USING AND ABUSING THE WORKS OF THE ANCESTORS: MARGARET MEAD

Authors

Mary Catherine Bateson, Institute for Intercultural StudiesFollow

Abstract

Because early-twentieth-century anthropologists worked under very different circumstances from those of anthropologists today, they have become easy to criticize and hard to use fruitfully. Finding the appropriate use of Margaret Mead's work today is a goal she would have felt at home with. Criticism and correction are essential, but opportunistic uses of Mead's work, legacy, and persona, like the attack by Derek Freeman that made him famous, are essentially wasteful and exploitative. By focusing attention on Mead's earliest work, Freeman obscured her lifelong contribution and undermined concepts she helped embed in American thinking, like the indispensable (if vague) concept of culture, the importance of learning and environment, and the holistic approach to patterns of human adaptation, concepts under attack today. In terms of legacy, she saw her field notes as the most valuable part of her work, but perhaps the most important example she set was her own development over time.

Recommended Citation

Bateson, Mary Catherine (2005) "USING AND ABUSING THE WORKS OF THE ANCESTORS: MARGARET MEAD," Pacific Studies Journal: Vol. 28: No. 2, Article 10.
Available at: https://digitalcollections.byuh.edu/pacific-studies-journal/vol28/iss2/10