ANTH 1002 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Unilineality, Evolutionism, Fetishism
Document Summary
Societies are organized into systems with interdependent parts. Systems tend to maintain themselves (and resist change) A kind of functionalism that focuses on how societies maintain social structures, primarily kinship systems. Focus is not on conflict or change as much as consensus and reproduction of the system over time. Customs and beliefs are rational or logical in context. Importance of kinship, especially unilineal descent, as social structure, not just social relationships. Emphasis on the whole, kinship, economy, politics, etc. The most abstract society that has ever existed. Immateriality (fetishism) is the defining feature of capitalism. The abstraction is the commodity, the commodity is an equivalence: house, diamond, shoes, a spool of thread. Was used by marx to denigrate african beliefs that material objects had life, animism Marx used the term to refer to capitalism arbitrary attachment to commodities, he believed europeans were even more attached to objects than africans. And ridiculed them for thinking that had surpassed animistic worship.
