ANTH1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Logical Consequence, Genetic Diversity, French Revolution
Document Summary
Anthropologists are primarily concerned to understand the nature and dynamics of cultural difference. Race, as a way of talking about human biological variation, does not explain cultural variation: biology does not explain culture. If you tell people that you are studying anthropology, many will talk to you as if race and culture were the same thing: = popular conception, humanity is a species. Therefore boas had a problem, and anthropologists continue to have a problem, keeping control over what they are talking about: about the meaning of culture. Dodson demonstrates that the contemporary definition of aboriginal people by non- aboriginal people is governed by ideas about race. These ideas govern the perception of himself as an individual and his capacity to act. For both reasons a statement on race is required. Boas: focus on native americans but also, on a larger scale, immigration from europe. American association of physical anthropologists statement on biological aspects of.