1. Full citation.
Sabbagh, Singer, and Dakowski, Strangers abroad pioneers of social anthropology, Franz Boaz – The
Shackles of Tradition, 1990.
2. Where did/does the author work, what else has s/he written about, and what are her/his credentials?
Karl Sabbagh works for the BBC and PBS as a writer and television producer (documentaries), who has
written about physics, medicine, psychology, philosophy, technology, and anthropology, including bestselling books: The Living Body and Skyscraper.
3. What are the topics of the text?
The video discusses the life and works of Franz Boas, German anthropologist as he seeks to find what
causes culture, and the development of modern anthropology.
4. What is the main argument of the text?
The importance of the work of Boas in the preservation of the culture as well as the importance of the
development of the process of modern anthropology by Franz Boas.
5. Describe at least three ways that the argument is supported.
 Boaz’s work with Inuit tribes in North America introduced the idea of culture being determined
by more than just the environment.
 Boaz’s work with the Kwakiutl tribe aided them in the preservation of their language and
customs in the face of a society that was under collapse due to colonial pressures and
westernization.
 Boaz’s work on Ellis Island was influential in defeating biases towards race and ethnocentric
thinking that dominated intellectual though at that time, as well as leaving a large set of detailed
descriptions of now extinct cultures.
6. What three quotes capture the message of the text?
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4:30 – “and it offered an opportunity to get an idea of the dynamics of culture … which would be
fundamental to understanding our own culture and our own way of life, and this kind of
research was innovative and pioneering so it offered a very exciting prospect to him.”
12:31 – “Boaz had to admit, as he reflected on human life in the frozen north, that what he had
learned as a geographer was incomplete. … Environment wasn’t the only thing that determined
culture.”
37:50 – “...The dances, the uses of the masks, because some of masks, we wouldn’t know how
they would have been used unless we looked at what he wrote.”
7. What three questions about research methods does this article leave you with?
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Is the role of the cultural anthropologist to conserver and understand culture, or to analyze
other cultures in order to improve his/her own?
In the case of the work Boaz did towards the end of his life on race, how effective are the
methods which analyze from a much less immersive role in the culture being analyzed?
Was it necessary for Frank Boaz to live as the Inuit in order to fully document their culture.
8. What three points, details or references from the text did you follow up on to advance your
understanding of and skill with HASS research methods?
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