Margaret Mead and Mary Cathrine Bateson: Like Mother, Like Daughter?
Margaret Mead and Mary Catherine Bateson: Like Mother, Like Daughter?
A Research Paper
Presented to
Dr. William Reckmeyer
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
100W
by
Ashley Goularte
December 15, 2010
Introduction Margaret Mead and Mary Catherine Bateson are not household names, but to anthropologists and other academics these two women have helped advance and shape the world of Anthropology. In the early 20th century, Margaret Mead was a part of small but influential group of people to bring anthropology to the forefront of people’s minds. With the likes of Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead has helped compose the standards used throughout anthropology as a discipline. She has compiled more than 500,000 works during her incredible career and is still one of the most read Anthropologists not only within undergraduate classrooms, but all over the world. As follows, Mary Catherine Bateson, the daughter of Margaret Mead, is an amazing Social Anthropologist who has taught around the world in places like the Philippines and Iran. She has been a professor at Harvard, Northeastern University, Amherst College, and Spelman College, and has been a visiting Professor to many other Universities. Bateson has written and co-authored a multitude of books, journals, and articles that have shed light on cultural issues among different societies around the globe. This paper examines Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa and Mary Catherine Bateson’s Composing a Further Life: The Age of Active Wisdom. The focus will be on each woman’s overall writing style within the books being discussed and their research methods used to conduct their fieldwork. Culture and development are important themes throughout both women’s work, so the specific developmental life cycle stages they are focused on will be addressed, as well as the specificity of cultural demands placed on each research group. Further examination will look
A Research Paper
Presented to
Dr. William Reckmeyer
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
100W
by
Ashley Goularte
December 15, 2010
Introduction Margaret Mead and Mary Catherine Bateson are not household names, but to anthropologists and other academics these two women have helped advance and shape the world of Anthropology. In the early 20th century, Margaret Mead was a part of small but influential group of people to bring anthropology to the forefront of people’s minds. With the likes of Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead has helped compose the standards used throughout anthropology as a discipline. She has compiled more than 500,000 works during her incredible career and is still one of the most read Anthropologists not only within undergraduate classrooms, but all over the world. As follows, Mary Catherine Bateson, the daughter of Margaret Mead, is an amazing Social Anthropologist who has taught around the world in places like the Philippines and Iran. She has been a professor at Harvard, Northeastern University, Amherst College, and Spelman College, and has been a visiting Professor to many other Universities. Bateson has written and co-authored a multitude of books, journals, and articles that have shed light on cultural issues among different societies around the globe. This paper examines Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa and Mary Catherine Bateson’s Composing a Further Life: The Age of Active Wisdom. The focus will be on each woman’s overall writing style within the books being discussed and their research methods used to conduct their fieldwork. Culture and development are important themes throughout both women’s work, so the specific developmental life cycle stages they are focused on will be addressed, as well as the specificity of cultural demands placed on each research group. Further examination will look
Bibliography: Contemporary Magazine (379). Electronic document, http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/margaret-mead-and-samoa--by-derek-freeman-6801, accessed November 15, 2010. http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/abcde/bateson_mary.html, accessed November 15, 2010. Granny Voters 2003 Do You Worry About What the Future Holds for Today’s Children? Electronic document, http://www.grannyvoter.org/, accessed December 7, 2010. The Institution for Intercultural Studies 1999-2009 Margaret Mead (1901-1978): An Anthropology of Human Freedom