Claude Lévi-Strauss developed structuralism as a major theoretical approach in social and cultural anthropology. Influenced by structural linguistics, particularly the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, Lévi-Strauss argued that human culture should be studied as a system of relationships rather than merely as a collection of customs, beliefs, and institutions. He maintained that beneath the apparent diversity of human cultures lie universal patterns of thought that reflect the structure of the human mind. Lévi-Strauss applied structural analysis to several areas of anthropology, especially kinship, mythology, religion, classification, and food practices. His central concern was to discover the underlying structures through which people organize their social and cultural experiences. According to him, culture is essentially a system of communication, and its different elements acquire meaning through their relationships with other elements. One of the most important concepts in Lévi-Strauss’s structuralism is the