Marvin Harris

Marvin Harris

Marvin Harris (born August 18, 1927 – died October 25, 200) was an American anthropologist, famous for his contribution to the development of cultural materialism.

Life

Marvin Harris was born in Brooklyn, New York, into a poor family of Russian-Jewish origin. His father was a salesman who tried to interest his son for business. Harris graduated Erasmus high school and received his B.A. in anthropology in 1948. He enrolled into Columbia University where he earned his A.B. in 1949, and Ph.D. in 1953. He stayed at Columbia from 1952 to 1980, teaching and serving as chairman of the anthropology department. He was an Associate Professor of Anthropology from 1959 to 1963, and a professor from 1963 to 1980. He married his high school sweetheart.

Harris made field study in Mozambique in 1956/57, writing about the conditions of living under Portuguese rule. He conducted another field study in Brazil, focusing on race relations. In 1968 Harris was involved in the infamous, anti-Vietnamese War student riots at Columbia, when the NYC police had to intervene. Harris was on the side of pro-student faculty. He wrote about the events in his article, Big Bust on Morningside Heights. The tragedy struck his family when his son died in car accident in early 1970s.

Harris published his two books in 1970s, after which he received world fame - "Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches" in 1974, and "Cannibals and Kings" in 1978. Harris used popular writing, so the books were well accepted by general audience.

Harris transfered to the University of Florida in 1980, as the Anthropology Graduate Research Professor Emeritus. He also served as the Chair of the General Anthropology Division of the American Anthropological Association. Harris continued to teach and publish, authoring total of 17 books.

He died in Gainesville at the age of 74.

Work

Harris is famous for his paradigm of cultural development, which he called cultural materialism. In it, he drew largely on the theories of Thomas Malthus and Karl Marx, combining Malthus' focus on the influence of population growth on the formation of social institutions, and Marx's focus on the means of production regarding the same. From anthropological perspective, Harris combined comparative method of Lewis Henry Morgan, and the cultural ecology of Julian Steward. In his 1969 book The Rise of Anthropological Theory Harris explains the idea of cultural materialism. He argues that cultures, with their diverse cultural patterns, developed according to the necessity for survival. Such, for example, in the Hindus culture, one of the central points of worship is cow. Harris explains that there is nothing mystical or spiritual in that – people in India needed cow for milk and cultivation, which was essential for survival. Raising the cow to the status of deity thus developed due to a pure economic need.

A core dimension of Harris’ paradigm is the division of societies into three levels - infrastructure, structure, and superstructure. The infrastructure consists of modes of production and reproduction, essential for economic survival of the society. The structure is made of domestic and political economy, that is, organized patterns of social behavior – e.g. family system, gender roles, educational system, organized leisure activities (sport, games, etc.). And finally, superstructure incorporates aesthetic component of society – e.g. art, rituals, science, ideologies, religion, etc.

Into such tripartite system Harris additionally incorporates emic-etic and behavioral-mental dimensions. An "emic" describes behavior in terms meaningful (consciously or unconsciously) to the actor. An "etic", on the other hand, is a description of a behavior in terms familiar to the observer. Behavior, according to Harris, precedes mental, same as etic is privileged to emic. The basic dynamics in the system is that infracture, with its subsystems of production and reproduction, influence and dominate other systems. If applied to similar environment, similar technologies would create similar economic, social, and cultural systems.

In the second half of his career Harris shifted from functional toward rational explanation of cultural development. He still used materialism as the base of his paradigm, but he drifted from seeing cultural patterns emerging and developing due to the needs of society, toward seeing them in terms of their adaptive value for individuals.

Criticism

Due to his belief that material needs of both society as a group and individuals precede formation of sociocultural systems of that society, Harris was often regarded as "vulgar materialist". His critics object that he foolishly tried to explain complex cultural phenomena in terms of simple mechanical theory. Postmodern anthropologists generally regard each culture separately in its historical development, claiming that each is unique and have to be studied in its own terms. The search for general laws of cultural development is thus useless. Harris objected to this, claiming that cultural universals can be seen in every culture. He pointed that anthropology can become a true social science, modeled after natural sciences. With this idea Harris joined the rebellion against Boasian thought initiated by Leslie White and George Peter Murdock.

Besides being labeled as extreme materialist, Harris was often regarded as scholar who uses provocative ideas to prove his points. Such, for example, his idea that Aztecs were cannibals because of the need for proteins (See Cannibals and Kings) drew strong opposition, but proved Harris point that cultural patterns often arise due to particular need.

Legacy

Harris research spanned the topics of race, evolution and culture, and often focused on Latin America and Brazil. His provocative ideas and controversial presentation style draw attention from both students and fellow scholars. He became one of the most influential experts in the area of cultural anthropology, created a paradigm (cultural materialism) that is (as of 2006) widely discussed and cited in academic circles.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Biography 1 – Short biography

• Biography 2 – Biography

• Biography 3 - In Memoriam

Bibliography

• Harris, Marvin. (1956/1969). Town and Country in Brazil. Ams Press Inc. ISBN 0404505872

• Harris, Marvin. (1958). Portugal's African Wards: A first-hand report on labor and education in Mozambique. Africa Today Pamphlets, 2.

• Harris, Marvin. (1964/1980). Patterns of Race in the Americas. Greenwood Press Reprint. ISBN 0313223599

• Harris, Marvin. (1966). The Cultural Ecology of India's Sacred Cattle. Columbia University Press

• Harris, Marvin. (1968). Big Bust on Morningside Heights. The Nation, June 10, pp.757-763

• Harris, Marvin. (1968/2000). The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture (Updated Edition). AltaMira Press. ISBN 0759101337

• Harris, Marvin. (1971/1988). Culture, People, Nature: An Introduction to General Anthropology (5th Edition). Harpercollins College Div. ISBN 0060426977

• Harris, Marvin. (1974/1989). Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches : The Riddles of Culture. Vintage. ISBN 0679724680

• Harris, Marvin. (1978/1991). Cannibals and Kings: Origins of Cultures. Vintage. ISBN 067972849X

• Harris, Marvin. (1979/2001). Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture (Updated Edition). AltaMira Press. ISBN 0759101345

• Harris, Marvin. (1981/1987). Why Nothing Works: The Anthropology of Daily Life (Original Title America Now: the Anthropology of a Changing Culture). Touchstone. ISBN 0671635778

• Harris, Marvin. (1985/1998). Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture (Original Title The Sacred Cow and the Abominable Pig). Waveland Press. ISBN 1577660153

• Harris, Marvin. (1987). Cultural Anthropology (2nd Edition). Harper & Row. ISBN 0060426691

• Harris, Marvin. (1989/1990). Our Kind: Who We Are, Where We Came From, Where We Are Going. Harper Perennial. ISBN 0060919906

• Harris, Marvin. (1998). Theories of Culture in Postmodern Times. AltaMira Press. ISBN 0761990216

• Harris, Marvin, Headland, Thomas N., & Pike, Kenneth. (1990). Emics and Etics : The Insider/Outsider Debate. Sage Publications. ISBN 0803937393

• Harris, Marvin. & Ross, Eric. (1989). Food and Evolution: Toward a Theory of Human Food Habits (Reprint edition). Temple University Press. ISBN 0877226687

• Harris, Marvin & Ross, Eric (1987/1990). Death, Sex, and Fertility: Population Regulation in Preindustrial and Developing Societies. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231062710

External links

• Harris' quotations - From Cultural Materialism - The Struggle for a Science of Culture

• Cultural Materialism - About cultural materialism, Harris, and more.

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