Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist who founded structural anthropology. His approach sought to discover universal, unconscious structures of the human mind that organize all cultural phenomena, from myths to kinship systems.
Lévi-Strauss was heavily influenced by structural linguistics, particularly the work of Ferdinand de Saussure. He applied linguistic principles to anthropology, treating cultural phenomena as systems of signs and focusing on underlying relationships rather than surface elements or historical development.
A key principle of Lévi-Strauss's structuralism is binary opposition. He argued that human thought naturally organizes the world through contrasting pairs like nature versus culture, raw versus cooked, or sacred versus profane. These oppositions create meaning through difference and contrast.
According to Lévi-Strauss, these structures operate at the unconscious level of the human mind. They are universal across all cultures and independent of individual will, yet they shape all cultural expressions. The anthropologist's task is to reveal these hidden patterns that lie beneath cultural diversity.
To summarize Lévi-Strauss's structuralism: it seeks universal mental structures that organize culture, applies linguistic principles to anthropology, uses binary oppositions to create meaning, operates at unconscious levels across societies, and reveals hidden patterns beneath cultural diversity.