Abstract

ZOLLA MARQUEZ, Emiliano. There’s no such thing as a society: neoliberal culture and Marilyn Strathern’s radical anthropology. Alteridades [online]. 2020, vol.30, n.59, pp.9-18.  Epub Feb 02, 2021. ISSN 2448-850X.  https://doi.org/10.24275/uam/izt/dcsh/alteridades/2020v30n59/zolla.

This article explores the relationship between ethno-graphic work and the culture of those societies from which anthropologists come from. Specifically, the text delves into the way in which neoliberal thinking and politics during Margaret Thatcher’s era influenced ways of thinking and practicing anthropology in Great Britain by disturbing the foundations of functionalism as well as other classic anthropological theories. At the same time, the article describes the way in which Marilyn Strathern’s thought challenges the theoretical crisis opened by neoliberalism, by means of an ethnographic critique of central Western concepts such as society or individual.

Keywords : theory; ethnography; British anthropology; Melanesia; neoliberalism; individual.