Boas, Franz

Boas, Franz
(1858-1942)
A German-born anthropologist who founded modern cultural anthropology (see social anthropology ) in the United States. He and his students came to dominate American anthropology for the first three decades of the twentieth century. Boas revolutionized fieldwork methodology, relying on analysis of local texts, linguistics, and training local representative researchers to document their own culture . His Primitive Art (1927) greatly influenced later approaches to examining the material culture of peoples.
Using these methods Boas provided an enormous amount of ethnographic data on native American cultures of the Pacific Northwest. He gave priority to empirical ethnographic investigation over any search for scientific laws of cause and effect in culture. Boas was a cultural relativist, arguing that culture should be understood in terms of its own framework of meaning, rather than being judged by outside investigators according to the values of their own culture. He exposed and undermined the grandiose pretensions of evolutionary theory as espoused by Edward Tylor and James Frazer . Instead, Boas insisted on study of cultures as wholes, as systems of many interrelated parts. His later interest in psychology served as a precursor to the culture and personality approach. His other principal works include Race, Language and Culture (1940), and The Mind of Primitive Man (1911).

Dictionary of sociology. 2013.

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  • Boas,Franz — Bo·as (bōʹăz), Franz. 1858 1942. German born American anthropologist who emphasized the systematic analysis of culture and language structures. * * * …   Universalium

  • Boas, Franz — (1858 1942)    American anthropol ogist. Born in Minden, Westphalia, he studied the Eskimos in Baffin Island. After teaching at Berlin University, he went to the US where he taught at Clark University, later becoming professor of anthropology at… …   Dictionary of Jewish Biography

  • BOAS, Franz — (1858 1942)    German/Jewish/American whose is considered one of the founders of ANTHROPOLOGY. He pioneered the technique fieldwork among the Kwakiutl of British Columbia. His works include    The Social Organization and Secret Societies of the… …   Concise dictionary of Religion

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