week 3 - american anthropology Flashcards
(28 cards)
What historical factors shaped the development of American anthropology?
-> The context of settler colonialism
-> The genocide and displacement of Native Americans
-> MAss migration from Europe (especially germany, italy, ireland)
-> The search for a distinct “American” identity
-> Both a romanticization of Native cultures and a drive to “salvage” disappearing ways of life (even though the native americans still existed and were being murdered).
How did German philosophy influence American anthropology?
Boas (emigrated from Germany) influenced by German thinkers like Kant and Herder.
Kant: transcendental idealism argued that our experience of the world is shaped by a priori categories of understanding (space, time, causality) - not derived from experience but inherent in the structure of the mind.
Herder: emphasized the uniqueness of each people’s “Volksgeist” (spirit of the people)
The importance of culture (Kultur) over “civilization.”
This led to the American focus on cultural particularism and the rejection of universal evolutionary schemes.
What is the significance of the concept “Kulturnation”?
In Germany, a “Kulturnation” is a nation defined by shared culture, not just political boundaries (vs. France’s standards of ‘civilization’ - both countries in war at the time).
This idea influenced Boas and the American emphasis on culture as the defining feature of human groups.
Kant’s transcendental idealism (a priori categories of understanding) - impact on Boas.
Kant’s a priori categories of understanding influenced Boas’s understanding of how culture shapes perception and thought.
Boas argued that language and culture provide the categories through which we understand the world, and that these categories vary from culture to culture
What is Boas’s main critique of evolutionary anthropology?
-> Boas rejected the idea of a single, universal path of cultural evolution (primitive to modern).
-> He argued that each culture has its own unique history, shaped by both internal developments and external influences (diffusion, migration).
What is “historical particularism”?
Boas’s approach that insists on studying each culture in its own context and history, rather than fitting it into a grand evolutionary scheme.
Cultures are not “higher” or “lower,” but different.
How did Boas’s methods differ from earlier anthropologists?
He emphasized empirical fieldwork, linguistic study, and the “four-field” approach:
- socio-cultural anthro
- linguistics
- biological anthro
- archaeology
He rejected armchair theorizing and grand speculation.
He developed ‘cultural relativism’ - the idea that every culture should be observed/judged from it’s own cultural context.
What does Boas say about the causes of cultural similarity?
Similarities may arise from:
- diffusion (contact)
- independent invention
- similar responses to similar problems -> not from a universal evolutionary law.
How does Boas view the relationship between the individual and society?
He sees a dynamic interplay:
- individuals are shaped by society, but also influence and change it.
- this focus on change and agency contrasts with the static models of British functionalism.
How did Boas and his followers define “culture”?
Culture is the learned, shared patterns of thought and behavior that characterize a group.
It is not biologically determined and cannot be ranked hierarchically.
How does the American concept of “culture” differ from the British focus on “society”?
-> American anthropology (Boas, Benedict, Mead) focuses on culture as meaning, values, and patterns
-> British anthropology (Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown) focuses on social structure, roles, and institutions.
What are Ruth Benedict’s key contributions?
In Patterns of Culture (1934), Benedict argued that each culture is a unique “configuration” or “style,” integrating diverse traits into a coherent whole.
She compared cultures like Zuni (calm), Dobu (paranoid), and Kwakiutl (megalomaniac), showing that “normal” and “abnormal” are culturally relative.
What is the “culture and personality” school?
Developed by Benedict and Mead, this approach studies how culture shapes individual personality and psychological development.
It emphasizes the diversity of human experience and challenges universalist assumptions.
What did Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) argue?
Mead showed that adolescent experience is shaped by culture, not biology.
Samoan teenagers had a very different, less stressful (in different ways) adolescence than Americans, challenging the idea of universal psychological development.
What are some critiques of Benedict and Mead?
Later scholars questioned:
- the unity of culture
- the accuracy of their ethnographies
- the tendency to overstate cultural coherence.
How did the context of the US (migration, genocide, nation-building) shape its anthropology?
The US context led to a focus on:
- cultural diversity
- the “melting pot,”
- the need to understand and preserve Native American cultures (often in a romanticized way).
What are the strengths and weaknesses of Boas’s approach?
Strengths:
- attention to diversity, change, and context
- rejection of ethnocentrism and racism.
Weaknesses:
- can downplay structure, power, and the possibility of cross-cultural comparison.
How would you compare the origins of American and British anthropology?
American anthropology arose from the context of migration, settler colonialism, and German philosophy, focusing on culture and diversity.
British anthropology was shaped by colonial administration and Durkheimian sociology, focusing on social structure and order.
How might you critique the American concept of “culture”?
While it challenged racism and ethnocentrism, it could romanticize or essentialize cultures, and sometimes ignored power, conflict, and inequality.
How did Boas’s students expand or challenge his legacy?
Benedict and Mead:
- developed the “culture and personality” school, emphasizing psychological diversity and cultural relativism
- but faced criticism for overgeneralization and lack of attention to social structure.
Who was Lewis Henry Morgan and why is he significant in the history of anthropology?
Lewis Henry Morgan (1818–1881) was an American lawyer, ethnologist, and anthropologist.
-> Considered one of the founding figures of American anthropology, especially for his pioneering work on kinship and social evolution.
-> His research on the Iroquois and other Native American groups laid the groundwork for later studies of kinship and social organization.
What are Lewis Henry Morgan’s most influential works?
-> The League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee or Iroquois (1851): A detailed ethnography of the Iroquois Confederacy, based on collaboration with Ely S. Parker, a Seneca leader.
-> Ancient Society (1877): Morgan’s most influential work, proposing a theory of social evolution from “savagery” to “barbarism” to “civilization” (unilinear evolutionary model).
What was Morgan’s approach to kinship, and why was it groundbreaking?
-> Morgan was the first to systematically compare kinship terminologies across cultures, showing that kinship systems are not universal but vary widely.
-> He developed a method for classifying kinship and demonstrated that kinship is a key to understanding social organization.
How did Morgan’s theory of social evolution reflect the intellectual climate of his time?
-> Morgan’s theory was influenced by Enlightenment ideas of progress and by Darwinian evolution.
-> It reflected the belief in a universal, law-like development of human societies, with Western civilization at the apex.
