A expert in my field that I Admire: Ruth Benedict.

Ruth Fulton Benedict; New York, 1887-1948) American anthropologist and writer. Trained at Vassar College and Columbia University, where he would later teach, his first vocation was literature. From 1919 he devoted himself to anthropology studies: from 1922 to 1929 he carried out research on Native Americans. His research led him to some conclusions he formulated in his Esquemas de cultura (1934), a work in which he methodologically defined the complex relationship between individuality and cultural model.

Benedict argued that the culture of each people is unique and can only be understood from its own terms. She also pointed out that each culture exerts pressure on its members to conform to the patterns of society and tends to reward those who do. Besides, with the emergence of Nazism, Benedict began working in various organizations to educate the people about the threat of racism.

I like this anthropologist, for many reasons, first of all because she is a woman, because anthropology, especially in its beginnings, was full of European white men, she as a woman comes to break a bit with that logic and in fact her studies are focused on destroy this idea that Western culture is the only way to be. I also like her because she is one of the few particularists who dares to do a bit of theory, although her ideas have some flaws, she will always be an interesting character to know.