The study of Anthropology, at its core, seeks to analyze humanity, examining the evolution, novelty, and diversity of human beings. Anthropologists meet this charge by engaging in an impartial comparison of human life across various contexts, using their observations to determine both shared and distinguishing elements of the human experience. Inquiry surrounding these idiosyncrasies as a modern academic discipline begins with the work of Franz Boas, a German-born American scholar considered the “father of American Anthropology”. Boas and his contributions to the field of Anthropology are thoughtfully outlined in the documentary “The Shackles of Tradition”.
While on a geographic mapping expedition in Baffin Island, Boas’ experience living among the Inuit piqued his interest in understanding the relationship between humans and the environment, as well as the variations in custom and culture generated from or, perhaps, despite the unique conditions of the north Canadian tundra. Boas’ immersive experience with Inuit language, tradition, and ritual illuminated his understanding of culture as learned practices and ideas that evolve with their constituents. The transmission and adaptation of culture are dependent upon the behavior, actions, priorities, and longevity of the groups to whom it is significant. His understanding of culture’s plasticity greatly inspired Boas’ work in researching, cataloging, and documenting the culture of Indigenous tribes in the Pacific Northwest, an effort supported and promoted by a series of museums in the United States. Driven by the mission of teaching others about the significance of objects, customs, and events to other groups of people, museums as institutions perhaps serve as the strongest advocacies for Boas’ definition of culture.
Boas further asserted that culture was not biologically inherited, as had been suggested by proponents of Darwinism. Instead, biologically inherited traits and variances amongst humans were said to constitute race, a category determined by physical, biological attributes developed from common ancestry and shared environment. Furthermore, Boas and his colleagues considered race to be an area of scientific study that could be systematically measured and evaluated, an idealogy that, debatably, inspired and supported the field of eugenics and perpetuated notions of racial hierarchy. This outcome is startling considering Boas’ abolitionist sentiments and strong condemnation of racism. The Anthropologist’s public opposition to objectives for racial purity within Germany’s Third Reich long defined discourse on social and political justice within his field.
Boas’ opposition to racial purity in the Third Reich was, likely, also partially motivated by his own Jewish heritage, which many scholars cite as influential to his ideas regarding cultural assimilation. As a civilization presently characterized and historically defined by a geographic Diaspora, Jews’ traditional consideration as a racial remarkably incongruent with Boas’ definition of race. Boas often used the Jews as a sort of case study for his theory of humanity and the separation of culture and race; Jews did not share any remarkable physical or biological characteristics across its Diaspora and, often, successfully assimilate to the cultures of those who surrounded them. This idea proves particularly relevant to the contemporary study of Jewish Anthropology in the aftermath of the Holocaust and the Anthropology of Israel, which serve to establish ethnography for those who, in one case, share culture but not necessarily race and, in the latter case, share race but not necessarily culture.
Examining the Boas’ ideas in these sects propagates the notion that “culture is not a function of race” (Vismeswaran 73), establishing race and culture as two mutually exclusive categories. Later Anthropologists, including Ashley Montagu and Cora Du Bois, would take issue with this division, advocating for the inclusion of “ethnicity” as a categorical hybrid and considerations for the role of history and experience as contributing to racial and cultural identity. Seeing that our world has become increasingly globalized in the past half-century, I find it interesting to consider the dichotomy and intersection of these two categories in evaluating modern humanity and individual identity. Human migration to cities, countries, and continents to which they are not native, as well as the cross-cultural exchange of information, media, and language facilitated by the digital age, has to contributed human experiences that are more widely shared and homogenous. I’d be interested in hearing the class’ thoughts surrounding this movement, particularly considering Boas’ aspiration for racial and cultural democracy.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Don Seeman and Nehemia Stern, \u201cJews, Judaism, Jewishness: Towards an Anthropology of Jewish Life.\u201d Forthcoming In Simone Cole and Joel Robbins editors, Blackwell Handbook in the Anthropology of Religion.
Kamala Visweswaran, \u201cRace and the Culture of Anthropology,\u201d American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 100, No. 1 (Mar., 1998), pp. 70-83. Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association. Stable URL: https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/682809
Sharon Lindenburger, \u201cIch Bin J\u00fcdischer Abstammung (I Am of Jewish Lineage): The Conflicted Jewish Identity of the Anthropologist Franz Boas,\u201d In Regna Darnell and Frederic W. Gleach editors, Disruptive Voices and the Singularity of Histories Book (University of Nebraska Press, 2019). Stable URL: http:\/\/www.jstor.com\/stable\/j.ctvpj7h4r.6
“The Shackles of Tradition – Franz Boas (1858-1942).”, directed by Andre Singer. , produced by Andre Singer. , Royal Anthropological Institute, 1986. Alexander Street, https:\/\/video-alexanderstreet-com.proxy.library.emory.edu\/watch\/the-shackles-of-tradition-franz-boas-1858-1942.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The study of Anthropology, at its core, seeks to analyze humanity, examining the evolution, novelty, and diversity of human beings. Anthropologists meet this charge by engaging in an impartial comparison of human life across various contexts, using their observations to determine both shared and distinguishing elements of the human experience. Inquiry surrounding these idiosyncrasies as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6908,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/anthropologyofreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/anthropologyofreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/anthropologyofreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/anthropologyofreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6908"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/anthropologyofreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/anthropologyofreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/anthropologyofreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions\/39"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/anthropologyofreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/anthropologyofreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/anthropologyofreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}