Essay on the Marxist Approach towards Anthropology

Any social science has its universal and particularistic perspectives. Theory normally looks at its universal application. But each concept has its immediate and local perspective which applies only in a re­stricted area. The natural sciences have achieved a maturity where its concepts have universal application.

The chemistry of water is a uni­versal category but the water in a particular village may be hard and thus, lacks the universalistic meaning. But, in third world countries, it has gained a particularistic historical connotation.

Maurice Godlier is a Marxist anthropologist. He emphasizes the meaning of tribe on « universal plane. According to him, when the an­thropologists use the term ‘tribe’ they understand it by a type of society which is different from other societies. In India, for instance, from caste society.

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Second, when we use the term ‘tribe’ we have in mind the stage of evolution attained by a particular group of people. Both these characteristics are two kinds of realities. One is that it is a society and second is that it has attained a particular evolutionary stage. Explaining the meaning of the term tribe, Godlier writes:

Anthropologists, when using the term ‘tribe’, refer to two realities, two fields of facts which are different, yet linked. Almost everyone uses it to distinguish a type of society from others, one specific mode of social organization which can be compared to other modes of organi­zation in society-‘bonds’, ‘states’, etc… It also indicates a stage of evolution in human society.

What Godlier wishes to emphasize it that tribe indicates a reality. The mode of production determines the social organization of a group, and the mode of production of the tribals is different from that of the non-tribals and, therefore, the tribals constitute a group differ­entiated from other groups.

Godlier applies the Marxian framework of mode of production in the analysis of the concept of tribe. His observation is that anthro­pologists today are in a theoretical crisis.

The use of the term ‘tribe’ in the present world context has undergone great change, and is chal­lenged by several anthropologists. It was Edmund Leach who first challenged the meaning of the term ‘tribe’. He was followed by Neira who has cried out against the “scandalous imprecision of the concept”.

The concept is fully vague according to him. Julian Steward, another social anthropologist, who is credited with having worked on evolu­tion, calls the concept of tribe as a ‘holdall’ concept.

It includes everything, and excludes nothing. Swartz, Turner and Toden have systematically chosen to ignore the use of the word. For them, the word is non-existent. But, there are other problems with the concept of tribe. Godlier writes:

This is only half the trouble; along with these criticisms of a theoreti­cal nature there is real consternation and violent attacks have been made against the ideological use of the concept in its secondary form and the related concept of tribalism.

Godlier is right. The concept of tribe is in a state of crisis, both theoretically and ideologically. In India, there are many people who argue that the safeties and securities given to tribals have created an ideological war between tribe and caste.

Referring to the world situ­ation, Godlier says that the existence of tribal organizations in Africa, America, Oceania and Asia appears, in fact, to be the reason for diffi­culties encountered by young nation-states in their economic and political development and in achieving independence. The continuing presence of pre-colonial tribal organizations appears to have been the cause for insurgency in north-east India.

It could be said that the concept of tribe is nothing but a creation of the colonial period. But even those groups, for which continuity with the past could be claimed, have lost so many of their traditional characteristics that in fact, they must be viewed as new entities.

Godlier elaborately explains the dispute and crisis pertaining to the concept of tribe. With all arguments it should be said that if we want to use the concept for the world as a whole, we shall have to de­velop it as a universal category. He writes:

Now, there are many anthropologists and politicians who challenge, as theoretically false and politically harmful, the use of concepts such as ‘tribes’ and ‘tribalism’ in order to determine modern contradic­tions found in ‘underdeveloped’ countries.

They see in the contradictions attributed to tribalism not so much a relic of pre-colonial structures (tribal organizations believed to have been destroyed but which flower again, even violently), as a legacy of the colonial pe­riod and the new relations involved in neo-colonial domination.

There is thus need to redefine and revisit the concept of tribe. The reasons, according to Godlier, are simple. Our definition of tribe goes back to the period when the containing societies were pre-capitalistic and pre-industrial and the tribals were comparatively at a lower stage of evolution. At his point, Godlier defines a tribe as a social organiza­tion, characterized by special mode of production.