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Derek Freeman
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John Derek Freeman (August 15, 1916, Wellington, New Zealand – July 6, 2001, Canberra, Australia) was a New Zealand anthropologist best known for his work in attempting to refute the claims of Margaret Mead in her study of Samoan society, as described in her 1928 ethnography Coming of Age in Samoa. His effort "ignited controversy of a scale, visibility, and ferocity never before seen in anthropology."
man was raised in Wellington, New Zealand by an Australian father and an upper-class Wellington mother, reared in Presbyterian tradition.
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John Derek Freeman (August 15, 1916, Wellington, New Zealand – July 6, 2001, Canberra, Australia) was a New Zealand anthropologist best known for his work in attempting to refute the claims of Margaret Mead in her study of Samoan society, as described in her 1928 ethnography Coming of Age in Samoa. His effort "ignited controversy of a scale, visibility, and ferocity never before seen in anthropology."
Life
Freeman was raised in Wellington, New Zealand by an Australian father and an upper-class Wellington mother, reared in Presbyterian tradition. He attended Victoria University College and studied psychiatry and philosophy. While at school, he studied under Ernest Beaglehole, who in turn had been a student of Edward Sapir. Beaglehole encouraged Freeman's interest in Mead's groundbreaking 1928 work, and this led him to visit Samoa in April 1940 to do ethnographic research. Freeman spent three years in Samoa as a schoolteacher, during which time he learned to speak the Samoan language fluently, was adopted into a Samoan family, and received a chiefly title.
In 1943, Freeman left Samoa to enlist in the Royal New Zealand Volunteer Naval Reserve, and served in the Pacific receiving surrenders from the Japanese navy. During this time, he came into contact with the Iban people of Borneo; this experience inspired him to return to do fieldwork in Sarawak. In 1949, he married Monica Maitland, with whom he spent 30 months in Borneo.
Freeman returned to England in 1951 and was accepted into King's College at the University of Cambridge, where he completed his doctoral thesis on the Iban in 1953. He subsequently taught at the University of Otago in New Zealand, and the University of Samoa. In 1966, Freeman returned to Samoa to conduct further research on psychological and ethnographic terms.
Freeman died of congestive heart failure in 2001 at the age of eighty-four.
Samoan research and Margaret Mead controversy
Freeman described incongruities between Mead's published research and his observations of Samoans:
Freeman conducted research for more than forty years, describing his research as concluding in 1981 when he was finally granted access to the archives of the High Court of American Samoa for the 1920s; consequently, his refutation was published only after Mead's death in 1978. Freeman says that he informed Mead of his ongoing work in refuting her research when he met her in person in November 1964 and engaged in correspondence with her; nevertheless, he has come under fire for not publishing his work at a time when Mead could reply to his accusations.
Freeman's 1983 critique asserts that Mead was tricked by native informants who were lying to her and that these misconceptions reinforced Mead's doctrine of "absolute cultural determinism" that entirely neglects the role of biology and evolution in human behavior, concentrating instead on the cultural influences. Freeman also argues that "Mead ignored violence in Samoan life, did not have a sufficient background in—or give enough emphasis to—the influence of biology on behavior, did not spend enough time in Samoa, and was not familiar enough with the Samoan language."
Freeman's refutation was initially met by some with accusations of "circumstantial evidence, selective quotation, omission of inconvenient evidence, spurious historical tracking and other critical observations," resulting in "major questions" about the validity and honesty of his scholarship. However, further accumulation of research in Samoa and other Polynesian culture resulted in wider acceptance of Freeman's assertion. His New York Times obituary stated that "His challenge was initially greeted with disbelief or anger, but gradually won wide -- although not complete -- acceptance," but further said that "many anthropologists have agreed to disagree over the findings of one of the science's founding mothers, acknowledging both Mead's pioneering research and the fact that she may have been mistaken on details."
Works
- Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth (1983), ISBN 0-14-022555-2
- The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of her Samoan Research (1999), ISBN 0-8133-3693-7
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