In anthropology there are multiple sub fields that people specialize in. A documentary
titled, “Franz Boas: The Shackles of Tradition” shows the founder of American
anthropology, Franz Boas and his experiences within the subfields of anthropology. Boas
studied three of the sub groups of anthropology Physical, Linguistics and Cultural
anthropology during his interactions with other groups of people. Boas studied the tribal
people of the Artic and how their culture.
One of the subgroups of anthropology is Physical Anthropology, the study of the human
body. Boas studied physical anthropology when he was with the Eskimo tribes of the Artic.
One of the major things Boas noticed was that many people in the tribe had very similar
biological traits. Boas realized that no one inside the tribe was biologically superior to
another and used this to determine that race does not make one group of people superior to
another. This and the fact that all humans evolved from primates was used to combat
racism and other social issues that were going on during this time. The American
government used this information to make changes to their immigration policy.
The next subgroup of anthropology is Linguistic, the study of language between cultures
and how people communicate. Before Boas went on his trip to the Artic he first took
classes of how to speak the Inuit and Kwakiutl language in order to be able to
communicate with the people better. Boas listened to stories and read books from the tribes
in order to understand them better. Both tribes lived in the far north and spoke languages
