Critical Anthropology Twenty Years Later

Abstract

This essay reviews the current claims of political-economy and postmodernism to define the terrain of critical anthropology While it is argued that the marxist concept of labor is inadequate as a theory of social action, it is also argued that postmodernism fails to take into consideration the concrete social conditions of capitalist society that profoundly condition the representational process It is suggested that a metatheory grounded in history and responsive to the problematics of advanced capitalist society is the best means by which to bridge the impasse between political-economy and postmodern anthropology