Boas’s own work emphasized studies of individual cultures, each based on its unique history. He held that the anthropologist’s primary assignment was to describe the particular characteristics of a given culture with a view toward reconstructing the historical events that led to its present structure. Implicit in this approach was the notion that resolving hypotheses regarding evolutionary development and the influence of one culture on another should be secondary to the careful and exhaustive study of particular societies.
a helpful definition of particularism and an "index" of further avenues to investigate. Franz Boas, A.L. Krober, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead. Cultural evolution theory, Kulturekreis, geographical/environmental determinism, -- replaced by Neoevolutionsim after 1970s.
Looking for a definition of convivial technologies it uses qualitative empirical research conducted with degrowth-oriented groups developing or adapting grassroots technologies
summed up into five dimensions: relatedness, adaptability, accessibility, bio-interaction and appropriateness. These dimensions can be correlated with the four life-cycle levels material, production, use and infrastructure to form the Matrix for Convivial Technology (MCT).
cultural symbols and how those symbols can be used to better understanding a particular society
man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning".[1]