Prior to the twentieth century, it was commonly accepted that western culture was more advanced than all other cultures. Going into the twentieth century, there emerged a new generation of anthropologists and writers who began questioning the notion of Western cultural superiority. One of this group’s main figures was Franz Boas.
Born in 1858 in Minden, Germany, Boas, early on in his career, was interested in studying minority cultures. This led to his writing of many books, notably “The Central Eskimo”, about the Inuit and Yupik people in arctic Canada in 1888, and “Kwakiutl Ethnography” about the Kwakiutl tribe in North America posthumously in 1966.
With his background in cultural anthropology, Boas became the figure head of cultural relativism, a concept which was only just emerging. Because of his impact on the development of this theory it has been called the “Boasian approach”. Cultural relativism, put simply, is the concept of not having a predetermined view of what’s “normal” and what’s not when it comes to looking at civilizations, that there is no one universal measurement. Meaning that essentially all cultures are independent of one another. This meant the beginning of the destruction of the deep-rooted perception that western culture is superior, as it started the not defining of something as weird and exotic just because it is not the traditional norm.
Through his research on native American tribes, he criticized anthropological paradigm, saying something is the same, and argued that the similarities and differences between two separate civilizations did not, put simply, make them the same sort of civilization. This developed into the theory of Particularism, which emphasized this idea of uniqueness within each individual civilization.
The impact of his work continues to shape anthropology to this day. Boas helped mold the idea that race is in fact a cultural construct, rather than biologically determined, famously saying that “the behavior of an individual is determined not by his racial affiliation, but by the character of his ancestry and his cultural environment” which helped oppose the scientific racism that dominated the academic field during his time. In addition to this he practically created the idea that anthropology is a holistic study which combines culture, language, archeology etc.. Despite Boas’s irreplaceable impact on anthropology, he is often overlooked as one of the 20th centuries great academic figures, and his name is generally unknown by members of the public.
Which is why it is important to be reminded of his irreplicable work on anthropology, as his work has not only had an impact within the field itself but also on the wider modern day world.
Bibliography:
Pic:
Comments