Neo-Marxism
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Term for a group of particularly French anthropologists, who, during the 1970's, applied Marxian theory on the study of non-Western societies, often under the influence of French structuralism. In time, important adjustments were made in the theory: in particular, the understanding of the concept of production changed. From assuming (as in many earlier readings of Marx), that "productive work" was just another way of saying "the economy", one now started to speak of a more general "production" of the overall preconditions of the existence of society as such (also meaning is thus "produced"). This opened the doors between Marxian theory and anthropological theories of meaning. Around 1980, much of the theoretical drive of neo-Marxian thinking was channelled into what has been called "practice theory". See Ortner (1984). (See also alienation, evolutionism, postmodernism.)