Franz Boas has been considered by many as the "Father of American Anthropology", as he was a pioneer in breaking down the American isolationism, intolerance and misinformation about and biological diversity and linguistics.
Born in Minden, Westphalia, Germany, in 1858, from a Jewish family, Boas early thinking was based on the ideals of the 1848 German revolution and followed his parents’ intellectual freedom (Stocking, 1974). However, Boas did not set out with the specific ambition to study human cultures, and after attending the universities of Heidelberg, Bonn and Kiel, in 1881 he earned a PhD. in Physics, with a minor in geography. Marked by the influence of Rudolf Virchow, who led the founding of the Berliner Gesellshaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte (Berlin Society of Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory), his academic formation gave Boas a strong liberal tradition and an attitude towards race, which rejected the theories that recognized the existence of racial hierarchies based on cultural differences (Stocking, 1974). In 1883, as part of his training at the University of Heidelberg, Boas set out on his first expedition with the two gains of mapping the Canadian Arctic coastline and indulging his new interest in culture, which as a result of the journey, became interest in finding what determines human behaviour. "A year of life spent as an Eskimo among Eskimos", Boas (1938, p. 202) said, "had a profound influence upon the development of my views, […] because it led me away from my former interests and towards the desire to understand what determines the behaviour of human beings." His study of indigenous people, of their appearance, their language and traditions, allowed him to overcome the concept...
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...type: the photograph of Franz Boas. Visual Communication, 12 (1): 123-142.
MacDonald, K. (1998). The Boasian School of Anthropology and the Decline of Darwinism in the Social Sciences. In, MacDonald, K., The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements. California State University: Long Beach, pp. 20-50.
Boas, F. (1930). Anthropology. In, Seligman, E. R. A. ed., Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences. Macmillan: New York.
Pink, S. (2006). Engaging the Visual: An Introduction. In, Pink, S., The Future of Visual Anthropology: Engaging the Senses. Routledge: New York, pp. 3-20.
Stocking, G. W. Jr. (1982).From Physics to Ethnology. In, Stocking, W. G. Jr., Race, Culture, and Ethnology: Essays in the History of Anthropology. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, pp. 134-160.
Robbins, R. H. (2014). Cultural anthropology: a problem-based approach (Second Canadian ed.). Itasca: F.E. Peacock.
Robbins Burling, David F. Armstrong, Ben G. Blount, Catherine A. Callaghan, Mary Lecron Foster, Barbara J. King, Sue Taylor Parker, Osamu Sakura, William C. Stokoe, Ron Wallace, Joel Wallman, A. Whiten, Sherman Wilcox and Thomas Wynn. Current Anthropology, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Feb., 1993), pp. 25-53
Richard B. Lee (2003). The Dobe Ju/‘hoansi (3rd Edition). Case studies in cultural anthropology, USA, Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
The theory of Social Darwinism stems from the idea that the human species can progress by following the principal of Charles Darwin’s natural selection, in which he states that plants and animals that can adapt to changes in their environment are able to survive and reproduce, while those that cannot adapt will die. Social Darwinists applied this biological concept to social, political and economic issues, which created the “survival of the fittest” attitude, as well as competition and inequality between social groups. This paper will discuss some of the proponents of this theory, the results of their interpretation and application of the theory, and why this theory no longer holds a prominent position in Anthropological theory.
Desjarlais, R., & Throop, C. J. (2011). Phenomenological approaches in anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 40, 87-102. doi: 10.1146/annurev-anthro-092010-153345.
The Ainu people, primarily inhabiting the country of Japan, are a key component to anthropology for the sole reason that they are just one of many indigenous peoples who anthropologists’ study and analyze in order to learn more about the diversity and variation around the world. Only being recently recognized, anthropologists study the Ainu, specifically located in both the islands of Hokkaido and Sakhalin by traveling to various regions of Japan where they are primarily living and first-handedly experiencing the main aspects being, their culture, economic activities, sociopolitical organizations, outside influences, and settlement patterns (Ohnuki-Tierney 297). Many anthropologists have studied this group of individuals, specifically the physical, or biological, anthropologists, as they sought to uncover the cultural background of the Ainu and how their culture had since evolved over the thousands of years they lived and were undisclosed. In the early 20th century, the Ainu people grabbed the attention of many anthropologists when it was publicized that they shared physical and skeletal features with Caucasian individuals (Miner, 2009). This enormous detail found enthralled anthropologists, revealing that they had much similarity to those of another “race” than those in their own country. Another reason anthropologists chose to study the Ainu is because the Ainu people inhabited regions of Japan but had differences in their culture, language, customs, and physical appearance than the Japanese. As a result, anthropologists’ wanted to find out just why those differences came about and how they remained so strongly bounded by their own distinct culture while living within a country so rich in Japanese customs.
historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; Culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, and on the other as conditioning elements of further action.”
William Haviland, Harald Prins, Dana Walrath, Bunny McBride, Anthropology: The Human Challenge (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011), 58.
Keyes, Charles F. Karma, An Anthropological Inquiry. Los Angeles, CA, USA: University of California Press, 1983
Sauer, Norman J. "Applied Anthropology and the Concept of Race: A Legacy of Linnaeus" Race, Ethnicity, and Applied Bioanthropology. Ed. Claire C. Gordon. Arlington, VA: National Association for the Practice of Anthropology 1993.
the story in the Phillip Whitten and David E. K. Hunter anthropology book of No
Susan Lindee and Ricardo Santos’ goal was to understand the contexts of genesis and development of biological anthropology around the world from an international standpoint, focusing on engagement with living human populations. Their contributors, scholars in history of science, science studies, and anthropology, were guided by key questions about national histories, collections, and scientific field practice.
It analyzes similarities and differences in various cultures and societies. Culture is learned and affects our perception of the world throughout our life. Overtime, a sense of cultural superiority is formed amongst individuals who are constantly exposed to their own culture. Anthropology can help eliminate culturally based biases, also known as ethnocentrism. It is a common practice we all in engage in when evaluating other cultures, however, by practicing anthropology this allows us to learn about other cultures by placing themselves into the cultural environment allows us to learn the traditions and customs by experience. Marjorie Shostak`s study of the !Kung people revealed that they organized themselves differently than Western cultures, which included solving conflicts with discussion, communal behavior, and basic living traditions. Moreover, by interviewing and living in this cultural environment, Shostak was able to empathize with the !Kung people and she also considered that all humans share an emotional life, which is important when studying the history of our human
Park, M.A. (2008). Introducing anthropology: An integrated approach, with PowerWeb, 4th Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978–0-07-340525-4
9. "AAPA Statement on Biological Aspects of Race." American Journal of Physical Anthropology 101 (1996): 569-570.