Cultural Relativism

Roots of the Concept

Cultural relativism can be traced to the writings of philosopher Immanuel Kant and, later, works by Johann Gottfried Herder and Wilhelm von Humboldt. These scholars defined the mind as a critical mediator of sensate experience. They argued that when the mind apprehends stimuli from the environment, it molds perceptions with reference to (a) the specifics of one's spatial surroundings, (b) the cultural practices and artifacts that define those surroundings, and (c) the temporal or biographical lineage that places one in those surroundings. From this perspective, reality cannot be defined as a universal or objective phenomenon. Culture and biography add a subjective dimension to reality.

In the mid-1900s, anthropologist Franz Boas took the aforementioned ideas and used them to establish a formal research methodology. Under his methodology he urged a rejection of universal evaluative criteria. He advised researchers to adopt an objective, value-free stance, to free themselves from the conscious and unconscious bonds to their own enculturation. Boas also demanded that no culture be considered superior or inferior. Rather, all cultures must be viewed as equal. For Boas, the purpose of research was not moral evaluation but the discovery and understanding of cultural differences.

Boas's ideas stood in direct contrast to popular comparative methods of the day—methods more concerned with the evolutionary foundations of cultural similarities. But cultural relativism was steeped in political issues as well. Its tenets directly addressed what many believed was a Western European tendency toward “ethnocentrism.” Ethnocentrism, as defined by sociologist William Graham Sumner, refers to the perception of one's group as the center of civilization and, thus, a gauge by which all other groups should be judged. In the 1900s, a period in which international contact was becoming increasingly routine, distinguishing between observation and evaluation proved a critical task.

Examples from the Field

One can invoke many concrete examples to illustrate the usefulness of cultural relativism in field research. Consider a common gesture—sticking out one's tongue. Americans commonly interpret this gesture as a sign of defiance, mockery, or provocation. Yet, if American researchers applied this meaning while engaged in global studies, they would likely miss important information about their object of inquiry. Anthropologists tell us, for example, that in Tibet, sticking out one's tongue is a sign of polite deference. In India, it conveys monumental rage. In New Caledonia, sticking out one's tongue signifies a wish of wisdom and vigor. And in the Caroline Islands, it is a method of banishing devils and demons. To garner the variant meanings of this single behavior, researchers must immerse themselves in the culture they are studying. They must draw meaning from the target culture's inhabitants as opposed to making assumptions drawn from their own cultural dictionaries.

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