Series Strangers Abroad, Programme 3
Director André Singer, Bruce Dakowski (writer and presenter)
Country/Production UK
Release 1986
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL or NTSC / All region
Location America
Comments Special price for series, 6 for 5
Order No RAI-200.277
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Central Television’s major documentary series looks at the first anthropologists to stop ‘armchair theorising’ and go out to live among the peoples who so interested them.
In 1883, a young German scientist - Franz Boas - arrived in the Canadian Arctic to map the coastline and indulge in his new interest the study of other cultures. As he charted Baffin Island, he recorded the lives and ideas of the Eskimo who helped him with his work.
He became so absorbed by the common features that unite humans everywhere that he made the study of culture his life's work and did fieldwork in both the Arctic and the North West Coast of America among Indian tribes.
Considered to be the founding father of American anthropology, Boas taught at Columbia University, encouraging his students to follow his example by actually working in the field.
