Ruth Landes as a Cultural Relativist

Ruth Landes was an American Anthropologist who revolutionized the way in which the relationship between culture and power structures were studied in the field of Anthropology. Landes contributed immensely to the understanding of various cultures; this culminated in her book, The City of Women, a work that has since been translated into Portuguese and praised for the provocative nature in which it captures society. To know the purpose of Landes, though, one must know her motivation for research, and the theory that lays behind it. In this essay, I will explore Landes’ theory of society, how this relates to her work, while also seeking to contextualize Landes as an Anthropologist. This will be done through the discussion of Landes’ relationship with the theory of Cultural Relativism.

Landes studied under Ruth Benedict, a student of the Boasian tradition — as well as of Boas himself. Barnard states that “classic cultural relativism emerged from the work of Franz Boas and his students”. It would be misguided to assume that Ruth Landes would not have followed suit as her mentor at Columbia University, Ruth Benedict herself, had studied under Boas; this assumption remains valid despite Landes’ eventual movement beyond the concept of cultural integration — the belief that each culture was made up of set patterns — spouted by Benedict, into Landes’ “focus on the individual” and her “modernist preoccupation and sentiments”. Cultural Relativism seeks to explain culture through its own lens; that is, in the theory of Cultural Relativism, beliefs and ideals are to be understood based upon an individual culture and not the contextualization of that culture in comparison to another. This is a common theme that we can identify throughout Landes’ research. We can see this omission of comparison to other societies in Landes’ work with the indigenous Ojibwa of Canada; she defines the extant society as isolated due to the unique interactions she observed there, and later does not seek to contextualize them against societies she observed later in her field work.

Sally Cole discusses in the American Anthropologist, that Landes’ Anthropology is a take on the differences among those who live in peace within a given society, and those who do not — furthering the idea of Landes’ individualistic approach to society, while simultaneously providing the concept of extant power structures to be considered. Landes arrived at her conclusions through extensive fieldwork —immersing herself within each culture she studied; this can be seen through her work with the Brazilian people of Bahia, her study of the Latin Americans of the Southwest (Landes 1965, 81), and the Ojibwa people of Canada. It is clear that Landes’ primary methodology was field work, as each of her research pieces focus on the interaction between various individuals, and how these interactions she observed defined each society.

Landes additionally collected ethnographies surrounding various behaviors; these ethnographies considered the impact of “power and cultural change” on a society. As Benedict urged Landes to look for patterns within a given culture, Landes could not; she found that this was not truthful to her research, as many individuals within a given society would ignore a general rule to secure personal preference. Because of the way that Landes conducted her research, she arrived at definitions of culture based upon interactions unique to the society she sought to define, that fulfilled each society’s unique social structure. The employment of this personal methodology allows Ruth Landes’ work to fit within the definition of Cultural Relativism.

Throughout Landes’ work, one important factor remains consistent: her view on society. One can describe each of her books as describing society as a “social space” that is generated based upon the differing roles of those interacting in an individual setting. This can be seen in the different ways in which Landes depicts various societies; she is always careful to explain them in terms of their own relevance, and not the terms of another. In her work with the Ojibwa of Canada, Ruth Landes outlines the functioning of their society in a manner that depicts the differing roles of men and women while she simultaneously draws upon no comparison; this makes the research unique to the Ojibwa as Landes intended, for their society is a “cooperative economy in the most individualistic terms”; this individuality and isolation extends from the economy into the social sphere of Ojibwa society. In addition, it is within Ojibwa society that Landes found she must move beyond the work of her mentor Ruth Benedict; she could not force the behaviors of the Ojibwa to fit within a cultural pattern, as individuals often behaved unpredictably and hence deviated from predicted behavioral mechanisms. Thus, as referenced by Sullivan, Landes finds that the social space of the Ojibwa is one defined by a lack of interaction — distinctive from the social space Landes defined of isolated Brazilians in her book, City of Women.

The Brazilians of Bahia researched by Landes rely on one another, thus, the social sphere is assumed to be far richer, as is the society itself. Therefore, we know that Landes defines society based upon individual social interactions within a given group, directly relating back to the formerly established idea of Landes’ relationship with Cultural Relativism — that is, she adhered to that theory with focus on the individual and modernist sentiment. Delving further into a contextualization of Landes’ ideas, we must consider the theory of Evolutionism and what merit it held within the context of Anthropology when Landes was active — as this was a theory that Boas himself battled with. Evolutionism is, at least under Boasian Tradition, in conflict with Cultural Relativism.

As previously established in this essay, Cultural Relativism is the relevant theory within Landes’ work; it is important to consider Boas’ objections to Evolutionism as it relates to Cultural Relativism, as these would have been the feelings held by Landes due to association. According to Boas, Evolutionism is irrelevant to Anthropology — as Anthropologists should be concerned with the present, and not the past of the cultures they are studying. Additionally, Boas held that Evolutionism is rife with “racial and cultural superiority” that weakens the stance of the theory itself.

As Landes sought to display the importance of the various cultures of different races through her work, it would be incorrect to assume that she turned a blind eye to the racist implications existing within Evolutionism. This can be seen in the following quote from Landes’ most prominent work, City of Women: “There are no solemn conclusions I can draw from my observations in Bahia. In retrospect, the life there seems remote and timeless. I was sent to Bahia to learn how people behave when the Negr*es among them are not oppressed. I found that they were oppressed by political and economic tyrannies, although not by racial ones... just like other poor people among them of different racial origins”. From this text, we find that Landes not only considered various implications of political and economic institutions, but additionally the racial inequality that existed without seeking to justify it. This removal from racist theoretical perspectives allowed Landes to develop a theory of power beyond anything imagined by her mentor, Ruth Benedict. This consideration of power as a factor within society further removes Landes from the theory of Evolutionism, while further branding her a Cultural Relativist, as superiority would not have been given merit based upon race or culture. A criticism of Landes stems from the personal nature in which she conducted her work — one of the factors that brands Landes most apparently as a Cultural Relavist.

Another student of Boas, Melville Herskovits, thoroughly critiqued Landes, particularly her career defining piece, City of Women. Herskovits states that it is an issue that Landes so intimately researched the people of Bahia. She additionally knew nothing about Brazil going in, which led to research marred by her own misconceptions. This lack of knowledge of the people and language led to her transliteration of several Portuguese words being incorrect; due to these incorrect translations, Herskovits asserts that the thesis to her masterwork, City of Women, is incorrect — that is, there were male and female priests within the Brazilian society Landes studied, but due to her preconceptions and incorrect ideas surrounding the Portuguese language, she overlooked the relevance of both genders to maintain a singular focus on the female priests; hence, City of Women.

The overarching theme of Herskovits’ critique of Landes is that she was not equipped to work in the field, particularly not with a population she was unsure of as this skewed her thesis and ultimately the data she collected. This criticism is valid, yet, ultimately Landes’ personal involvement in each society she researched allowed her to remain consistent in the relative nature of her work. Despite this criticism, Landes remained a high-profile Anthropologist, and eventually received a permanent position at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. Through her work there, Landes educated a new generation of Anthropologists after being appointed as professor emerita. Ruth Landes was an American Anthropologist who sought to define each society through their own individualistic lenses; through her work, she did just that under the guide of Cultural Relativism, a prominent theory in the Boasian tradition.

In this essay, I have laid out how she achieved her goal of societal contextualization, while additionally holding her work against other prevalent Anthropological theories of the time in which Landes would have been most active — the 1930s to 1940s. Through speaking on these perspectives and giving a brief glimpse into the criticisms that have been stated against her work, I have displayed the relevance of her research, as it has withstood the test of time. I additionally explored Landes’ theory of society, and the manner in which this impacted her research.