Anthropology's Paradox: Boas, Benedict, Mead, and the Limits of Cultural Relativism (2024) скачать в хорошем качестве

Anthropology's Paradox: Boas, Benedict, Mead, and the Limits of Cultural Relativism (2024)

📄 Full page: https://www.livinganthropologically.c... Early anthropologists challenged biological determinism and argued for making the world safe for human differences—yet they weren't always willing to embrace radical perspectives within their own discipline. This lecture explores that paradox through Malinowski, Mauss, and Benedict. 📚 Book: https://amzn.to/3Th3Vur (Commissions earned) 🔍 Anthropological Foundations Hub: https://www.livinganthropologically.c... 📖 Related: https://www.livinganthropologically.c... *Key Concepts* 📖 Unilineal social evolutionism — Morgan's savagery→barbarism→civilization that Boas questioned 🌍 Historical particularism — each society explained on its own terms, not evolutionary scales 👁️ "No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes" — Benedict on culture shaping perception 📚 Coming of Age in Samoa — Mead's bestseller on Samoan teenage girls and sexual freedom 🌐 "Massive universality" — Benedict on how colonialism spread Western ways, then we forgot we did it 💍 Kula Ring — trading "ugly" shells and armbands that acquire value through famous hands 👑 Crown jewels comparison — Malinowski found them equally ugly and tawdry 🎁 The Gift — Mauss on obligation to give, receive, and give back 🎭 Potlatch — competitions to give away or even destroy things for status 🔬 Anthropologist as physicist — Malinowski claiming outsiders see what insiders cannot 📝 Zora Neale Hurston's approach — valuing people's stories, not claiming expert authority over them 💔 The paradox — challenging race while maintaining academic hierarchies *Readings Discussed* • Bronisław Malinowski, "The Essentials of the Kula" (1922) • Marcel Mauss, excerpt from The Gift (1925) • Ruth Benedict, "The Science of Custom" (1934) *Why This Matters* Boas, Benedict, and Mead were persecuted and investigated for anti-American activities—they were genuinely radical in challenging biological determinism. Yet they wouldn't fully embrace Zora Neale Hurston, who was out there being more radical, investigating her own society, valuing people as the experts on their own lives. She died penniless and in obscurity. It wasn't anthropologists who rescued her work—it was Black literary figures like Alice Walker. *Continue Your Journey* → Anthropological Foundations: https://www.livinganthropologically.c... #Anthropology #AnthropologicalTheory #FranzBoas #MargaretMead #RuthBenedict #ZoraNealeHurston #Malinowski #MarcelMauss #KulaRing #TheGift #CulturalRelativism #HistoryOfAnthropology