Critical implications of Franz Boas'theory and methodology

Abstract

The Grand Scheme of unilinear evolution as it was developed in the nineteenth century, placing Western European and American civilization at the pinnacle of humanity, was vigorously attacked by the Boasian school, and the theory of cultural relativism was forged in the heat of many long theoretical battles in the discipline. Simultaneously, the Boas school attacked the fundamental tenets of white supremacy by showing with solid empirical studies that race, language and culture were not coextensive entities and that there was no innate racial inheritance guaranteeing the white man's natural right (or duty) to rule.

The attack on race prejudice and ethnocentrism, however, never led to an allout attack on exploitation of subject peoples, to an interest in the modes or oppression and their cultural consequences, or even to scholarly acknowledgement of the fact of exploitation. In fact, the Boas school never showed any real interest in studying thesituation of conquest and exploitation as such.