What is Cultural relativism?
'''Cultural Relativism''' is a [[theory]] of [[anthropology]] that views all [[culture]]s as [[equal]]. Early anthropologist [[Franz Boas]] first used the idea of cultural relativism in 1887, but the concept did not have a name until [[Alain Locke]] coined the term in 1924.<ref>Boas, F. (1974). ''The principles of ethnological classification''. In: Stocking, G. (ed.), ''A Franz Boas Reader''. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 62. </ref> This concept is now accepted by anthropologists around the world. == Methodological Tool == Franz Boas noticed that people who study other cultures still tend to be [[Ethnocentrism|ethnocentric]]. This means that other cultures are viewed through one's own ideas of how a culture or society should work. A person may be ethnocentric without meaning to be. Ethnocentrism is the idea that one’s own culture is the best, and other cultures are studied or viewed with this outlook. In Boas’ article “On Alternating Sounds,” he explains how different cultures experience sound differently. When people study or come into contact with other cultures, people misunderstand sounds and language.<ref>Boas, F. (1889). ''On alternating sounds''. American Anthropologist, ''2''(1), 47-54.</ref> An example used by Boas, is when he studies [[Inuit]] texts, words, and languages that are spelled in the [[Bureau of Ethnology]] by [[British Columbia]]. There were many misspellings explained by a misunderstanding by other cultures that have a different phonetic system rooted in a person's life. In order to reduce this ethnocentrism from happening when anthropologists study other cultures, Boas thought that the person would need to live with people that they were studying for a long period of time. A person would be able to learn the culture and language better, and then decrease the number of times they misinterpret sounds and language of that culture. == Analytical and Political Device == One of Franz Boas’ students, [[Ruth Benedict]], was an anthropologist that studied the beliefs and pra