From Franz Boas to Ángel Palerm

Abstract

We show how the methodology for teaching fieldwork research, developed by Franz Boas, passed from one generation of students to the next and how each generation enriched the model, until Palerm transformed it into a specific methodology for the training of anthropology students in the field in Mexico. We present this academic genealogy, and the academic networks around it. Boas worked with just one assistant. At Columbia University he taught Kroeber and Lowie, who reproduced Boas’ teaching model at Berkeley and trained Kelly without accompanying her to the field. Kelly did fieldwork research in Mexico and trained students from the National School of Anthropology and History. Palerm learned from her and subsequently established his teaching methodology at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico.