Scope and Contents

This collection contains the professional papers of anthropologist Marvin Harris. The papers include correspondence, research materials, his publications, unpublished manuscripts, conference papers, lectures, subject files, teaching files, computer files, and photographs.

His research files document his ethnographic field work in Rio de Contas, Brazil, both for his dissertation and his racial categorization project; his research on forced labor in Mozambique; his videotape study in New York City households; and his India sacred cattle research. The collection also contains his research on food preferences and aversions, his files as a research consultant for the McKinsey Global Institute, and photos from his field work in Chimborazo, Ecuador and Arembepe, Brazil.

Over the course of his career, Harris also participated in several conferences and invited lectures. The collection contains some of the papers he presented as well as audio recordings of his lecture "Levi-Strauss and the Clam: An Open and Shut Case" and a recording of a radio interview. Also present in the collection are materials relating to conference sessions and symposiums that he organized, including the 1967 AAA session on Anthropology and War and his 1983 Wenner-Gren symposium on Food Preferences and Aversions.

Additional materials that may be of interest are materials documenting Harris' activism in the 1960s at Columbia University, which include his anti-Vietnam War activities, as well as his involvement in the student protests of 1968 at Columbia University. The collection also contains Harris' CIA, FBI, and Department of State records that he obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, photographs from Harris' service in the army in the 1940s, and photos taken in Brazil by Pierre Verger.

Harris corresponded with several prominent anthropologists, many of whom were Latin American specialists. Some of his noteworthy correspondents include Napoleon Chagnon, Derek Freeman, Morton Fried, Conrad Kottak, Sidney Mintz, Anthony Leeds, Claude Levi-Strauss, Darcy Ribeiro, Anisio Teixeira, Charles Wagley, and Karl Wittfogel. Also of special interest is his correspondence with leading figures in the Mozambique and Portuguese liberation movements, including Antonio Figuereido, Eduardo Mondlane, and General Humberto Delgado.

Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or National Anthropological Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.

Arrangement

This collection is arranged in 10 series: (1) Correspondence, 1952-2001; (2) Research, 1949-1997; (3) Writings, 1955-2001; (4) Professional Activities, 1960-1999; (5) Name Subject Files, 1951-2001; (6) University, 1947-1999; (7) Biographical Files, 1954-1999; (8) Writings by Other People, 1961-2000; (9) Photographs, 1945-1996; (10) Computer Files, 1980-2000

Biographical Note

Marvin Harris was a prominent anthropologist, best known for developing the controversial paradigm of cultural materialism. He authored several important books in the field of anthropology, most notably (1968) and (1979) as well as books that reached a wider audience, such as (1974) and (1977).

Harris was born in Brooklyn, New York on August 18, 1927. After serving in the U.S. Army Transportation Corps (1945-47), he received his B.A. (1948) and Ph.D. (1953) from Columbia University. His first anthropology course was taught by Charles Wagley, who was influential in Harris' decision to become an anthropologist. Harris joined the faculty at Columbia University after earning his doctorate and served as chair of the Department of Anthropology from 1963 to 1966. In 1980, he left Columbia for a position as Graduate Research Professor at University of Florida, where he stayed until his retirement in 2000.

It was in that Harris coined the phrase "cultural materialism," a subject he further elaborated on in . Cultural materialism, Harris explains, is a scientific research strategy "based on the simple premise that human social life is a response to the practical problems of earthly existence" (1979, xv). Harris applied the paradigm to explain various cultural patterns, such as food preferences and taboos, changes in U.S. family structure, and the collapse of Soviet and East European state socialism. One of his most controversial theories was that the Hindu prohibition of slaughtering and consuming cows in India arose because it was more economically beneficial to use cattle as draft animals than as meat. He challenged Napoleon Chagnon's views that Yanomami men were inherently more aggressive and violent by explaining that it was the pursuit of animal protein that was the cause of Yanomami warfare. Harris similarly argued that protein deficiency was the reason why the Aztecs practiced cannibalism.

Harris presented his theories beyond academic circles to a general audience by contributing a monthly column to . He also authored several popular books. In addition to and , Harris also wrote (1981), (1985), and (1989). Harris also authored and edited several editions of two college-level introductory textbooks: (first published as in 1971) and (first published in 1983, later editions coauthored with Orna Johnson). According to Harris, the 1975 edition of "was the first anthropology textbook to be written cover to cover in a gender-neutral mode of discourse" (12/3/93 letter from Harris to Deborah S. Rubin, "Furlow - [The Teaching of Anthropology]", Series 3. Writings, Marvin Harris Papers).

Although Harris is primarily known for his work as a theoretician, he also conducted ethnographic fieldwork throughout his career. Harris traveled to Rio de Contas, Brazil in 1950-51 to conduct research for his dissertation, "Minas Velhas: A Study of Urbanism in the Mountains of Eastern Brazil." This research was also the subject of his book (1958) and his chapter, "Race Relations in Minas Velhas, a Community in the Mountain Region of Central Brazil" in (Charles Wagley, 1952). He continued his research in Brazil in 1953-54 while serving as a research advisor for the Ministry of Education in Rio de Janeiro. As field leader of the Columbia-Cornell-Harvard-Illinois Summer Field Studies Program, Harris returned to Brazil in 1962 to study fishing villages in Arembepe. Prior to that, he also served as field leader for the program in Chimborazo, Ecuador in 1960.

In 1956-57, Harris conducted field research in Mozambique, at the time under Portuguese rule. He initially intended to study the influence of Portuguese rule on race relations, comparing the race relations in Brazil and Mozambique. He soon became aware, however, of the political brutalities that the Portuguese government was imposing on the people of Mozambique. Consequently, Harris decided to focus his research on labor exploitation in the colony. Antonio de Figueiredo, who later became an important figure in the Mozambique liberation movement, served as an informal assistant to Harris. Harris was also friends with Eduardo Mondlane, president of FRELIMO, the Mozambican Liberation Front. Because Harris was openly critical of the Portuguese government, he was forced to leave Mozambique before he completed his research. When he returned to the United States, Harris published (1958), a critical evaluation of Portugal's colonialism. His publication was influential in eradicating the forced labor system in Mozambique a few years later.

Harris' activism extended to the social and political unrest at home during the 1960s. He was vice-chairman of Vietnam Facts, an organization of professors in the United States who were against the Vietnam War, and was one of the organizers of the Ad Hoc Teaching Committee on Vietnam. In 1967, he brought an academic focus to war by organizing a symposium on the subject with Morton Fried and Robert Murphy at the American Anthropological Association's (AAA) annual meeting. Together, they edited (1968), a compilation of the papers presented at the conference. During the 1968 student uprising at Columbia University, Harris was one of the few faculty members that openly sided with the students. Harris criticized the actions of the university administrators in his article, "Big Busts on Morningside Heights" (1968).

Due to his experiences in Mozambique, Harris also began to think about the distinctions between emic and etic perspectives, which he discusses in his book, (1964). During the 1960s-70s, Harris experimented with the use of video recordings as an etic approach to collecting ethnographic data. He collaborated with the Bronx State Hospital to videotape domestic life in two Puerto Rican and two African American families. He also videotaped and coded behavioral streams of two Caucasian and two African-American families in New York City for his NSF funded project, "Patterns of Authority and Subordination in Low-Income Urban Domiciles." In 1965 and 1992, Harris returned to Brazil to study racial categorizations and identifications, specifically the emic and etic differences in the perception of race. He published several papers on the subject, including "The Structural Significance of Brazilian Racial Categories" (1963), "Referential Ambiguity in the Calculus of Brazilian Racial Identity" (1970), and "Who are the Whites?" (1993).

During the 1980s, Harris was troubled by the rising popularity of postmodernist theory within anthropology. He believed that anthropology was a science and was concerned about the harmful consequences of postmodernist theory to the field. He organized a AAA session on postmodernism called "Anti-anti Science" in 1989 and participated in multiple conference sessions on the subject, including a 1993 session on "The Objectivity Crisis: Rethinking the Role of Science" at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting. "Anthropology and Postmodernism," a revised version of his AAAS paper was published as a chapter in (Martin F. Murphey and Maxine L. Margolis, 1995). Harris also criticized postmodernist theory in his final book, (1999).

While Harris thought that postmodernism was moving anthropology further away from science, behavior scientists began to see the relevancy of cultural materialism in their own research. In 1986, Harris was invited to give an address at the annual conference of the Association for Behavioral Analysis (ABA). His paper was titled, "Cultural Materialism and Behavior Analysis: Common Problems and Radical Solutions." He also participated in a symposium on "The Integration of Cultural Materialism and Behavior Analysis" at the 1991 ABA annual meeting.

From 1988-90, Harris served as president of the General Anthropology Division of AAA. In 1991, he was given the honor of presenting the Distinguished Lecture at the AAA annual meeting. His talk was titled, "Anthropology and the Theoretical and Paradigmatic Significance of the Collapse of Soviet and East European Communism." That same year, was designated a Social Science Citation Classic.

Harris died at the age of 74 on October 25, 2001.

Sources Consulted

Margoline, Maxine L. and Conrad Phillip Kottak. "Marvin Harris (1927-2001)." . 105(3) (2003): 685-688.

Curriculum Vitae. Series 7. Biographical Files. Marvin Harris papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

Harris, Marvin. "Cultural Materialism is Alive and Well and Won't Go Away Until Something Better Comes Along." In ,edited by Robert Borofsky, 62-76. New York: McGraw Hill, 1994.

Related Materials

More of Marvin Harris' correspondence can be found in the papers of William Duncan Strong. Researchers may also want to consult the Human Studies Film Archives, which holds video oral histories of Charles Wagley (HSFA 89.10.5) and Lambros Comitas (HSFA 89.10.20), both of whom discuss Harris in their interviews.