lévi-Strauss devoted much of his later career to the study of myth. He viewed myths not as primitive attempts to explain the world but as sophisticated intellectual systems that express fundamental structures of human thought. In his multi-volume work Mythologiques, he analysed hundreds of myths from the Americas to demonstrate recurring patterns and transformations.
He argued that myths help societies resolve contradictions in human experience, such as those between nature and culture or individual and society. The meaning of a myth, according to Lévi-Strauss, does not lie in any single version but in the relationships between multiple versions across cultures.

Nature, Culture, and Symbolism

A recurring theme in Lévi-Strauss’s work is the relationship between nature and culture. He saw culture as emerging through symbolic systems that mediate natural conditions, particularly through language, kinship, and food practices. His famous analysis of culinary practices, distinguishing between the raw and the cooked, illustrated how everyday activities reflect deeper symbolic structures.
This emphasis on symbolism highlighted the importance of classification, categorisation, and abstraction in human societies, reinforcing Lévi-Strauss’s view of anthropology as a science of the mind.

Influence Beyond Anthropology

Lévi-Strauss’s ideas extended far beyond anthropology. Structuralism influenced philosophy, literary criticism, semiotics, and psychoanalysis, particularly in mid-twentieth-century France. Thinkers associated with structuralism and post-structuralism engaged critically with his work, either developing or reacting against his emphasis on universal mental structures.
His writings also contributed to debates about modernity, cultural diversity, and the consequences of Western expansion. Lévi-Strauss expressed concern about the loss of cultural diversity caused by globalisation and colonialism, arguing that Indigenous cultures offer alternative ways of understanding human existence.