Margaret Mead was a popular American writer, cultural, and visual anthropologist. Throughout her career, Margaret Mead has conducted over twenty field trips (Yans-McLaughlin 2000). In addition, Mead’s fieldwork focused on the development and growth of adolescents. The reason why I chose Margaret Mead is because of the tremendous contributions that she has made to the field of anthropology and the public. In addition, I find it very astounding that Mead “offers a resolution of the old apparent conflict between science and humanities through the development of a human science capable of justifying within science both quantitative and qualitative knowledge” (Ruby 2000, 165). Therefore, this provides a significant point of why one should combine
…show more content…
From there on, I was able to develop a better understanding of human behavior, growth, and development, which happens to be similar to the Margaret Mead career path. Mead has not only set a platform for prospective anthropologists, but for other scholars from different areas of study and that is the main reason why I chose her. Some of Mead’s work that I will be discussing and analyzing in this paper includes, Coming of Age in Samoa, For God’s Sake, Margaret, Growing Up in New Guinea, Male and Female: A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World, Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson in Bali, and Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. Mead has become an inspiring figure for current and prospective anthropologists and the social science field. In other words, “it was through her work that many people learned about anthropology and its holistic vision of the human species” (The Institute for Intercultural Studies 1999). Therefore, as an anthropologist Mead “had been trained to think in terms of the interconnection of all aspects of human life” (The Institute for Intercultural Studies …show more content…
Upon becoming an anthropologist, Mead was not reflexive because she did not reveal her methodology to the scholarly community. As a result, “when Mead arrived in Samoa for her initial fieldwork she had identified a problem for investigation, but had not settled on a specific method. Mead stated afterwards that the methods she used in Samoa were unconscious innovations” (Kincheloe 1980, 21). As an anthropologist, revealing one’s methodology plays a vital role in reflexivity. According to Ruby, “Science is reflexive in the sense that the facts it explains refer back to the system in which they are explained” (Ruby 2000, 167). That is, as an anthropologist, it is one’s duty to be reflexive–showing an active presence and that you are the one conducting the research–which also has to do with revealing one’s methodology. Eventually, Mead was able to improve her knowledge and duties as an anthropologist and later, Mead’s work was able to demonstrate a significant contribution to the field of visual anthropology. Considering this, Mead made use of the “viewer’s uncritical acceptance” by making use of image producing technologies in her works (Ruby 2000, 176). Mead mentions that these technologies not only makes it easier to produce reliable data, but they are also considered as a more reliable source for developing one’s cultural relativism (Ruby
From there on, I was able to develop a better understanding of human behavior, growth, and development, which happens to be similar to the Margaret Mead career path. Mead has not only set a platform for prospective anthropologists, but for other scholars from different areas of study and that is the main reason why I chose her. Some of Mead’s work that I will be discussing and analyzing in this paper includes, Coming of Age in Samoa, For God’s Sake, Margaret, Growing Up in New Guinea, Male and Female: A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World, Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson in Bali, and Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. Mead has become an inspiring figure for current and prospective anthropologists and the social science field. In other words, “it was through her work that many people learned about anthropology and its holistic vision of the human species” (The Institute for Intercultural Studies 1999). Therefore, as an anthropologist Mead “had been trained to think in terms of the interconnection of all aspects of human life” (The Institute for Intercultural Studies …show more content…
Upon becoming an anthropologist, Mead was not reflexive because she did not reveal her methodology to the scholarly community. As a result, “when Mead arrived in Samoa for her initial fieldwork she had identified a problem for investigation, but had not settled on a specific method. Mead stated afterwards that the methods she used in Samoa were unconscious innovations” (Kincheloe 1980, 21). As an anthropologist, revealing one’s methodology plays a vital role in reflexivity. According to Ruby, “Science is reflexive in the sense that the facts it explains refer back to the system in which they are explained” (Ruby 2000, 167). That is, as an anthropologist, it is one’s duty to be reflexive–showing an active presence and that you are the one conducting the research–which also has to do with revealing one’s methodology. Eventually, Mead was able to improve her knowledge and duties as an anthropologist and later, Mead’s work was able to demonstrate a significant contribution to the field of visual anthropology. Considering this, Mead made use of the “viewer’s uncritical acceptance” by making use of image producing technologies in her works (Ruby 2000, 176). Mead mentions that these technologies not only makes it easier to produce reliable data, but they are also considered as a more reliable source for developing one’s cultural relativism (Ruby