The birth of cultural materialism? A debate between Marvin Harris and António Rita-Ferreira

O nascimento do materialismo cultural? Um debate entre Marvin Harris e António Rita-Ferreira

Abstract

This article addresses a specific phase in the career of Marvin Harris, the founder of cultural materialism: his fieldwork in Mozambique. In particular, it examines the debate on the migration of the "indígenas" of Mozambique to the mines of South Africa, in which he engaged with António Rita-Ferreira, a colonial civil servant and amateur anthropologist (or "self-made scholar", as he liked to represent himself). The article analyses that debate from two related perspectives: a disciplinary or anthropological perspective, and an historical-political one, marked by the movement of decolonisation in the second half of the 1950s

Keywords:
cultural materialism; Marvin Harris; Mozambique; António Rita-Ferreira; Portuguese colonialism