When Boas began his career in anthropology, Unilineal Evolution and Social Darwinism were the predominant theories in the anthropological world.
However, coming from a background in physics, mathematics, and geography Sidky , Boas rejected the evolutionist theories of culture. He also believed that the terms such as "savagery", "barbarism", and "civilization" expressed an ethnocentric view of one culture being better than another. He objected to evaluating other cultures using Western concepts such as "progress" and advocated for adopting a relativistic perspective Sidky One of Boas's many contributions to anthropology, cultural relativism , and firsthand observation became central to the Boasian paradigm and anthropological thought for his students.
Similar to cultural relativism, the primary assumption of Historical Particularism is that each society has its own unique historical development and must be understood based on its own specific cultural and environmental context, especially its historical process.
Boas approached each culture as unique and distinctive and asserted that the culture of a society was shaped by its own particular historical, psychological, and social forces Sidky While Boas did believe that there were universal laws that could be derived from the comparative study of cultures, he thought that the ethnographic database was not yet robust enough for us to identify those laws Sidky To that end, he and his students collected a vast amount of first-hand cultural data by conducting ethnographic fieldwork.
Based on these raw data, they described particular cultures instead of trying to establish general theories that apply to all societies. At the same time, the evidence collected by historical particularists revealed the ethnocentrism and racist views of the cultural evolutionists Sidky The anthropological perspective, associated with Franz Boas, that stressed the uniqueness of each culture thought to be the outcome of chance historical developments Sidky Historical particularism was a dominant trend in anthropology during the first half of the twentieth century.
One of the achievements of the historical particularists was that they succeeded in excluding racism from anthropology. The nineteenth-century evolutionists explained cultural similarities and differences by classifying societies into superior and inferior categories. Historical particularists showed that this labeling is based on insufficient evidence and claimed that societies cannot be ranked by the value judgment of researchers.
The term historical particularism refers to the idea that each culture has its own particular and unique history that is not governed by uni versal laws.
Boas and his followers would argue that cultures cannot be compared or be subjected to generalities because each culture experienced a different and unique history, even if it led to a similar cultural aspect. Traits that are similar between cultures may have diffused through interaction between various cultures.
However, while these traits are similar, they will develop different and unique histories from their movement through various societies. Salvage ethnography holds the belief that all cultures matter and it is important to gather as much information as possible on cultures that may become extinct due to assimilation or acculturation.
Salvage ethnography places a lot of importance on documenting a culture, so that even when the culture's rituals, beliefs, and customs are no longer being practiced it will still be preserved through time. Before becoming interested in the field of anthropology, Boas studied geography, mathematics, and physics at the Universities of Heidelberg, Kiel, and Bonn Dolentz. Boas later drifted away from these studies when he became interested in anthropology.
By studying this indigenous group, Boas introduced the theory of cultural relativism, which is the idea that all people have equally developed cultures. This theory also holds the belief that the differences between peoples were the result of historical, social, and geographic conditions Dolentz. Franz Boas is considered to be the founder of American and modern anthropology.
He included the expansion of sociocultural anthropology, linguistics, physical anthropology and archaeology into his works. He was a strong believer in fieldwork over office work [ 18 ]. Boas brought in the idea that cultural traits must be explained in specific cultural contexts instead of a broad reference to evolutionary trends.
Throughout his work, Boas influenced many students. Contributions, Achievements, Life Story. Franz Boas received his doctorate at the age of twenty-three, in , at Kiel University. He then spent a year in the German military. His first expedition was a German expedition to the Arctic to study the Inuit in Soon after that, he went to spend a year on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, leading him to realize he wants to study what determines the behavior of human beings.
In Boas moved to New York, where he became the assistant editor of Science. That year he also got married and became a United States Citizen. In he became a teacher at Clark University. In he was hired as a teacher in physical anthropology at Columbia College. By he was promoted from teacher to professor at Columbia College. In Boas was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He then helped to establish the American Anthropological Association. He also helped establish an archaeological field school in Mexico.
Boas wrote six books and over articles in his lifetime. He made major contributions to the study of language. In Boas demonstrated that traits thought to be fixed were really modified by the environment, through a study on the cranial form.
Boas argued that customs and believes are not the objective of research. He gathered information from individual informants and considered such data valuable enough for cultural analysis.
On the other hand, Alfred Kroeber did not see individuals as the fundamental elements of a society. He believed a society evolves according to its own internal laws that do not directly originate from its individuals.
He named this cultural aspect superorganic and claimed that a society cannot be explained without considering this impersonal force. Historical particularism was a dominant trend in anthropology during the first half of the twentieth century. One of the achievements of the historical particularists was that they succeeded in excluding racism from anthropology.
The nineteenth-century evolutionists explained cultural similarities and differences by classifying societies into superior and inferior categories. Historical particularists showed that this labeling is based on insufficient evidence and claimed that societies cannot be ranked by the value judgment of researchers.
Historical particularists were also responsible for showing the need for long-term, intensive fieldwork in order to produce accurate descriptions of cultures. One important part of doing that was to learn the language of the study group. Darnell, Regna.
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