ANP 220 Lecture Notes - Lecture 99: Franz Boas, Clifford Geertz, Sociocultural Evolution
Document Summary
A succeeding generation of anthropologists challenged the views of cultural evolutionism and developed their own brand of anthropology. This generation of scholars was led by franz boas (1858-1942). Boas was someone who felt strongly about conducting fieldwork in order to understand cultures. His experience of staying for long periods of time in the field, working especially with the kwakiutl of the pacific northwest, informed his critique of cultural evolutionism and the development of his theory of culture: historical particularism. Boas asserted that cultures develop in specific ways as a result of particular geographic and historical circumstances, not according to their ability to pass through certain hierarchical stages. Boas also noted that similarities between cultures were probably due to. "diffusion" the spread of and borrowing of cultural traits from other cultural groups. One difference between british and american anthropologists at the time is that. Americans felt that fieldwork should be "inductive" and somewhat exploratory.
