Pioneers of Anthropology

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Pioneers of Anthropology
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Social Darwinism

• Darwins theory of natural selection was mis-
• -applied to the social world, creating the
  idea of survival of the fittest those peoples
  less technologically advanced were inferior,
  and would be conquered or replaced by their
  superiors the inferior races could
  contaminate the superior western white people!
  (resulting in Hitlers death cult).
• This theory of racial superiority was the
  background on which anthropology developed,
  before it became more objective and science-
  based.

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Henry Louis Morgan U.S. 1818-1881

• 1st to research aboriginal peoples of North
  America
• came up with a Theory of Social Evolution
• The idea that social evolution occurred in 3
  stages,
• a) savagery
• b) barbarism
• c) civilization
• - once widely accepted, now the assumption of
  social or cultural evolution is considered
  ethnocentric Morgan was judging other cultures
  according to ones values, his being the white,
  European-based culture.

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Franz Boas U.S. 1858- 1942

• the founder of American anthropology
• (studied the language and culture of Inuit
  and West Coast natives dont write this!)
• Believed in
• a) - accurate records and a large data base
  (the scientific method)
• b) believed in cultural relativism
  cultures should be judged
• by their own values, as successful
  adaptations to their own
• environments.
• c) - established the importance of ethnology
  the study of
• the origins, similarities, differences
  between races and cultures.

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Ruth Benedict U.S. 1887 1948

• Patterns of Culture, (on Plains native cultures)
• and The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (on
  Japanese culture
• life should be highly ritualized and
  perfectly executed)
• looked at how culture and religion shape
  personality
• concluded that cultures have personalities some
  cultures believed in restraint, and others might
  believe in fierceness.
• ? Main idea the main personality traits of the
  culture become the
• main personality traits of
  persons of that culture.

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Margaret Mead U.S. 1901-1978

• student of Franz Boas.
• worked in the south Pacific islands of Polynesia
  and New Guinea.
• broke the gender barriers of her time.
• Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) compared
• adolescence in Samoa and America, saw it
  didnt
• seem to exist in Samoan culture, so she
  concluded
• adolescence isnt a universally distinct
  or difficult
• stage, unlike many cultures (i.e., its
  nurture)
• her studies of 3 cultures in the south
  Pacific resulted in
• her conclusion that, nurture
  (socialization) was
• more influential in development than
  nature.
• This is where the Nature Nurture debate
  began.