3/11/10

3/11/10 *During the early 20th century, the Boasians played a major role in anthropology. *Culture is SUI GENERIS, or creates itself. *Frank Boaz was a Jewish liberal from 1858-1942. He was a founding father of anthropology and concentrated on geography. He rejected Victorians unilinear thinking, cultural evolution, and Universalist approaches. *Later called Historical Particularism in the 1960s, Boaz had a contextual approach that focused on environmental effects on a given culture, the unique historical context for the given culture, and concentration on the psychological factors. *During this time, the main approaches were contextual and individualistic. *CULTURAL RELATIVISM is the view that no cultural traditions are inherently inferior or superior, for example, genocide and human sacrifice. *ETHNOCENTRISM is the practice of judging another culture by your own standards. *ETHNOGRAPHY is a written description of a societys customary behaviors and specific ideals and anthropological data. *British social anthropology had a break through with Bronislaw MALINOWSKI (1884-1942). He was originally supposed to study for 2 weeks but two weeks turned to 2 years in Australia. *PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION is a way of gaining data but living among the people being studied and trying to understand them. *EMILE DURKHEIM (1858-1917) was a FUNCTIONALIST who believed that society is beyond individuals and super organic. *SOCIAL SOLIDARITY is conflict is present and social cohesion is important. It evolves from less cohesion to more cohesion. MECHANICAL is held together by kinship and relationships in primitive societies. ORGANIC is industrial societies that have organic interrelationships. *Collective conscience unites us together, its organic, shared beliefs, and traditions. *SOCIAL FACTS are main social rules, values, behavioral rules, norms, etc. Social facts are used to try and understand unique culture phenomenon while looking at other social facts. *POSITIVISM is the belief that universal laws of human society could be discovered.