Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-5lx2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-04T19:34:14.050Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The ‘Unconceivable Humankind’ to Come: A Portrait of Lévi-Strauss as a Demographer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Wiktor Stoczkowski
Wiktor Stoczkowski*
Affiliation:
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, France
*
Wiktor Stoczkowski, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 54, Boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris, France. Email: stoczkow@ehess.fr
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

For a half a century, Claude Lévi-Strauss multiplied statements about the demographic situation of humanity and its anthropological consequences. Those statements, often seen as shocking, were interpreted as a kind of aberration which defied rational understanding. Current opinion held was that the analysis of such idiosyncratic ideas overstepped the competence of anthropologists and historians. In fact, as shown in my text based on newly discovered archival materials, quite the opposite is true. Firstly, Lévi-Strauss became interested in demography very early in his career. Secondly, his conception of demographic trends and their effects was based on scholarly knowledge. Thirdly, far from being an idiosyncratic extravagance, his demography corresponded to widely shared concerns, central to the cultural policies of UNESCO, in which Lévi-Strauss was involved as Secretary general of the International Social Science Council (from 1952 to 1961). These facts are necessary if one is to grasp the cosmological outlook underlying the works of Claude Lévi-Strauss. The principles of Lévi-Straussian cosmology, in which demography plays an important role, are not reducible to the axioms of his structural theory. Without taking this cosmological infrastructure into account we are unable to correctly understand the moral message that Lévi-Strauss endeavoured to deliver, which concerned the extreme dangers humanity could face in the near future.

Type
Articles
Information
Diogenes , Volume 60 , Issue 2: Homage to Claude Lévi-Strauss , May 2013 , pp. 79 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BB, PRC and FAAM (1955) The World Population Conference, Rome, 1954. Journal of the Institute of Actuaries 81: 186–189.10.1017/S0020268100035903CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bertholet, D (2003) Claude Lévi-Strauss. Paris: Plon.Google Scholar
Boserup, M (1979) Population as an International Science. In Rokkan, S (ed) A Quarter Century of International Social Science. Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, pp. 201–210.Google Scholar
Bunle, H, Lévy, C (1954) L’entre-deux-guerres: histoire et chronologie des réunions et congrès internationaux sur la population. Population 9(1): 9–36.10.2307/1524757CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buquet, L (1956) L’Optimum de population. Paris: PUF.Google Scholar
Caldwell, J, Caldwell, P (1986) Limiting Population Growth and the Ford Foundation Contribution. London: Pinter.Google Scholar
Chatterji, J (2007) The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947–1967. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511497384CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, K (1951) The Population of India and Pakistan. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Davis, K (1954) Fertility Control and the Demographic Transition in India. In The Interrelations of Demographic, Economic, and Social Problems in Selected Underdeveloped Areas. New York: Milbank Memorial Fund, pp. 66–89.Google Scholar
Ehrlich, PR (1968) The Population Bomb. New York: Ballantine Books.Google Scholar
Greenough, PR (1982) Prosperity and Misery in Modern Bengal: The Famine of 1943-1944. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hitler, A (1992 [1925/26]) The National Socialist Movement. In Mein Kampf (vol. II), transl. Manheim, R. London: Pimlico.Google Scholar
Le Bras, H (1994) Les Limites de la planète: mythes de la nature et de la population. Paris: Flammarion.Google Scholar
Letinier, G (1946) Progrès technique, destructions de guerre et optimum de population. Population 1(1): 35–52.10.2307/1524391CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C (1951a) Pakistan: Spiritual Home and National Reality. The UNESCO Courier 4(5): 5.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C (1951b) Avant-propos. Bulletin International des Sciences Sociales, special issue, Asie du Sud-est, 3(4): 825–829.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C (1951c) Les sciences sociales au Pakistan. Bulletin International des Sciences Sociales, special issue, Asie du Sud-est, 3(4): 885–892.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C (1952) L’Asie possède sur l’Europe une créance matérielle et morale. Le Courrier de l’UNESCO 5(6): 10.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C (1953a) Note du Secrétaire général sur le programme du Conseil, 27 February 1953. Archive of the International Social Science Council, UNESCO, Paris, box ‘Administration General. Documents on the Creation of ISSC’, pp. 1–10.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C (1953b) (ed. with Guillaud, Georges Th), Rapport sur le programme du Conseil, presented to the ISSC General Assembly, 15–18 December 1953, pp. 1–26. Archive of the International Social Science Council, UNESCO, Paris, box ‘Administration General. Documents on the Creation of ISSC’, document W. P. 2.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C (1953c) Rapport du Secrétaire général pour l’année 1952–1953 à l’Assemblée générale, presented to the ISSC General Assembly, 15–18 December 1953, pp. 1–26. Archive of the International Social Science Council, UNESCO, Paris, box ‘Administration General. Documents on the Creation of ISSC’.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C (1953d) Point 8 de l’ordre du jour, presented to the ISSC General Assembly, 15–18 December 1953, pp. 1–4. Archive of the International Social Science Council, UNESCO, Paris, box ‘Administration General. Documents on the Creation of ISSC’, document W. P. 5.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C (1956) Les trois humanismes. Demain 35: 16.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C (1973) Discours de récipiendaire à la remise du prix Erasme. In Praemium Erasmianum MCMLXXIII. Amsterdam: Stichting Praemium Erasmianum, pp. 24–28Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C (1979) Claude Lévi-Strauss Reconsiders: From Rousseau to Burke, interview with Jean-Marie Benoist. Encounter 53: 19–26.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C (1990) The Origin of Table Manners, transl. Weightman, J and D. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C (1992) Tristes Tropiques, transl. Weightman, J and D. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C (2001) An Interview with Claude Lévi-Strauss. Current Anthropology 42(3): 419–425.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C (2004) 1963–2003: l’anthropologue face à la philosophie, interview with Marcel Hénaff. Esprit 301: 88–109.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C (2005) L’ethnologue devant les identités nationales. In XVII Premi Internacional Catalunya 2005. Barcelona: Secretaria del Premi Internacional Catalunya, pp. 3–9.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C (2013) Anthropology Confronts the Problems of the Modern World [lectures delivered in 1986], transl. Todd, JM. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.10.2307/j.ctvjghxhmCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C, Éribon, D (1991) Conversations with Claude Lévi-Strauss, transl. Wissing, P. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Malthus Th, R (1798) An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society: With Remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and Other Writers. London: Printed for J. Johnson, in St Paul's Church-Yard.Google Scholar
Notestein, FW (1944) Demographic Studies of Selected Areas of Rapid Population Growth. New York: Milbank Memorial Fund.Google Scholar
Platt, J (2002) 50 Years of the International Social Science Council. Paris: International Social Science Council.Google Scholar
Rokkan, S (ed) (1979) A Quarter Century of International Social Science. Delhi: Concept Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Ryder, NB (1984) Obituary: Frank Wallace Notestein (1902–1983). Population Studies 38(1): 5–20.10.1080/00324728.1984.10412820CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sauvy, A (1949) Le ‘faux problème’ de la population mondiale. Population 4(3): 447–462.10.2307/1523616CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sauvy, A (1952) Théorie générale de la population, vol. 1: Économie et population. Paris: PUF.Google Scholar
Soriot, A (2002) Optimum de production et optimum de population: l’analyse démographique d’Adolphe Landry. Revue d’Histoire des Sciences Humaines 7(2): 157–179.10.3917/rhsh.007.0157CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stoczkowski, W (2008) Anthropologies rédemptrices: le monde selon Lévi-Strauss, Paris: Hermann.Google Scholar