Infrastructural determinism in terms of globalization

This conference paper deals with the issue of cultural materialism and its applicability to researching modern cultural phenomena in terms of globalization.
Let us start from the defining of cultural materialism and its premises. Cultural materialism is a Marxist-based approach to anthropological interpretation, which differs from traditional Marxism by expanding the view of dialectical materialism to include specific cultural, environmental, and other influences and outcomes. Cultural materialism as an anthropological paradigm founded upon Marxist materialistic thought. American anthropologist Marvin Harris, who elaborated this concept, was influenced by the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.As in Marxism, cultural materialism considers that all socio-cultural systems consist of three levels: infrastructure (technology, economics, and demographics), structure (cultural and kinship systems), and superstructure (ideology, religion).