Emerging as an expansion of Marxism materialism, cultural materialism explains cultural similarities and differences as well as models for cultural change within a societal framework consisting of three distinct levels: infrastructure, structure and superstructure.

Cultural materialism is a scientific research strategy and as such utilizes the scientific method. Other important principles include operational definitions, Karl Popper's falsifiability, Thomas Kuhn's paradigms, and the positivism first proposed …

2020年11月17日 · Cultural materialists identify three levels of social systems that constitute a universal pattern: 1) infrastructure, 2) structure, and 3) superstructure. Infrastructure is the basis for all other levels and includes how basic needs are met and how it …

Marvin Harris (1927-2001), a cultural anthropologist, is responsible for the most systematic statement of cultural materialist principles. Cultural Materialism is based on two key assumptions about societies. First, the various parts of society are interrelated. When one part of society changes, other parts must also change.

Cultural materialism is a research strategy uniquely suited to exploring both short-term sociocultural stability and change, or the long-term social evolutionary process itself.

2024年2月27日 · By focusing on the infrastructure, structure, and superstructure, cultural materialism provides a comprehensive understanding of how material conditions shape cultural practices and beliefs. Its significance lies in its ability to offer insights into social change, stability, and the dynamic nature of culture within a society.

2016年9月28日 · Cultural materialism attempts to account for the origin, maintenance, and change of sociocultural systems. The foundation of such systems, Marvin Harris maintains, are the modes of production and reproduction in interaction with the environment.

Societies survive and successfully reproduce themselves only insofar as they meet the elementary material needs of a certain minimum of their members. This observation is the starting point for cultural materialism, a living theoretical tradition founded and defined by the American anthropologist Marvin Harris (1927-2001).

Cultural Materialism is an anthropological research framework that seeks to understand cultural practices, beliefs, and institutions by analyzing the material conditions that shape them. Developed in the late 20th century, it postulates that the environmental, economic, and historical contexts play a pivotal role in molding cultures.

Growing out of infrastructure was structure – social relations, forms of kinship and descent, patterns of distribution and consumption. The third layer was superstructure: religion, ideology, play – aspects of culture which allow the cultures to survive.