2/3/2024 0 Comments Franz boas![]() 1965) and Race, Language, and Culture (1940). He continued to document his experience with Indigenous languages, artistic traditions, and cultural variation.įranz Boas, “Ethnological Problems in Canada,” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. His fieldwork shifted in 1886 to the Northwest Coast Aboriginal peoples. They also reveal the development of his method of inquiry during an early stage of his professional growth as an anthropologist. Boas’ Arctic journals are significant documents in Canadian history, recorded at a time when the rapid changes of Canadian industrialization influenced the relationship between Indigenous people, settler populations and the land. This fieldwork revealed that cultural expression is more than just a matter of geography - people form symbolic belief systems around their physical landscape. When Boas left Germany in June 1883, he embarked on a journey to Cumberland Sound to conduct geographical and ethnographic research among the Baffin Island Inuit (1883–4). He worked tirelessly and effectively to move the public away from a belief in scientific racism, towards a conception of cultural variation as the basis for explaining significant human difference. Boas was also a vocal critic of European cultural superiority - an ideology that was popular justification for imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th century. ![]() Edward Sapir was also a student of Boas, and was responsible for the earliest efforts to map Indigenous languages of the Pacific Coast of Canada. Among them were some of the first women to earn high achievements in the field of anthropology - cultural anthropologists Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict being two notable examples. He is celebrated for his research and teaching accomplishments, and acted as a mentor to many prominent anthropologists in the 20th century. He was a pioneer in the field of anthropology and continues to influence to the methods of cultural anthropology, in particular. In June 1883, at the age of 24, Boas left Germany and embarked on a year of ethnographic research with the Inuit of the Eastern Arctic Archipelago.įor many years, Franz Boas reigned at the hub of American professional anthropology. ![]() Before he could conduct his research with the Baffin Island Inuit, Boas was required by law to complete military training in Germany, as were all men of age to serve in the armed forces. This fieldwork followed the first International Polar Year (1882–83), which culminated in a coordinated effort among other European states to establish stationary research in the Arctic, and also study the culture of Aboriginal peoples of the Arctic. Soon after, he began to plan scientific research in the Arctic Circle. He graduated with a PhD in physics in 1881 from the University of Kiel with great honour, minoring in philosophy and geography. His fascination with natural history developed as a popular interest in arctic discovery swept Europe in the late 19th century. He is heralded as the “Father of American Anthropology,” having taught a number of influential thinkers in the discipline, and is credited with theorizing several foundational methods for studying and understanding human cultural expression and variation.īoas was born the son of Germanic Jewish parents, and showed an interest in polar exploration from an early age. Boas deeply influenced the direction of anthropological methods in the study of human culture in Canada and the United States. in physics.Franz Boas, anthropologist, ethnologist, folklorist, linguist (born 9 July 1858 in Minden, Westphalia, Germany died on 21 December 1942 in New York City, NY). He followed his interests in his college and graduate studies, focusing primarily on the natural sciences and geography while attending the University of Heidelberg, the University of Bonn, and the University of Kiel, where he graduated with a Ph.D. ![]() From a young age, Boas was taught to value books and became interested in the natural sciences and culture. His family was Jewish but identified with liberal ideologies and encouraged independent thinking. His theory of cultural relativism held that all cultures were equal, but simply had to be understood in their own contexts and by their own terms.īoas was born in 1858 in Minden, in the German province of Westphalia.
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