Cultural determinism and its ethnographic critique
The discursive shift in Italian social research
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5884732 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Zhengyu Li (0009-0001-2596-4012, Beijing Normal University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2025-10-26 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Anthropology and Ethnology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2366-1003 • E-ISSN: 2366-1003 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1186/s41257-025-00143-9 |
| OpenAlex | W4415550658 |
| Language | FR |
| References cited | 17 |
The Japanese-American political scientist Francis Fukuyama described the Chinese as familists and Chinese society as a low-trust society. Such allegations about family values and social virtues stem from the discourse of cultural determinism, which was prevalent in Italian social research during the second half of the twentieth century. In 1958, American political scientist Edward C. Banfield proposed the hypothesis of "amoral familism" to explain the inability of residents in a small southern Italian town to form associations for collective interests. This hypothesis later inspired another political scientist, Robert D. Putnam, who quantitatively tested it through his study of the performance of democratic institutions across Italy's regions. Banfield and Putnam focused on political organization and democratic institutions, respectively, and attributed their underdevelopment to local culture and history. In this way, they contributed to the discourse of cultural determinism, which is theoretically rooted in the political philosophies of Hobbes and Tocqueville. Drawing on diverse social practices, his ethnography reveals the complexity and integrality of local Roman society, offering both a critical reflection on and a transcendence of the discourse of cultural determinism
Culture theory · Democracy · Determinism · Ethnography · Political culture · Politics · Technological determinism · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Cultural Studies · Italian Social Issues and Migration · Social and Cultural Dynamics
Democracy in America
Numen inest
The Genesis of St. Augustine's Idea of Original Sin
Theory Travelling through Time and Space
Quaderni del Carcere. Edizione Critica a cura di Valentino Gerratana
Religio, Priesthoods and Magistracies in the Roman Republic
Reply to J. Davis
American Sociologists and Italian Peasant Society
Evicted from Eternity
Familism, Kinship and Sex Roles in Southern Italy
Are familists amoral? a test of Banfield's amoral familism hypothesis in a South Italian village1
Agricultural Organization, Social Structure, and Values in Italy
Evicted from Eternity
Morals and Backwardness
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |