ANTH 103 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Neoevolutionism, Multilinear Map, Cultural Determinism
Document Summary
Two of boas " students, benedict and mead, developed a culture-oriented approach called positive gurationalism. This relates to functionalism in the sense that society is assumed to be integrated. We saw the boasians mapping the spatial distribution of cultural characteristics, but boas acknowledged that diffusion was not automatic. She emphasized the plasticity of human nature and saw culture as a dynamic force that created almost infinite possibilities. He gave it as an additional aid to cultural determinism. Like benedict, mead was more interested in determining how cultures were patterned or structured in a specific way than in debating how they would be. Neoevolutionism: anthropologists renewed their interest in cultural change and even evolution around 1950, with world war ii ending and a increasing anti- colonial movement. The american anthropologists leslie white and julian steward argued that the. Boasians threw the baby (evolution) out with the bath water (specific flaws of.
