India Windsor-Clive

Introduction to Social Anthropology

Monday 8th December 2008

What does the

Samoan controversy
reveal about the
impact of the
researcher’s gender
on anthropological
research?

India Windsor-Clive

1
 India Windsor-Clive

What does the Samoan controversy reveal about the impact of the researcher’s gender on
anthropological research?

‘Because I was a woman and could hope for greater intimacy in working with girls’ M.
Mead

If we look at the somewhat Structuralist idea of our human nature having the desire to
create concepts, and the need to classify and understand almost everything, it is inevitable that
there will be generalisations, disagreements and contradictions that follow. With the exploration
of new ideas in anthropology during the nineteenth century1, the issue of gender was opened up,
largely though a concern for the under representation and neglect of women; resulting in the
widespread distinction and investigation of gender biases found in theory and fieldwork. Gender
has always been considered in ethnography, especially through a focus on kinship and marriage,
but was not, until recently, considered comparatively in terms of male and female gender
representation. In the past, issues such as the division of labour and kinship studies had a deeply
rooted male orientation, as it can be seen in simple labels such as ‘mankind’ and the original term
‘anthropologist’, exclusively used for male practitioners. Many anthropologists have come to
conclusions on the various male biases occurring in ethnographic research, however, it is also
necessary to examine the influence of an ethnographers own gender when conducting
investigations. The anthropologist Margaret Mead2 revealed many issues in her research in
Samoa3, some greatly criticised and others highly praised, but it is the gender concerns of Mead
as a female anthropologist, as well as gender biases, that I am going to focus on. A controversy
on her findings was formed by the strong opposition made by Derek Freeman4, who disagreed
with Mead’s methodology and analysis, accusing her of fabricating her results with a
predetermined conclusion. This brings into question a woman’s privilege in studying women in
different societies and how effective these privileges actually are. On carrying out ethnographic
research men and women are often perceived, received and treated very differently by the society
under study, therefore producing very different results. Before looking specifically at the Samoan
controversy and impacts of an ethnographers gender on research, it is important to look at some
background on gender biases, where they are found and how it effects ethnographic results and

1 The ‘anthropology of women’ in the 1970s addressed the problem of how women were represented in
anthropological writing. (H. L. Moore ‘Feminism and Anthropology’ p.1)
2 Margaret Mead (1901-1979) b. Pennsylvania. Went to Samoa in 1925. M. Mead ‘Coming of age in Samoa’
3 Samoa is an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean
4 Derek Freeman (1916-2001) b. New Zealand. Went to Samoa in 1940. www.anthrosource.net

2
 India Windsor-Clive

analysis.
Some argue that gender biases occur due to biological reasons and the different natures of
man and woman, men ‘naturally’ being dominant and women more submissive, or linked with
the different hormones and natural role of each sex, forms of ‘naturalisation’5. The principal
forms of male bias include, the bias inherent in the society being studied, the bias inherent in
Western culture, and thirdly the anthropologist’s bias in coming from a male dominated
discipline, holding unconscious bias knowledge, ‘Anthropology itself orders the world in a male
idiom’6(H.L. Moore, 1988). There are numerous suggested reasons for the presence of male
biases in anthropological research that are re-occurring, other than the fact that the majority of
ethnographers and informants are male. Ethnographers tend to be welcomed and approached by
the confident males taking the role of representatives for their society and are usually the only
bilingual individuals, making them more accessible and easier to talk to than women. The male
informants are assumed to control significant and official information, as people are taught in
western society, and therefore talk about their society from a male point of view, ‘believing that
men are easier to talk to, more involved in the crucial cultural spheres, we fulfil our own
prophecies in finding them to be better informants in the field’7 (R. Reiter, 1975). As well as
these technical aspects of the problem there are also analytical problems such as anthropologists
using models drawn from their own male dominated culture to explain male models in other
societies, consequently suppressing female models; the information given by women will express
the male dominant view. The models provided by the male informants will inevitably be more
familiar and understandable to male and female researchers due to their training in a male
dominated discipline.
The impact of gender bias is therefore not only found in the societies under study and in
Western society, but also in the knowledge and preconceptions of the anthropologist themselves,
whether male or female. Edwin Ardener was among the first to recognise the significance of
these male biases and proposed the theory of ‘muted groups’ who are silenced by dominant
structures and forced to structure their own understanding of the world through the dominant
model. This theory can be applied to both women in the society under study and the female
anthropologist. It could be said that female anthropologists also appeared to be ‘muted’; they did
5 ‘Naturalisation’ is the process of legitimising cultural beliefs by assuming that they are natural and therefore
correct, acceptable and inevitable. (Lecture notes)
6 Moore, H. L. ‘Feminism and anthropology’ p.4
7 Reiter, R. ‘Toward an anthropology of women’ p.14

3
 India Windsor-Clive

not see other women in other societies clearly as a result of not perceiving themselves as within
the structure of academic anthropology and not being seen as ‘articulate‘ within the male
configuration, ‘our woman ethnographers may then be expressing the ‘maleness’ of their subject
when they approach the women of other societies’8 (E. Ardener, 1975). There have been many
cases in which a male and female ethnographers have formed very different analyses from the
same society, primarily due to their gender differences or using different informants. One
example of this can be seen in a study of Australian Aboriginal women; the male researchers
reported the women being irreverent, economically irrelevant and excluded from cultural rituals.
Whereas the female researchers described the women as having a central role in life and rituals
as well as being respectfully treated by men.9 In the case of Margaret Mead’s ethnographic
fieldwork, she collected information on adolescent girls and focussed her study on female
informants, which was contradicted by Derek Freeman who relied on the more senior persons of
the Samoan communities.
Margaret Mead’s aim in ‘Coming of age in Samoa’ is to asses whether civilisation and
social constructions effect developing adolescents. Mead acknowledges the impossibility of
controlling the working conditions to asses individuals, but aims to research adolescents in a
society far from her own American society and its social pressures, to form a comparison
between the two. To begin with Mead undermines the idea of biology causing the conflicts in the
unsettled period of adolescence or the idea of a universally experienced stage in a child‘s life.
She then goes on to describe the alternative view of social constructions causing this period of
distress, with these aspects of behaviour being ‘merely a result of civilisation’10(M. Mead, 1928).
Her approach was to integrate herself amongst the young girls in the Samoan societies,
minimising the differences between the Samoan girls and herself. Mead’s results show the
possibility of an adolescent period free from the traumas during puberty so commonly seen in
Western society, suggesting that the associated stresses could be non existent under certain
cultural conditions. Margaret Mead believed to have found a society with the apparent lack of
competition and guilt in a relaxed environment with greater freedom compared to American
society. She reported the presence of incest, adultery and promiscuity amongst the community
including youngsters, despite being frowned upon by their cultural and social acceptances, since
8 Ardener, E. ‘Belief and the problem of women’ p.1 from (ed.) S. Ardener ‘Perceiving women’
9 Rohrlich-Leavitt, 1975. H. L. Moore ‘Feminism and anthropology’ p.1

10 Mead, M. ‘Coming of age in Samoa’ p.11

4
 India Windsor-Clive

‘all expressions of affection are rigorously barred in public’11 (M. Mead). Mead describes love
affairs between the unmarried youth and between adults and young children, suggesting more
relaxed sexual needs, as she describes one of the aspirations of an adolescent Samoan growing
up as to ‘defer marriage through as many years of casual love making as possible’12 (M. Mead).
However, she includes that the adults do not view it as appropriate to discuss the sexual
happenings in public, ‘the adult attitude towards all the details of sex is characterised by this
view that they are unseemly, not that they are wrong’13 (M. Mead). Mead concludes on her
original investigation that in Samoa ‘adolescence represented no period of crisis or stress’14 (M.
Mead). Margaret Mead’s experiences and discoveries in Samoa were highly criticised by Derek
Freeman, who went out to Samoa a few years later and brought back very different results
contradicting everything Mead had concluded.
Derek Freeman questioned Mead’s reputation for being the ‘avant-garde’ and famous
anthropologist that she had become. He accused Mead of collecting false results with a
predetermined conclusion and an ulterior motive of supporting her teacher, Franz Boas’s,
concept of ‘nurture’ over ‘nature’. Freeman went out to Samoa a few years after Mead and
participated in the important meetings that he claims she could not have been allowed to attend,
producing a number of oppositions to her discoveries. He described the Samoan societies as
hierarchical, very religious and restrictive in terms of sexual activity. He reported that the girls
were not involved in sexual relations before marriage and that there were pressures during
puberty including competition, punishments and other difficulties. In his ‘Margaret Mead and
Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth’, Freeman asserts the deceptive
nature of Mead’s research, as he describes the ‘central conclusion she had reached in ‘Coming of
age in Samoa’ about the sovereignty of nurture over nature was false’15(D. Freeman, 1983). It
has been thought that Freeman’s views on sexual politics in Samoa ‘sought to restore the
legitimacy of men’s power and woman’s subordination’16 (Sharon Tiffany, 2004). Freeman
illustrates the male dominated institutions and defined ideologies of sex and gender relations

11 Mead, M. ‘Coming of age in Samoa’ p.113

12 Mead, M. ‘Coming of age in Samoa’ p.157
13 Mead, M. ‘Coming of age in Samoa’ p.113
14 Mead, M. ‘Coming of age in Samoa’ p.129
15 Freeman, D. ‘Margaret Mead and Samoa: The making and unmaking of an anthropological myth’ p.105
16 Tiffany, S. ‘Imagining the South Seas: Margaret Mead’s ‘Coming of age in Samoa’ and the sexual politics of
paradise’ from ‘Reading Benedict/Reading Mead’ p.164

5
 India Windsor-Clive

constraining the lives and behaviours of girls and women in the Samoan societies.
There are numerous explanations for the starkly different conclusions drawn by Mead
and Freeman on the same society. One argument in explaining this discrepancy is the fact that
they relied on different informants for their data, Mead concentrating on adolescent girls and
Freeman focussing on the adults representing the ‘official’ discourse of the community. There is
the element of age bias as Freeman accuses Mead of relying on young girls for information who
are unreliable, however they are more likely to reveal the truth to another relatively young
woman, which might be kept hidden from adults who could in turn ignore the truth, suggested by
Mead, ‘public comment upon the details of sex or of evacuation was considered to be in bad
taste’17 (M. Mead). We could compare this to someone asking the young in a Western community
what their sexual activities involve and then asking adults about adolescent sexual behaviour; the
adolescents might reveal information unknown to the adults, or things seniors might turn a blind
eye to and will not admit due to a developed self-consciousness. The gender of the ethnographer
effects their results, as inevitably a female outsider will be received and treated differently to a
male outsider, in some communities foreign man are not allowed to talk to native women and
vice versa. Freeman and Mead can both be accused of having prior academic conclusions in
mind, Mead to prove her ideas right and Freeman to prove Mead wrong, leading to the
manipulation of data. From my own experiences of travelling alone in India, a male dominated
culture, I believe that as a female I had an insight into the women’s view of society that I would
not haven been able to have if I was male due to the social restrictions of Indian women. A male
dominance in a society could result in a different angle of truth given to a male ethnographer by
female informants due to their submissive position in front of men. Female informants might feel
more relaxed in front of female researchers and therefore be more comfortable in giving out
information, including the possible feeling of a mutual understanding of male dominance; which
could also lead to exaggeration through the excitement of common ground between the
ethnographer and informants. There is also the element of reactionary feelings towards an
outsider from a native community which could influence researcher’s results depending on their
gender, for example sexual tensions, confusion, unfamiliarity, defence, pressure and pride.
In conclusion there as always going to be gender biases in ethnographical fieldwork,
primarily due to the different experiences of men and women, partially undermining aspects of

17 Mead, M. ‘Coming of age in Samoa’ p.113

6
 India Windsor-Clive

ethnography in anthropology. The issue of gender bias reveals the major concerns of Western
ethnography in the subordination of their representations. It is impossible to ever find an
agreeable truth as all people are different with different realities. Ethnographies may be subjected
to the different experiences of the ethnographer that specifically highlight the different
perceptions of men and women. There is also an element of doubt in the validity of
anthropological research due to the ability to manipulate data; it is therefore important for
readers to acknowledge the possibility of biases, not only in the society under study, but in the
ethnographers and their culture.

7
 India Windsor-Clive

Bibliography

Ardener, E. ‘Belief and the problem of Women’ in Perceiving Women (ed.) S. Ardener. 1975,
J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd, London.

Ardener, E. ‘The problem revisited’ in Perceiving Women (ed.) S. Ardener. 1975, J. M. Dent&
Sons Ltd, London.

Freeman, D. ‘Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an

Anthropological Myth’ 1983, Harvard University Press.

Gobo, G. ‘Doing Ethnography’ 2008, Sage Publications Ltd.

Mead, M. ‘Coming of Age in Samoa’ 1928, Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth.

Moore, H. L. ‘Feminism and Anthropology’ 1988, Polity Press, Cambridge.

Newman, L. ‘Coming of Age, but not in Samoa: Reflections on Margaret Mead’s legacy
for Western liberal feminism’ 1996 in ‘Reading Benedict/Reading Mead:
feminism, Race, and Imperial Visions’ (ed.) D. Janie ski & L. W. Banner.
2004, JHU Press, Maryland.

Reiter, R. ‘Toward an Anthropology of Women’ 1975, Monthly Review Press, New

York.

Tiffany, S. ‘Imagining the South Seas: Margaret Mead’s ‘Coming of age in Samoa’
and the sexual politics of paradise’ in ‘Reading Benedict/Reading Mead:
feminism, Race, and Imperial Visions’ (ed.) D. Janie ski & L. W. Banner.
2004, JHU Press, Maryland.

Websites:

www.anthropology.usf.edu

www.anthrosource.net