One of the most disconcerting aspects of introducing the work of Lévi-Strauss to students is that those who are just beginning an anthropology course often seem able to grasp quickly and easily the main points of his work, while those who have a good anthropological training seem almost invariably incapable of understanding what he is saying. The reason is that Lévi-Strauss's work deals with different questions from those which are traditionally assumed to be the subject-matter of anthropology. Trained anthropologists often wrongly assume that he is asking similar questions to theirs and therefore find the answers baffling. He himself rarely, if ever, places his work in relation to that of others in an illuminating way. The work of his colleagues is, for him, not a body of alternative theories but rather a resource to be exploited as data in the building of his system. As a result, his references to other anthropologists simply further obscure what he is doing, especially for those who know well the works he refers to.

LRB 5 May 1983 | PDF Download