When, in 1935, Margaret Mead was asked by a member of the
interdisciplinary committee of the Social Science Research Council
to prepare a survey of several cultures for publication, she ended
up creating a model for future ethnological survey texts, as well
as furthering the understanding of cultural relativism in
anthropological studies. The result of her work, "Cooperation and
Competition Among Primitive Peoples," is fascinating. The essays do
not purport to be source materials on the peoples being studied,
but rather have been assembled as "interpretative" statements,
meant to provide a background for planning future research in this
field in our own society.
In many respects, this volume is a pioneer effort in
anthropological literature. It remains firmly part of the genre of
cooperative research, or "interdisciplinary research," though at
the time of its original publication that phrase had yet to be
coined. Additionally, this work is more theoretical in nature than
a faithful anthropological record, as all the essays were written
in New York City, on a low budget, and without fieldwork. The
significance of these studies lies in the fact that "Cooperation
and Competition Among Primitive Peoples" was the first attempt to
think about the very complex problems of cultural character and
social structure, coupled with a meticulous execution of
comparative study. This work will be of great interest to
anthropologists, cultural theorists, and students of
interdisciplinary research.
The distinguished contributors include: Margaret Mead, the editor
of this volume, who authored "The Arapesh of New Guinea," "The
Manus of the Admiralty Islands," and "The Samoans"; Jeannette
Mirsky, who contributed "The Eskimo of Greenland" and "The Dakota";
Ruth Landes, who wrote "The Ojibwa of Canada"; May Mandelbaum Edel,
author of "The Bachiga of East Africa"; Irving Goldman, who
contributed "The Ifugao of the Philippine Islands," "The Kwakiutl
of Vancouver Island," "The Zuni of New Mexico," and "The Bathonga
of South Africa"; Buell Quain, who penned "The Iriquois"; and
Bernard Mishkin, author of "The Maori of New Zealand."
Margaret Mead (1901-1978) was associated with the American Museum
of Natural History in New York for over fifty years, becoming
Curator of Ethnology in 1964. She taught at Columbia University and
the New School for Social Research as well as a number of other
universities, and served as president of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science and the American Anthropological
Association. Among her many books is "Continuities in Cultural
Evolution," available from Transaction Publishers.
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