What is Psychological Anthropology?
Psychological Anthropology is a subfield of Anthropology concerned with the ways sociocultural milieu shapes human psychological processes. Rooted in the academic lineage of Franz Boas and his students including Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Edward Sapir, Psychological Anthropologists investigate cross-cultural questions surrounding human emotion, identity, subjectivity, personhood, mental illness, healing, embodiment, consciousness, experience, and trauma. Psychological Anthropologists employ person-centered ethnographic methods (LeVine, 1982) to investigate the interplay between an individual and their social, cultural, and political context.
Franz Boas