Eric Wolf and the Structural Power of Theory

Reflecting recent developments in the historiography of anthropology, this paper offers a rereading of Eric Wolf's political and economic work. Applying Wolf's concept of structural power to examination of theoretical thinking, it focuses on three aspects of his work: the explicit and longstanding connections between Wolf's political economic analyses and the theoretical perspective outlined by his dissertation supervisor, Julian Steward; the development of Wolf's Marxian theory in Europe and The People Without History; and the implications of Wolf's theory for the representation of indigenous societies, drawing on his analysis of Dene involvement in the fur trade. It demonstrates the ways in which the application of a theory arising from a combination of Steward's theory and Marxian analysis constrains his conceptualization of indigenous peoples and their encounters with capitalism.

By all accounts, Eric Wolf (1923-99) was a profoundly humane scholar. Among his professional contributions to the discipline of anthropology are not only widely read works on Latin America, peasants, and power (e.g., Wolf 1959, 1962, 1969, 1999), but also highly principled, ethical defenses of disciplinary integrity against efforts to militarize anthropological methods and apply them against the people with whom we work (e.g., Wolf and Jorgensen 1970). This article seeks to understand better one aspect of his work—his application of a particular strain of Marxist theory—and assess its implications for the representations of indigenous societies. It is manifestly not a critique of his character. He was a product of his time, who like all innovative thinkers found ways to transcend the prevailing currents, as his critique of anthropology's cooption by counterinsurgency programs demonstrates. The discipline has moved much since then, and the analysis which follows is an attempt to historicize a particular, important moment in its development; in this case Wolf's work is crucial not because it exemplified the worst aspects, but because it has had the greatest impact both within and beyond the confines of anthropology. A reexamination of this work provides a case study of the implications of theoretical structures for the analysis of data; it is not about authorial intent, but rather a post facto reading of the material implications of theoretical thinking, and is situated in an emerging historiographical discourse that seeks to understand both the political context and political implications of anthropological research beyond the academy (Hancock 2008; Trencher 2002; cf. Smith 2010).

The issue of political engagement has never been far from the surface in discussions of the work of Wolf, usually focused on the influence of Marxism on his political economic theory and analysis. William Roseberry has presented Wolf's work as the exemplar of an anthropology which is radically engaged with the world beyond the academy, arguing that Wolf "traces the imprint of a series of intersections of world and local histories in the very constitution of anthropological subjects, calling for a radical reformulation of the way we think and talk about history" (Roseberry 1988:173). Similarly, Sherry Ortner has claimed, "The anthropology of the 1970s was much more obviously and transparently tied to real-world events than that of the preceding period" (1984:138), which was marked by a turn to the theoretical insights of Marx through the work of scholars such as Wolf. Recent work, however, has shown that even with the application of a critical Marxist approach, this questioning of anthropological theory has not led to an intense interrogation of its connections with colonialism and imperialism as these were experienced by indigenous peoples in North America (Pinkoski 2008a, 2008b).

This notion of political economy's radical engagement with the real world has been taken up more recently by other scholars. Anthony Marcus and Charles Menzies, in their call for a class-struggle anthropology—" an anthropological practice that can be linked to the ultimate goal of achieving a classless society" (Marcus and Menzies 2005:13)—cite Wolf and Eleanor Leacock as the "intellectual progenitors of Marxist anthropology in North America" (Marcus and Menzies 2005:16). In particular, they laud Wolf

as a founding figure of American Marxist anthropology for having forced the...