Comments on: Margaret Mead and the Arapesh

By: Rex

Rex — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:30:51 +0000

If you look at the PDF that I linked to in the body of the post it contains subscription information — it is less than US$10 a year for institutions and less for individuals, iirc. I have not followed the publication for some time but I have always loved its ‘Clio’s Fancy’ section. In an earlier number Bashkow documents colonial officers in Papua New Guinea and their reaction to their ‘applied anthropology’ courses under Radcliffe-Brown. Wonderful little nuggets of history there.

By: Richard Irvine

Richard Irvine — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:34:40 +0000

A good article. We really ought to get a HAN subscription here. Any idea what the individual subscription rates are? The only website I can find is doesn’t have much useful information on that sort of thing.

By: L.L. Wynn

L.L. Wynn — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:33:03 +0000

thanks everyone for the reading suggestions!

By: Rex

Rex — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:48:07 +0000

Woah that is the ultimate anthro haiku

By: Colugo

Colugo — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 01:47:16 +0000

Never mind Freeman.
Mead’s ethnography is crap.
US Anthro’s shame.

By: Rex

Rex — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:53:24 +0000

Both of those sources are good, although the problem with most summaries of the Mead-Freeman debate is that they are _part_ of the Mead-Freeman debate. I honestly am not an expert in the area and my knowledge of this is derived mostly by listening to those who are. One of the most recent and exhaustive accounts of the debate is Serge Tcherkezoff’s “Le mythe occidental de la sexualite polynesienne: 1928-1999” but it is also _very_ hard to find and, of course, requires French.

By: Michael F. Brown

Michael F. Brown — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:00:06 +0000

You might want to check out Roy Rappaport’s, “Desecrating the holy woman: Derek Freeman’s attack on Margaret Mead,” American Scholar 55, Summer 1986. It’s brilliant and beautifully written.

By: MTBradley

MTBradley — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 13:33:21 +0000

Paul Shankman had a related article in Ethnohistory a couple of years ago. Here is the BibTeX record if anyone is so inclined:

@article{shankman:2006,
title = {Virginity and veracity: Rereading historical sources in the {Mead-F}reeman controversy},
volume = {53},
number = {3},
doi = {10.1215/00141801-2006-002},
abstract = {In the Mead-Freeman controversy, Derek Freeman argued that historical sources support his view that the traditional values of the Samoan system of institutionalized virginity (or taupou system) were preserved and reinforced throughout the colonial era. A closer examination of two sources used by Freeman, authored by Augustin Kramer and Newton A. Rowe, demonstrates that the taupou system, as well as many of the values and practices associated with it, were in decline during this period. This latter interpretation, favored by Margaret Mead, is also supported by Freeman’s own postgraduate diploma thesis, a source hitherto unused in the controversy.},
journal = {Ethnohistory},
author = {Paul Shankman},
year = {2006},
pages = {479–505}
}

By: L.L. Wynn

L.L. Wynn — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 07:37:15 +0000

Rex, can you recommend any good reading on the whole Freeman-Mead thing? A concise, measured assessment of the merit of Freeman’s critique?

By: Kate G

Kate G — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 03:14:29 +0000

Thanks so much for this, Rex. I’m in the middle of reading it now and I’m fascinated by the image of Maggie never leaving the village. Wow. (I admit to an edgy relationship to the image of Mead as a female anthropologist who started fieldwork in the South Pacific in the late 1970s — I just couldn’t get away from her ghost for a while).