Distributive Models of Culture: A Sapirian Alternative to Essentialism

The Boasian conception of culture has been roundly criticized in recent years for its essentialist, or even racist, implications. Yet an alternative model that avoids these implications was proposed in the 1930s by Boas student Edward Sapir. Having long survived on the margins of anthropological theory, Sapir's “distributive” concept of culture is now entering the theoretical mainstream through recent developments in both psychological and “postmodernist” anthropology. By emphasizing the full range of variation within any so‐called culture, anthropologists have begun to apply the same style of population thinking that helped launch the Darwinian revolution in biology.