Work · Sociology & Social Theory
The Limitations of the Comparative Method of Anthropology
Lecture published in Science: similar customs among different peoples need not have the same cause or mark the same stage of development; before laws of cultural growth are proposed, the history of each culture in its region must be reconstructed.
Introduction
Boas read “The Limitations of the Comparative Method of Anthropology” to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1896, and it appeared in Science the same year. It is directed against the evolutionist anthropology of the time, which arranged the customs of all peoples in one sequence of stages and explained similar customs by the same causes. Boas argued that like phenomena can have unlike origins: masks, clan organisation or geometric ornament may arise independently, through borrowing or from different starting points. Comparison therefore presupposes detailed historical study of limited areas, including the diffusion of traits between neighbouring peoples; only then can general laws be sought. The essay became a programme for American anthropology and is reprinted in “Race, Language and Culture” (1940).
Connections
Taken up in
- The Mind of Primitive Man1911 · Franz Boas
More works by Franz Boas
Sources: Wikidata
As of November 2026 · Improve this page · How Agora is made