Republic of the Philippines

EULOGIO “Amang” Rodriguez

Institute of Science and Technology
Cavite, Campus
General Mariano Alvarez, Cavite

Program : MASTER OF ARTS IN EDUCATION

Subject : FS 101 ADVANCED FOUNDATION OF EDUCATION
Professor : DR. AGNES N. COO
Reporter : JENNIFER D. INOFRE
Topic/s : CONTRIBUTIONS OF RENOWNED ANTHROPOLOGISTS,
ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETHNOLOGISTS & HISTORIANS
________________________________________________________________________

I. OBJECTIVES

After completing this unit, you should be able to:

1. Describe how evolutionary and historical processes have shaped primates and human

ancestors and lead to the biological, behavioral, and cultural diversity seen in the

present.

2. Describe how cultural systems construct reality differently for various human groups.

3. Discuss human diversity and how knowledge about human diversity should lead to a

better understanding of and therefore respect for people whose culture differs from

ours.

II. LEARNING CONTENT

Contributions of Renowned Anthropologists, Archaeologists, Ethnologists and

Historians

FRANZ BOAS Famous as the ‘the Father of Modern Anthropology’,

 Franz Boas was an important figure in 20thy century anthropology.

He played a key role in organizing the American Anthropological

Association and made contributions in the field of physical

anthropology, linguistics, archaeology, as well as cultural

anthropology.

He argued against the theories that distinguished people

on the basis of race and discredited the belief that western

civilization is superior to the other societies.

He was also a prolific writer; some of his well-known books

in the field of anthropology include ‘The Mind of Primitive Man’, ’

9July 1858 – 21 Dec. 1942
This book laid the foundation for further studies on anthropology and

is used for academic purposes. Anthropology and Modern Life’ and

‘Kwakiutl Ethnography’. Throughout his life he spoke out against

racism and advocated the need for intellectual freedom and worked

to protect German and Austrian scientists who fled from the Nazi

regime.

He was responsible for establishing folklore as a field of

study in anthropology and also made a major contribution to the

field of linguistics. To him goes the credit of establishing it as a

science in America. He continues to influence many scholars and

researchers in all the fields of anthropology.

“Boas created the four field subdivision of

anthropology in the 20th century”.

 Ruth Benedict is regarded as one of the pioneers of
RUTH BENEDICT
cultural anthropology. She was also one of the first to apply

anthropology to the study of advanced societies. Benedict is best

remembered for her works dealing with the national character of

various culture groups, most famously the Japanese circa World

War II.

Her book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword:

Patterns of Japanese Culture (1946) is still recommended as

introductory reading for students of Japanese culture. Other

significant published works include: Patterns of Culture (1934), Zuni

Mythology (1935), Race: Science and Politics (1940).

5 June 1887 – 17 Sept. 1948 Within Benedict's "cultural determinism" brand of

anthropology there exists a mixture of accuracy and

misunderstanding. She emphasized the power of custom and

learning as an argument against nature and for the infinite capacity

of human beings to change.

“The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe

for human differences”.

Margaret Mead was a cultural anthropologist and writer best known

MARGARET MEAD for her studies and publications on the subject. She became a

curator of ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History,

where she published the Coming of Age in Samoa (1928)—which

 became a best seller—and Growing Up in New Guinea (1930).

Altogether, she made 24 field trips among six South Pacific peoples.

Coming of Age in Samoa, based upon her research and

study of youth primarily adolescent girls on the island of Ta’u in the

Samoan Islands; introduces the book with a general discussion of

the problems facing adolescents in modern society and the various

approaches to understanding these problems; religion, philosophy,

educational theory and psychology.

Her later works included Male and Female (1949)

and Growth and Culture (1951), in which Mead argued that

personality characteristics, especially as they differ between men

16 Dec. 1901 – 15 Nov. 1978
and women, were shaped by cultural conditioning rather than

heredity. Some critics called her fieldwork impressionistic, but her

writings have proved enduring and have made anthropology

accessible to a wider public.

“Anthropology demands the open-mindedness with which

one must look and listen, record astonishment and wonder at that

which one would not have been able to guess”.

CLAUDE LEVI - STRAUSS Claude Levi-Strauss was a French social anthropologist

and a leading exponent of structuralism. Often known as “the “father

of modern anthropology”, he revolutionized the world of social

anthropology by implementing the methods of structuralist analysis

 developed by Saussuro in the field of cultural relations.

Levi-Strauss advocated that language preconditioned

human culture, as evidenced in the “symbolic order” of religious and

social life and aesthetics. He believed that cultural patterning is

influenced by the huge reservoir of unconscious and universal

structures of the mind.

The most important contribution made by Levi-Strauss

during his anthropological investigations was the difference between

“hot” and “cold” societies. Cultures in Western Europe that altered

significantly and remained open to greatly divergent influences were

termed as “hot”, while the cultures that changed marginally over

28 Nov. 1908 – 30 Oct. 2009
time were “cold”. An ideal example of a “cold” society was said to be

the Amazonian Indians. He suggested a “savage” mind and a

“civilized” mind shared the same structure and that human

characteristics are the same in every region of the world.

“He showed that culture is a system with underlying

structures that are common to all societies regardless of their

differences.”

BRONISLAW MALINOWSKI Bronisław Malinowski is arguably the most influential

anthropologist of the 20th century, mostly for social anthropology.

Bronislaw Malinowski is considered the father of ethnographic

methodology by most field working anthropologist because of his

ideas on participant observation. He is one of the pioneer to lead

 participant observation method whereby, the observant lives with

the people he studies, gets to understand them and participates in

their activities.

He followed a methodological method rather than

theoretical. It was by exhorting anthropologists to give up their

comfortable position on the veranda of the missionary compound or

government station and to go and live and work with the people they

studied that he effected his real innovation.

The goal of anthropologist, or ethnographer, is “to

grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realize his
7 April 1884 – 16 May 1942
vision of his world”.

DR. FELIPE LANDA JOCANO Felipe Landa Jocano was a Filipino anthropologist,

educator, and author known for his significant body of work within

the field of Philippine Anthropology, and in particular for

documenting and translating the Hinilawod, a Western Visayan folk

epic. His eminence within the field of Philippine anthropology was

widely recognized during his lifetime,  with National Artist F. Sionil

Jose dubbing him "the country’s first and foremost cultural

anthropologist.

As one of the earliest Filipino-born researchers to

receive proper scholarly training in anthropology, Jocano became a

pioneer in the use of Participant Observation as a research

05 Feb. 1930 – 27 Oct. 2013 methodology in Philippine ethnographic research, applying it in
 numerous places, including Capiz, Ilocos, and notably, the urban

poor community of Looban, Sta Mesa in Manila.

III. EVALUATION
1. How the anthropologists help the society?

2. Are all anthropologists alike?

3. How studying of culture help the people in their everyday living?

4. What is one brief reason anthropologists care so much about social complexity?

5. Why did Franz Boas argue for historical particularism?

IV. IMPORTANCE OF ANTHROPOLOGY IN EDUCATION

The kind of knowledge anthropology teaches is invaluable, not least in our

turbulent, globalized age, in which people of different backgrounds come into contact with

each other in unprecedented ways and in a multitude of settings, from tourism and trade to

migration and organizational work.

Anthropology helps the students to provide with the competences necessary to

work with the important topics of education, learning and knowledge in an increasingly

globalized world. It also analyzes specific (local) practices of education and knowledge in

relation to broader (global) social and cultural context.

There are several reasons why anthropological knowledge can help to make sense of the

contemporary world.

First, contact between culturally different groups has increased enormously in our

time. For the global middle classes, long-distance travelling has become more common,

safer and cheaper than it was in earlier times.

At the same time as people from affluent countries visit other parts of the world in

growing numbers and under new circumstances, the opposite movement is also taking
place, though often not for the same reasons. The world is shrinking in other ways as well.

For better and for worse, satellite television, cellphone networks and the internet have

created conditions for instantaneous and friction-free communications. Distance is no

longer a decisive hindrance for close contact and new, reterritorialized social networks or

even ‘virtual communities’ have developed. At the same time, individuals have a larger

palette of information to choose from than they previously did.

The economy is also increasingly globally integrated. In the last decades,

transnational companies have grown exponentially in numbers, size and economic

importance. The capitalist mode of production and monetary economies in general, which

were globally dominant throughout the 20th century, have become nearly universal in the

21st century.

Culture changes at a more rapid pace than ever before in our era, and this can be

noticed nearly everywhere. Youth culture and trends in fashion and music change so fast

that older people have difficulties following their twists and turns; food habits are changing

before our eyes, leading to greater diversity within many countries; secularism is rapidly

changing the role of religion in society and vice versa; and media consumption is

thoroughly transnational. These and other changes make it necessary to ask questions

such as: ‘Who are we really?’, ‘What is our culture – and is it at all meaningful to speak of

a “we” that “have” a “culture”?’, ‘What do we have in common with the people who used to

live here 50 years ago, and what do we have in common with people who live in an

entirely different place today?’, and ‘Is it still defensible to speak as if we primarily belong

to nations, or are other forms of belonging equally valid or more important?’

 Finally, recent decades have seen the rise of an unprecedented interest in cultural

identity, which is increasingly seen as an asset. Many feel that the local uniqueness that

they used to count on is being threatened by globalization, indirect colonialism and other

forces from the outside. They often react by attempting to strengthen or at least preserve

what they see as their unique culture.

Anthropology can teach important lessons about the world and the global whirl of

cultural mixing, contact and contestation – but it can also teach us about ourselves.

Anthropology takes part in the long conversation about what it is to be human, and gives

flesh and blood to these fundamental questions. It is a genuinely cosmopolitan discipline in

that it does not privilege certain ways of life above others, but charts and compares the full

range of solutions to the perennial human challenges. In this respect, anthropology is

uniquely a knowledge for the 21st century, crucial in our attempts to come to terms with a

globalized world, essential for building understanding and respect across real or imagined

cultural divides, and it is not only the ‘most scientific of the humanities and the most

humanistic of the sciences’, but also the most useful of the basic sciences.

V. REFERENCES

Darnell, Regna. “Historical Particularism.” In Theory in Social and Cultural

Anthropology: An Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, edited by R. Jon McGee and Richard L. Warms,

397-401. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Reference, 2013.

Francisconi, Michael J. “Theoretical Anthropology.” In 21st Century Anthropology: A

Reference Handbook, Vol. 1, edited by H. James Birx, 442-452. Thousand Oaks, CA:
SAGE Reference, 2010.

Frey, Rodney. “Historical-Particularism-as exemplified by Franz Boas (1858-1942).”

University of Idaho. Accessed February 27,

2015.http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~rfrey/220histpart.htm.

Graber, Robert Bates. “Social Evolution.” In 21st Century Anthropology: A

Reference Handbook, Vol. 1, edited by H. James Birx, 576-585. Thousand Oaks, CA:

SAGE Reference, 2010.

The Chicago Manual of Style. 2017. 17th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Scupin, Raymond R., and Christopher R. DeCorse. 2016. Anthropology: A Global

Perspective. 8th edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries, E-Research by Discipline,

Subject: Anthropology. Accessed 12 June 2019. 

http://guides.lib.unc.edu/az.php?s=1107

Turner, Jonathan. “Spencer, Herbert.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social

Sciences, Vol. 8, edited by William A. Darity, 57-59. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA,

2008.