Claude Lévi-Strauss

Greetings! Today I’m going to talk about one of the most famous anthropologist in the world: Claude Lévi-Strauss.  He is the father of structural anthropology and anthropology of kinship.

First I must say his theories are not my favourite ones but he deserves all the respect of the world, he had an amazing mind and his ideas provoked a big revolution in anthropology, especially in the field of mythology and kinship studies.

He born in 1908 in Brussels, Belgium but he grew up in Paris. First he studied law and philosophy but he only continued with the last one. He took part in a mission to Brazil and there he did his first ethnological investigation.  These experiences gave him the opportunity to do more researches in this field and a chance to prove his skills in a lot of complexes areas of the human being: Kinship structure, the savage mind, mythology, linguistics, etc. He thought that savages mind works in a rational way, despites of the prejudices of the occidental mind about the primitive stage of these cultures.  Also he said that all the myths in the world have the same structural function, in fact, all the myths can reduce in only one but it has different forms. Another famous theory is about kinship and the importance of the incest in the transition to the nature to culture stage.

He wrote a lot of books and he sets the principles of modern anthropology with his structural analyses and theories.  He died very young –sarcasm- with only 101 years in October of 2009.  I like him because his way to analyse all this things is very impressive, and when you read him (if you understand something! Is almost impossible comprehend what he is saying!) you can realize the significance of his work in social science.

That is all! Hope you like it! See you soon…

Goodbye!