Question

A key principle of the holistic perspective developed by Franz Boas is:

a. understanding the racial diversity of the human species
b. deconstructing cultures into the four subfields of anthropology
c. a goal of synthesizing the entire
context of human experience
d. that people are fundamentally ethnocentric

Answer 1

The principle of the holistic perspective developed by Franz Boas is synthesizing the entire context of human experience.

Step-by-step explanation:

A key principle of the holistic perspective developed by Franz Boas is c. a goal of synthesizing the entire context of human experience. This perspective is crucial to anthropology and seeks to understand humans within a broad system of meaning, encompassing various elements of culture. By applying a holistic approach, anthropologists aim to comprehend how different parts of a culture interconnect and sometimes contradict, leading to change. This method includes the use of cultural relativism, which encourages researchers to set aside personal biases to appreciate and understand other cultures on their own terms, thus ensuring the dignity of all human beings is recognized. Franz Boas's revolutionary work insisted on the importance of fieldwork in producing ethnography, contributing to a challenging of preconceptions like the now-debunked 'race theory' and ethnocentrism.