P

Particularism

A broadly applied term with several meanings in the social sciences and human-

ities. Particularism in geography usually is used in reference to cultural geography

andcultural identity, and is borrowed from cultural anthropology. At the begin-

ning of the 20th century, American anthropology was in the throes of a great philo-

sophical debate between those scholars who favored the established view of

“universalism,” and those who argued for a new position based on “particularism.”

The most influential proponent of particularism was Franz Boas, who opposed the

notion of Lewis Henry Morgan and others that cultures develop in a stepwise man-

ner following a universal pattern, an approach known ascultural evolution, which

in turn was derived from the philosophy of Social Darwinism that had been preva-

lent in the second half of the 19th century. Boas, who had training as a geographer

and who had conducted extensive fieldwork on Native American peoples, held that

cultures are influenced by the individual circumstances presented by their environ-

ment and history, and that such development did not follow any universal law.

Particularism did not completely reject the Darwinian concept of evolution of

cultures and civilizations, just the notion that all cultures were destined to follow

the same pattern of evolution. Boas, who had been born and educated in Germany,

was influenced in his thinking by some influential geographers, including Fredrich

Ratzel, who had appliedorganic theoryto the development of human institutions.

His opposition would soon transfer to other disciplines that had also adopted

variations of universalist thinking.

One of Boaz’s most influential students was Alfred Kroeber, who had established

the Department of Anthropology at Berkeley University in the early 20th century.

Kroeber had been on the faculty for almost two decades when the geographer Carl

Sauer was hired by the university in 1923. Sauer had been trained at the University

of Chicago in the tradition ofenvironmental determinism, which at the time was

the dominant theoretical approach in geography to cultural development. Kroeber

was a proponent of the particularism of his mentor Boaz, and there is little doubt that

Kroeber’s ideas about how cultures originate and evolve had a profound influence on

Sauer, who began to criticize and ultimately reject the deterministic philosophy of

many of his teachers at Chicago. Sauer’s adoption of the particularist approach in

conjunction with elements ofpossibilismwas quickly revealed in his concept of

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