Eleanor Leacock Burke--interesting article

A good look at the continuing contribution to anthropological theory of KB's daughter Eleanor (Happy) recently appeared in Race, Gender, and Class. See citation and abstract below:

Catherine Hodge McCold. “Eleanor Burke Leacock and Intersectionality: Materialism, Dialectics, and Transformation.” Race, Gender & Class 15.1-2 (2008): 24-41.

Anthropologist Eleanor Burke Leacock's Marxist dialectical materialism helped to create the core of intersectionality and still provides a methodology to help advance transformation. Her efforts contributed to two core aspects of contemporary intersectional approaches to capitalism: 1) the acceptance of the intersectionality of oppression in all its forms-race, class, gender, sexuality, religion, etc., and 2) the general rejection of biological determinism as it relates to race, gender, and class. Using taped interviews by the author and other materials, this article examines Leacock's influence on intersectionality in five areas: 1) women's status in egalitarian societies, 2) race, class, and gender in schools, 3) the critique of the "culture of poverty" approach, 4) women, development, and work, 5) colonialism, race, class, and gender in Samoa. It also examines some contemporary work building on Leacock's model, which gives class a primary position, to illustrate how her approach continues to engage on-going challenges. Within the oppressive context of Cold War America, Leacock tested and found support for the Marxist hypothesis that humans once lived in a state in which men and women were equal partners. She explored and refuted biological determinist notions that 1) in all societies women have been subordinate to men (i.e., as a result of sexual biology), and she also refuted the idea that 2) basic features of capitalism (such as competition and private ownership of property) are found in all societies and individuals (i.e., are related to human "nature"). Since so many of the contemporary forms of oppression-attacks on immigrants, the rise of religious "fundamentalism," the increasing use of rape and other torture as weapons of war, the coloring of prison populations, rising attacks on sexuality, as examples-are resurrecting the ideology of biological determinism and are class assaults with new faces, it is ever more urgent to use the tools Leacock helped to develop.