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Nick Brown
ANTH 460 Final Paper
Prompt #2
Summer 2017

Anthropology: A Synthesis of Culture Concept

One could argue that anthropological work has been involved since as far back as

Herodotus in 440 B.C.E , however Anthropology did not become an accredited academic

discipline until the 19th century. Through the culture concepts of prominent 19th and 20th

century anthropologists I would like to offer a synthesis of their accounts to show the ways in

which anthropology has been created, developed and articulated.

Many academics hail E.B. Tylor (1832-88) as the father of anthropology giving us the

theory of cultural evolution, in where all humans in the world have culture, so the ability to

create culture must be something that we developed through biological evolution. Tylor also

gave us the first official academic definition of culture, he said that Culture or Civilization,

taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief,

art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of

society (Tylor, 28). Tylor studied culture by what is known as the armchair method. The

armchair method refers to those who study academic scholarship, more clearly, they do not travel

into the field to collect their data. Like Darwins theory of evolution, Tylor believed the same to

be true in what he called cultural evolutionism. In studying people of similar jobs in different

regions and similar religious rituals among different cultures he derived that culture as a whole

must be evolutionary in that the culture of the world evolves collectively rather than

independently.
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Tylors American counterpart, Lewis Henry Morgan, linked cultural evolution with

progress. Furthermore, Morgan argued for a sort of cultural hierarchy where portions of state

would range from savagery to barbarism to civilization and tiers within these classifications.

These three conditions were Morgans link from cultural evolution to progress.

One of the biggest criticizers of the work of Tylor and Lewis was Franz Boas. Boas

believed that in order to study people the studier must be among the people, or in the field. The

Boasian culture concept was a decisive break with Tylors cultural evolutionism. In studying the

Native North American, Boas wanted to record as much data as he could before it was lost to

assimilation. This process is known as salvage ethnography. A classmate of mine once wrote that

Boas salvage anthropology is like the extraction of the pure coffee before the corrupted cream.

The corrupted cream being the process of assimilation. Culture is relative comes from Boas

insistence that environment, not biology, is responsible for cultural progress. It is the surrounding

factors and influence of other nearby civilizations that contribute to the growth and change of a

culture. In support of this one only needs to look at some of the Amazonian tribes. Their "lack of

development" could be attributed to a lack of outside influence. The flourishing cultures of today

have arrived so in part by their ability to learn from and experience foreign neighbors, which

supports Boas' theory of relativism. The Amazonian tribes have been locked in a sort of time

capsule that has sheltered them from outside influence and inducing what we on the outside view

as a stunted development of culture. Boas had several noteworthy students who advanced and

carried his theories and work throughout the 20th century. Perhaps his most famous student was

Margaret Mead.
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After several months of living with a missionary family on a group of islands in the South

Pacific and making daily trips into the Samoan villages for interviews Mead produced the

anthropological classic, Coming of Age in Samoa. In her book she reflects, noting that We

know that our subtlest perceptions, our highest values, are all based upon contrast; that light

without darkness or beauty without ugliness would lose the qualities which they now appear to

us to have (Mead, 132). This perception cannot be invented it can only be experienced, it is

what in modern day we call organic and it is a truth. Mead ultimately wanted to show, as a

result of time spent, that the development the individual experienced was shaped by culture and

not nature. Again like Boas, environment, not biology. When she studied child rearing and how

gender roles differ from one society to another in both New Guinea and Bali she believed that

the so called primitive societies had much to teach the modern societies of the West. These

studies, these lived experiences that Mead wrote about, is what gave weight to her voice in

advocating cultural relativism - the idea that every society makes sense in its own terms and

we should not apply universal standards of civilization across cultures.

Mead was however criticized greatly in much of the same regards as Boas himself for her

work in the South Pacific. It was felt by the Samoan tribes that Mead got their culture all wrong

and that she painted the female adolescents as having low morals and carefree sexuality. Mead

was criticized for, getting information from American soldiers and misunderstanding the

language. A person living in a foreign country for a long time would know a lot more about

another culture than someone that just goes for a short visit (several months in Meads case) is

just the bottom line. To fully understand another culture one must truly immerse themselves in it,

become part of it. Otherwise, it would just be ones perspective of a culture rather than their
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experience of it. Mead talks further about this on page 130, when she says that "a primitive

people without a written language present a much less elaborate problem and a trained student

can master the fundamental structure of a primitive society in a few months." While she is

logical here in her thinking to justify her brief time in Samoa, I must argue counterly. Though

the complexities of a "primitive" culture may not appear as comparable to those of Europe or the

Far East doesnt negate them from being as such..

Another of Boas brilliant students who was far less accessible was Zora Neale Hurston.

Being that Hurston was a black, woman anthropologist in the 1930s she was at a disadvantage to

her academic peers. Though she was ahead of her time, her work as an ethnographer would not

be accredited for 50 more years. Without an academic community to lean on after her studies,

Hourston got creative, recording her data in a narrative form. Her narrative form allows the

reader, to step inside culture she describes so well. One could feel that they werent just reading

her account of John and the Frog or Witness of the Johnstown Flood in Heaven but rather

feel like they were on that store front porch being told those stories from the very people that

were telling her. She doesnt capture the story, she captures the voice of the people of Eatonville,

the town for which she conducted her ethnographies. Hurston reaches out and connects to Boas

when she tells George she wants to set his stories down before its too late, the connection being

the Boasian concept of salvage ethnography. Hurston had sort of a unique study for

anthropology, she studied her own community. This leads to the last major takeaway from

Hurston which is anthropology as a spy glass - going away from ones culture to see it and know

it for the first time. I hurried back to Eatonville because I knew that the town was full of

material and I could get it without hurt, harm or danger (Hurston). This is an important method
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of studying ones own culture, it isnt until we remove ourselves from our surroundings that we

are able to reflect upon them.

The final anthropologist for which I would like to discuss in terms of the culture concept

is Bronislaw Malinowski. The Polish born British anthropologist was on a somewhat different

level of field research than his American counterparts Boas and Mead. Malinowski studied the

Trobrian peoples of the Trobriand Islands. While there, rather than live with a missionary family

like Mead, Malinowski lived in a tent covered by a mosquito net right outside the village. After

his studies, he produced his works, Argonauts of the Western Pacific. Malinowskis reputation

and work came under great scrutiny and debate after his death when his widow published his

diary that he had kept while on the island. The controversy arose due to the fact that his diary

gave a sort of contradictory tone to his previously published work. I argue that the controversy

should never have arisen for one should have seen the work of an anthropologist and the

thoughts of a lonely man and his resentment for a people who could not give him the social

comfort that he was used to.

All of these anthropologists for which I have discussed have helped create, develop, and

articulate what it truly means to study human culture. Regardless of the premise of right and

wrong, when it comes to theories of cultural evolution or cultural relativism, the drive from

understanding human nature is what connects all of these brilliant minds together.

Sources:
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Tylor, E.B. "The Science of Culture". Readings for A History of Anthropology Fourth Ed. 28-39.
Toronto.University of Toronto Press. Print.

Hurston, Zora Neale, and Franz Boas. Mules and Men. N.p.:n.p.,n.d. Xroads.virginia.edu. Web.
10 July 2017.

Mead, Margaret. Introduction: Coming of Age in Samoa. A History of Anthropology. Fourth

Ed., 128-133.Toronto. Print