ANTH 203 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Franz Boas, Historical Method, Cultural Relativism

• School: University of Calgary
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: ANTH 203
• Professor: Dr Saulesh Yessenova

Document Summary

Franz boas (1858-1942) came up with the personality movement. Established cultural anthropology as a discipline in north america. Led to advancing a holistic approach to understanding of cultural life: 4 subfield of anthropology: biological, cultural/social, linguistic, archaeology. In boas time, race was thought was of as fixed biological category based on certain physical, mental, and cultural properties characteristic of a given race. Based on empirical research concluded that variations among i(cid:374)di(cid:448)iduals are greater tha(cid:374) a(cid:373)o(cid:374)g (cid:862)ra(cid:272)e(cid:863) a(cid:374)d that: atta(cid:272)ked (cid:271)io racism. (cid:862)there is (cid:374)o reaso(cid:374) to (cid:271)elie(cid:448)e that o(cid:374)e ra(cid:272)e is (cid:271)y (cid:374)ature so (cid:373)u(cid:272)h more intelligent, endowed with great will power, or emotionally more sta(cid:271)le tha(cid:374) a(cid:374)other(cid:863) Race is a social concept not biological, cultural difference are not the result of biological differences. Boas critique of unilineal evolutionism: no evidence of universal stages of cultural evolution, researched in kwakiutl, vancouver island, showed that similar cultural institutions & practices could develop in different ways.