Ward Goodenough

Ward Hunt Goodenough (born May 30, 1919 in Cambridge , Massachusetts , † June 9, 2013 ) was an American anthropologist who made important contributions in the fields of kinship studies , anthropological linguistics , intercultural studies and cognitive anthropology .

Live and act

Ward Hunt Goodenough was born when his father received his PhD from Harvard Divinity School . During his childhood, his family moved widely in Europe and Germany as his father conducted research for his doctorate. So it was that Goodenough developed an early interest in German and languages ​​in general. In 1937 he began his studies at Cornell University . He majored in Scandinavian languages ​​and literature, but was also influenced by the psychologist Leonard S. Cottrell, Jr. and the anthropologist Lauriston Sharp . In 1940 he made his bachelor's degree. He later began his PhD in anthropology at Yale University , but because of the Second World War , he was initially forced to interrupt his studies. During the war, Goodenough worked under the direction of Samuel Stouffer in the Research Division of the Information and Education Division of the War Department . During this time he acquired specialist knowledge in quantitative research as well as clinical psychology and social psychology .

After the war, Goodenough resumed his studies at Yale University. There he was supervised by George Peter Murdock for his dissertation , but also attended lectures by Bronisław Malinowski and Ralph Linton . In 1947 Goodenough became part of the research group dealing with the Coordinated Investigation of Micronesian Anthropology (CIMA). This extensive project, led by Murdock, was funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR). Goodenough conducted seven months of field studies on Chuuk with Murdock in 1947 . This research was intended to provide the American government with basic information about Micronesia . The work represents a significant milestone in the history of the study of Micronesia and the start of modern ethnology in this field.

In 1949 Goodenough completed his PhD with the title A Grammar of Social Interaction . This was later published in a revised version under the title Property, Kin, and Community on Truk . Marshall and Caughey describe it as the first publication resulting from the CIMA and as a classic of ethnography about the Pacific region. From 1948 to 1949 Goodenough got a teaching position in the department of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison . He then moved to the University of Pennsylvania , where he stayed until his retirement in 1989. In 1951 he conducted field studies in Kiribati and in 1954 he organized a joint study of his students doing their PhD in ethnography in New Britain , Papua New Guinea .

Goodenough had made a name for himself as a major theoretician of anthropology by the mid-1950s. In the years that followed, he continued to make important contributions to cultural studies and anthropology, including the 1981 textbook Culture, Language, and Society . In 1968 he was selected to give the Lewis Henry Morgan Lecture, one of the highest honors in American anthropology.

As he got older, Goodenough gained more and more prestige and received other honors and awards. In 1963 he was president of the Society for Applied Anthropology and from 1966 to 1970 editor of the journal American Anthropologist . In 1971 he was elected to the anthropology department of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), in 1973 to the American Philosophical Society and in 1975 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . Goodenough was President of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science in 1987 . From 1976 to 1982 he took over the chair for the department of anthropology at Penn University. He was also a visiting professor at Cornell University, Swarthmore College, Bryn Mawr College, University of Hawaii, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Yale University, Colorado College, University of Rochester and St. Patrick's College in Ireland.

Ward Hunt Goodenough died on June 9, 2013 at the age of 94.

Research priorities

Goodenough dealt mainly with the family relationships of the residents of the Chuuk. His best-known work in the field is concerned with developing a method by which component analysis can be applied to the study of kinship terminology . He also developed Ralph Linton's theory of social status and social role using structural component analysis.

Publications (selection)

• Property, Kin and Community on Truk . (= Yale University Publications in Anthropology. No. 46). 1951.
• Residence Rules. In: Southwestern Journal of Anthropology. Volume 12, 1956, pp. 22-37.
• Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics. In: Paul L. Garvin (Ed.): Report of the Seventh Annual Round table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Study. (= Monograph Series on Language and Linguistics. No. 9). Georgetown University, Washington DC 1957, pp. 167-173.
• Cooperation in Change: An Anthropological Approach to Community Development. Russell Sage Foundation, New York 1963.
• as Ed .: Explorations in Cultural Anthropology: Essays in Honor of George Peter Murdock. McGraw-Hill Book, New York 1964.
• Description and Comparison in Cultural Anthropology. Aldine, Chicago 1970.
• Culture Language and Society. (= Addison-Wesley Modular Publications. No. 7). Reading, Mass. 1971.
• Under Heaven's Brow: Pre-Christian Religious Tradition in Chuuk . (= Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society Philadelphia. Volume 246). 2002.
• In Pursuit of Culture. In: Annual Review of Anthropology. Volume 32, No. 1, 2003, pp. 1-12.

Awards

• Bronislaw Malinowski Award

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ward Hunt Goodenough. Death notice
2. ^ ^{A b c} Mac Marshall, John L Caughey: Culture, Kin, and Cognition in Oceania . American Anthropological Association, Washington, DC 1989.
3. ^ Member History: Ward H. Goodenough. American Philosophical Society, accessed August 25, 2018 . 

• Arwen Kimmell: Ward H. Goodenough. ( Memento from December 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive )