Kalervo Oberg (1901 -1973)

Kalervo Oberg was a an anthropologist who introduced the term ‘culture shock’. He popularized one concept that would become a powerful influence on the popular imagination and which also strongly conditions the view of culture as contrast.

Kalervo Oberg was born in British Columbia to Finnish parents in 1901. Kalervo Oberg was known as a world renowned anthropologist. He was a civil servant and a teacher.

He graduated from University of British Columbia with Bachelor of Economics before proceed to Master of Economics from University of Pittsburgh. He earned his doctorate from University of Chicago with dissertation, the Social Economy of the Tlingit Indians of Alaska.

It was published in 1973. Oberg’s book elaborates on social aspects of Tlingit society until the arrival of European.

He loved with his fieldwork and his extensive and wide ranging fieldwork was his biggest accomplishment. Oberg then worked in various government postings overseas, including the Institute of Inter-American Affairs, forerunner of the U.S. Agency for International Development, with assignments including Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, and Surinam.

He traveled the world and wrote about the experiences so others could enjoy them as well. He was the first to introduce the term "Culture shock" and he was the best known coined for the idea in 1954.

Kalervo Oberg was the first to apply the term culture shock to the tension and anxiety combined with feelings of isolation, sensations of loss, confusion and powerlessness, associated with entering a new culture.

He used the phrase ‘culture shock’ to describe problems of acculturation among Americans who were working on a health project in Brazil.

He found that culture shock is almost like a disease: it has a cause, symptoms and a cure. Kalervo Oberg died in 1973.