Full Idea
One can agree that structuralism formed the most systematic effort to evacuate the concept of the event, not only from ethnology but from a whole series of other sciences and in the extreme case from history.
Gist of Idea
Structuralism systematically abstracted the event from sciences, and even from history
Source
Michel Foucault (Truth and Power (interview) [1976], p.115)
Book Reference
Foucault,Michel: 'Essential Works 1954-1984 3: Power', ed/tr. Faubion,J [Penguin 2002], p.115
A Reaction
'Abstract' might be a better word than 'evacuate'. In that sense, this at least seems to have it the right way round - that structure can be abstracted, but in no way can a structure be prior to its components (pace Ladyman, Shapiro etc).