Levi-Strauss : UNESCO = anthropology : politics

Abstract

This paper discusses Levi-Strauss engagement in UNESCO activities. On the one hand, Levi-Strauss engagement in Pakistan had an important impact on his later work, as well as on his overall view about the world and culture( s); while on the other, Levi-Strauss’s definitions of the relationship between race/nation and culture had an important influence on the ways in which UNESCO dealt with the ideas about culture and on the ways these ideas were implemented in its global strategies of action in/towards culture. On the one hand, this engagement included a delivery of the European world view (as a superior one) to everyone who does not have it; while on the other, it also meant a protection of material remains of different cultures world-wide and protection of non-material heritage and/as entire "Othern-ness", whenever it is located, and (at least in theory) however it looks like. In that sense, Levi- Strauss public engagement had an important impact not only on anthropology, as a discipline that he dedicated his life to, but also to the formation of contemporary understanding of politically correct relationship towards the "Other".