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Margret Mead: A Literature Review

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The early 20th century marked a transition away from the 19th century unilineal evolutionary ideas and belief of primitive static cultures that dominated anthropological theory at the time (Erickson and Murphy 2013, 63). New theoretical frameworks emerged that changed the way people perceived the world around them under the influence of American, French, and British schools of thought (Erickson and Murphy 2013, 69). At this time, American cultural anthropology was starting to form as an academic discipline under the direction of Franz Boas and his students, commonly known as the Boasians. Boas initiated salvage anthropology, the process of empirically documenting culture groups before they lost their identity, and became completely assimilated …show more content…

Mead is accredited as an advocate of cultural relativistic thinking, a feminist, and an early psychological anthropologist. She progressed the understanding of the relationship between culture and personality, studying how individuals contribute to culture and in turn culture shapes the individuals through a psycho-analytic approach (Erickson and Murphy 2013, 73). In 1928 Mead published, Coming of Age in Samoa, an ethnographic account of 68 girls’ experiences with adolescences in three different villages in the western region of Ta’u of …show more content…

Derek Freeman Australian ethnographer, wrote Margret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth (1982), and The Fateful Hoaxing of Margret Mead a Historical Analysis of her Samoan Research (1999), where he claimed that Mead did not study the Samoan history, ignored the presence of sexual violence, glamorized the Samoans view of sex and peace, and that her work was only a product of Boas’ influence (Erickson and Murphy 2013, 75). Additionally, Samoan chief published, Coming of Age in American Anthropology; Margaret Mead and Paradise, that critiques mead for depicting Samoa in alight that makes them look less developed and more simplistic as a society than in actuality (Margaret Mead

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‘The spirit catches you and you fall down’ was published in 2012 by essayist and reporter Anne Fadiman. This introductory book review analyzes the way in which different cultures perceive illnesses and diseases. It focuses on the story of the Lees a Hmong family, who moved to the United States and experiences difficulties with language, culture and biomedicine method of healing, which contradict to Hmong’s way of healing. The chapters describe the differences between the ways childbirth is conducted in Hmong society compared to the western society. As well as the struggle the Lees family has with the cultural differences in diagnoses and treatment of their ill daughter.

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914 Words | 4 Pages

The book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman is based on a true story that delves into the life of Lia Lee, a young epileptic Hmong child (Fadiman, 2012). It focuses on Lia’s condition and her family’s experiences through the problem with the sole purpose of highlighting the collision between two cultures including the American and Hmong culture, and the effect that the cultures have on her health. Fadiman gives a detailed report on the complicated interactions between all the people around Lia and uncovers the deep struggles experienced in the pursuit of her well-being. Lia’s struggle as highlighted in the book primarily arises from a cultural collision

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927 Words | 4 Pages

In “The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down,” Anne Fadiman provides us with her book about two different cultural worlds and how they collide. 1. Quag Dab Peg in Hmong culture is caused by a bad spirit (dab’s). Hmong’s believe dab’s steal souls and cause sick illnesses.

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The underlying principle of The Interpretation of Cultures is that anthropology is a descriptive science

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Culture affects how one views others and the world around them in a large way as shown by past experiences, heritage, and family. Family affects our culture because the people we spend our life with have such a large impact on the way we act. Moreover our past experiences affect us by learning from what we and others do and the result. Things one has experienced in the past greatly affects how one views the world. This is clearly shown in Robert Lake’s(Medicine Grizzlybear’s) essay, “An Indian Father’s Plea.”

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112 Words | 1 Pages

Marcus Garvey, once said, “A people without the knowledge of their past, history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”, to lose one’s culture is truly mournful. In an excerpt of his autobiography The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969), N. Scott Momaday asserts that his Kiowa heritage has shaped who he is today and should not be forgotten. Momaday’s use of figurative language reinforces that learning about his heritage was essential for him in order to show readers that before they can truly understand themselves, they must first understand where they come from. Momaday writes a reflective narrative to the general audience on the importance of not forgetting one’s

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1400 Words | 6 Pages

The definition for Anthropology is “the study of human beings and their ancestors through time and space and in relation to physical character, environmental and social relations, and culture.” (Merriam Webster). In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis depicts the average human

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Culture defines us and how we are as we get older, it plays a big role growing up. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, the main character Janie goes through many different challenges to find herself and others. No matter how difficult things got, she always had a positive attitude, or stood up for herself. That's how she was raised. The people around her too, had positive outlooks.

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Kasia Suarez discusses the process of acquiring her culture without a constant feeling of embarrassment because of bullying from her peers. For instance, she began attending college classes for education in the field and became more open-minded about the different cultures in the American educational system to help her have a wider perspective on culture. Soon after became a teacher and assisted children who were unfamiliar with English or the country, such as herself, when she was growing up. She was very helpful because she went through the same thing and learned from it as she grew up. This helps different students facilitate their sense of belonging and pride in their culture.

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The exposure to a child’s birth culture will help the child decide if their birth and/or adopted culture accurately reflects their identity

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Cultural factors are sets of beliefs, values, and guidelines for individuals’ behaviors. These beliefs are often shared and discussed by a certain group of people. These groups of people may be influenced by culture, ethnicity, race, religion, economics, and an individual’s routines. In other words, it is safe to say that not all cultural groups will share the same views on specific beliefs, values, and/or guidelines. For instance, there are many cultural beliefs held in America, which may have affected Jeanette’s development into an independent and intelligent woman.

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He disagrees that humans aren’t influenced by the environments they live in. He argues that humans are influenced by nature. He believes that Samoans are all influenced by the environments they were raised in. Similar to what Margaret Mead did, Derek Freeman went to Samoa, and observed Samoan’s way of living. However, one difference has occurred – he did his research on ‘Western Samoa’, which is called Samoa now.

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782 Words | 4 Pages

Anthropology studies primitive societies through ethnography in order to determine how humans develop through societal functioning and the culture they are brought up in. Freud gave several insights on psycho cultural analysis, one was that individuals daily lives are influenced by the drives of the unconscious. Psychoanalysis is unique in its ”preoccupation... with the purposes and symbolic content of thought”(LaBarre, 1968a,p.85). Freud’s psychoanalytic approach in Anthropology has been highly criticised due to many questions about personality and culture. One question was whether psychoanalytic theories of the unconscious highlight characteristics, beliefs and behaviours in non-Western populations.

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1192 Words | 5 Pages

If someone was to ask me what anthropology was, prior to this assignment, I would have probably taken an educated guess such as “the study of life”. In a sense that is correct but not entirely accurate. Anthropology is defined as, “The study of human kind in all times and places” (Haviland, Prins, McBride, & Walrath, 2017). After an extensive analyzation of my experiences, I concluded that I don’t practice anthropology in my life enough. In addition, I discovered that my life doesn’t have much diversity in it.

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1021 Words | 5 Pages

Cultural Anthropology is the study of human beings, their behavior and how patterns in their language, personalities, gender, family, art, politics or rituals learned from being a part of a certain society gives meaning to their existence and affects how they organize their lives. Culture Involves Concepts, Generalizations, Abstractions, Assumptions, and Ideas. The ants are locked into the specifics of their nest-building behavior. It must work the same all the time. If some important variable is different, the ants cannot make specific adjustments.

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