1) Dr. John Poggie Jr. is a cultural anthropologist who conducts research on coastal communities and their resources. He believes that both nature and nurture influence society.
2) He is very familiar with the work of anthropologist Margaret Mead, having met and interacted with her on several occasions in the 1960s and 1970s. Mead spent a semester teaching at the University of Rhode Island.
3) Mead pioneered the anthropological method of participant observation and helped popularize anthropology. She challenged Western assumptions about gender roles through her cross-cultural research.
1) Dr. John Poggie Jr. is a cultural anthropologist who conducts research on coastal communities and their resources. He believes that both nature and nurture influence society.
2) He is very familiar with the work of anthropologist Margaret Mead, having met and interacted with her on several occasions in the 1960s and 1970s. Mead spent a semester teaching at the University of Rhode Island.
3) Mead pioneered the anthropological method of participant observation and helped popularize anthropology. She challenged Western assumptions about gender roles through her cross-cultural research.
1) Dr. John Poggie Jr. is a cultural anthropologist who conducts research on coastal communities and their resources. He believes that both nature and nurture influence society.
2) He is very familiar with the work of anthropologist Margaret Mead, having met and interacted with her on several occasions in the 1960s and 1970s. Mead spent a semester teaching at the University of Rhode Island.
3) Mead pioneered the anthropological method of participant observation and helped popularize anthropology. She challenged Western assumptions about gender roles through her cross-cultural research.
1) Dr. John Poggie Jr. is a cultural anthropologist who conducts research on coastal communities and their resources. He believes that both nature and nurture influence society.
2) He is very familiar with the work of anthropologist Margaret Mead, having met and interacted with her on several occasions in the 1960s and 1970s. Mead spent a semester teaching at the University of Rhode Island.
3) Mead pioneered the anthropological method of participant observation and helped popularize anthropology. She challenged Western assumptions about gender roles through her cross-cultural research.
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Transcript of Face-to-Face Interview with Dr.
John Poggie Jr, Professor of
Anthropology at the University of Rhode Island What do you do in the field of anthropology? I am a cultural anthropologist who does research on coastal people and their resources. As an anthropologist, what are your views on the nature vs. nurture debate? Well I guess I have to say society is based on both nature and nurture, not just one alone. I believe some aspects of society have to deal specifically with nature, others with nurture, but it is mostly a mix. How familiar are you with Margaret Meads research? I am very familiar with her research. I teach a course on anthropological theorists and shes one of the theorists we discuss. We talk about her work in Samoa and New Guinea. She really tried to help contribute to broadening peoples views on gender roles today. Mead was a student of Franz Boas, who was considered a father of anthropology and worked at Columbia University. He was very strong in trying to promote cultural relativity by trying to understand peoples cultures by visiting their culture. She had an undergraduate degree in psychology before she wanted to study anthropology. Once she was finished getting her degree, she wanted to study Samoans and test their ideas in non-western cultures. Mead wanted to discover if a stressful time in our society, such as adolescence, was as stressful in another society. She didnt believe that adolescence was a stressful time everywhere and wanted to defend this proposition. She discovered some pretty excellent data to support her point of view. Did you ever meet Margaret Mead? I did meet Margaret on multiple occasions. In 1968, I was at an American Anthropological Association meeting and I was a new graduate from college. We were at a session where important people just got up and talk. We were talking about equilibrium models and out of nowhere, one professor says, I wonder what Margaret Mead would think about this! All of a sudden everyone turned to look at me. I then slowly turned around and there she was! Margaret Mead! She was holding this forked staff she got from New Guinea. It was very interesting and bizarre. The most hilarious time we had an interaction was when I was outside painting my house and Margaret Mead called! It was before she came for her semester and we were discussing her arrangements and all of a sudden she hung up! I was so insecure because I thought that somehow I offended her. It was one of her weird quirks not to say goodbye to people on the phone but it made me feel uncomfortable.
The second time I encountered her was in 1972 when we had extra money in our department to bring in a visiting scholar for a semester. Margaret Mead spent a full semester here at URI! I was in my office and looked out into the parking lot to see that a limousine had arrived. I went to greet her with my other colleagues. Out came an arm with her forked staff and there was Margaret Mead! She taught the course Cultural Behavior and the Environment which is still being taught here today. Another weird experience was when I once had a party at my house and I was sitting. I guess I was bent over too much because she yelled at me to stand up straighter! I took her to Newport once for lunch and a couple of beers she was quite a tough lady. One time we were having a symposium focusing on her work. She just got up with absolutely nothing prepared. We recorded it and she thought it was perfect and didnt want to make any edits and had us type the transcript. It was odd. How do you feel Margaret Mead has contributed to modern day anthropology? Margaret Mead used the methodology of participant observation. She gained her trust with the people she was researching and tried to observe by trying to participate as much as possible in their culture. There were no advanced methods in anthropology at this time. She took a similar approach compared to those from Boas. She really started the methodology of participant observation. She asked projective questions and used systematic instruments similar to psychology. She took the step of qualitative research instead of quantitative research. Today, participant observation is the first step of modern-day anthropologists. You can start measuring using systematic research methods. Do anthropologists mostly use quantitative or qualitative data? It really depends on the question youre trying to answer. Different topics will use quantitative or qualitative data. What are your thoughts regarding the controversy Margaret Mead received involving her research in Samoa? Derek Freeman came into Samoa and interview people that Margaret Mead came in contact with. According to what he discovered, some of Meads informants lied. His claims were never supported by any real evidence. Its unfortunate that people do this. It was awful. It seems that he was hoping to become famous by attacking one of the most well-known anthropologists in the entire world. Is there a modern-day anthropologist who has been attacked? Napolean Chagnon is now being attacked by an investigative reporter. Chagnon observed the Yanomam tribe and supposedly withheld medicine during a measles outbreak to see how
they would react. There was no real evidence for any of the criticism he received. Its unfortunate that people dont try to be objective about research. Is there any other anthropologist you feel has made an impact as much as Margaret Mead? Who? How? Marvin Harris. Marvin Harris developed the theory of cultural materialism and wrote a book about this. Many people despise him because he had an abrasive personality. Harris says we should go and study material conditions and ideological places of culture. Popularization anthropology was mostly started by Marvin Harris and Margaret Mead. How has Margaret Mead affected the feminist movement? Margaret Mead affected the feminist movement by pointing out that our way of thinking and doing things were not the only way to think and do things. She gave opportunity for American women to open up white opinions on their roles and lives in general.
Jeff Greenberg_ Toni Schmader_ Jamie Arndt_ Mark Landau - Social Psychology_ the Science of Everyday Life (2017, Macmillan Higher Education) - Libgen Compressed.li
