ENGLISH

Louis Dumont and Hierarchical Opposition

By Robert Parkin

Book information

Publisher
Berghahn Books
Year
2003
ISBN
9780857455529
DOI
10.1515/9780857455529
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
924 kB (946674 bytes)
Series
Methodology & History in Anthropology; 9
Pages
264\264
Library
degruyter.com
Time added
2023-08-20 05:04:09

Description

The work of Louis Dumont, who died in 1998, on India and modern individualism represented certain theoretical advances on the earlier structuralism of Claude Lévi-Strauss. One such advance is Dumont's idea of hierarchical opposition, which he proposed as a truer representation of indigenous ideologies than Lévi-Strauss's binary opposition. In this book the author argues that, although structuralism is often thought to have gone out of fashion, Dumont's greater concern with praxis and agency makes his own version of structuralism more contemporary. The work of his followers and fellow travelers, as well as his own, indicates that hierarchical opposition is capable of taking structuralism in new and more realistic directions, reminding us that it has never been the preserve of Lévi-Strauss alone.

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