Franz Boas

Franz Boas was a German-born anthropologist who settled in the United States and built the anthropology department at Columbia University in New York. Through fieldwork, notably among peoples of the Pacific Northwest, he argued that cultures must be understood in their own terms and historical development rather than ranked on a single evolutionary scale. This cultural relativism, adopted as a method rather than a moral doctrine, and his empirical critique of racial hierarchies reshaped anthropology and its students.

Key ideas

• Each culture should be studied in its own context and history, not judged by the standards of the observer's culture.
• Differences between human groups are better explained by history, environment and culture than by race.
• The nineteenth-century scheme ranking societies on a single ladder of progress is not supported by evidence.
• Language, culture and physical type vary independently and must be studied separately.

Major works

• The Mind of Primitive Man (1911)
• Handbook of American Indian Languages (1911, editor and introduction)
• Anthropology and Modern Life (1928)
• Race, Language and Culture (1940)

In the conversation

• Question If I try to understand a practice from the inside first, have I signed up to relativism? Aroha Tipene · 5 replies
• Question My son’s course says ‘don’t judge other cultures’. Is that a rule for studying or a rule for living? Akosua Mensah · 5 replies