Melford Elliot Spiro (April 26, 1920 – October 18, 2014) was an American
cultural anthropologist
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portman ...
specializing in religion and
psychological anthropology. He is known for his critiques of the pillars of contemporary anthropological theory—wholesale cultural determinism, radical cultural relativism, and virtually limitless cultural diversity—and for his emphasis on the theoretical importance of unconscious desires and beliefs in the study of stability and change in social and cultural systems, particularly in respect to the family, politics, and religion. Explicated in numerous theoretical publications, they are empirically exemplified in monographs based on his fieldwork in
Ifaluk
Ifalik (also spelled Ifaluk) is a coral atoll of four islands in the central Caroline Islands in the Pacific Ocean, and forms a legislative district in Yap State in the Federated States of Micronesia. Ifalik is located approximately east of Wolea ...
atoll in
Micronesia
Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of about 2,000 small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: the Philippines to the west, Polynesia to the east, and ...
, an Israeli
kibbutz
A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming h ...
, and a village in Burma (now Myanmar).
He was a significant figure in a series of debates over
cultural relativism
Cultural relativism is the idea that a person's beliefs and practices should be understood based on that person's own culture. Proponents of cultural relativism also tend to argue that the norms and values of one culture should not be evaluated ...
and postmodern theory among American cultural anthropologists in the 1980s and early 1990s, in which he consistently argued for the importance of the comparative method and the appreciation of universal cultural and psychological processes.
Spiro received his B.A. from the
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...
in 1942, where he majored in philosophy,
following which he studied at the
Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. Having developed an interest in culture theory, he explored this interest through enrolling in the anthropology department at
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Charte ...
, where he worked with
Melville Herskovits
Melville Jean Herskovits (September 10, 1895 – February 25, 1963) was an American anthropologist who helped to first establish African and African Diaspora studies in American academia. He is known for exploring the cultural continuity from A ...
and
A. Irving Hallowell
Alfred Irving "Pete" Hallowell (; 1892–1974) was an award-winning American anthropologist, archaeologist and businessman.
Early life and education
Hallowell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and attended the Wharton School of the Univ ...
, and received his PhD in 1950. He taught at
Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...
,
University of Connecticut
The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...
,
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...
, and
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
before moving In 1968 to the
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
where he was a founding member of the anthropology department. He received postgraduate training in psychoanalysis at the San Diego Psychoanalytic Center and practiced as a lay analyst,
additionally overseeing a course series at UCSD that exposed graduate students in anthropology to psychiatric training.
Spiro became professor emeritus at UCSD in 1990, but continued teaching for another decade. He was a member of the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
and the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
. He served terms as president of the
American Ethnological Society
The American Ethnological Society (AES) is the oldest professional anthropological association in the United States.
History of the American Ethnological Society
Albert Gallatin and John Russell Bartlett founded the American Ethnological Societ ...
and the
Society for Psychological Anthropology
The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, ...
(SPA) and was one of the founders of the SPA's journal, ''Ethos''.
Mel Spiro was married for 62 years to Audrey Spiro, with whom he had two sons.
He died in
La Jolla, CA
La Jolla ( , ) is a hilly, seaside neighborhood within the city of San Diego, California, United States, occupying of curving coastline along the Pacific Ocean. The population reported in the 2010 census was 46,781.
La Jolla is surrounded on ...
, in October 2014 of natural causes.
Select bibliography
*Spiro, Melford E.(1956) ''Kibbutz:Venture in Utopia''. Cambridge:Harvard University Press.
*Spiro, Melford E.(1958) ''Children of the Kibbutz''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Spiro, Melford E.(1967) ''Burmese Supernaturalism:A Study in the Explanation and Resolution of Suffering''. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:Prentice Hall.
*Spiro, Melford E. (1971) ''Buddhism and Society: A Great Tradition and its Burmese Vicissitudes''. New York: Harper and Row.
*Spiro, Melford E. (1977) ''Kinship and Marriage in Burma:A Cultural and Psychodynamic Analysis''. Los Angeles:University of California Press.
*Spiro, Melford E. (1979) ''Gender and Culture:Kibbutz Women Revisited''. Durham, N.C.:Duke University Press.
*Spiro, Melford E. (1982) ''
Oedipus in the Trobriands''. Chicago:University of Chicago Press.
*Spiro, Melford E. (1987) ''Culture and Human Nature: Theoretical Papers of Melford E.Spiro''. Benjamin Kilborne and L.L. Langness, eds.Chicago:University of Chicago Press.
*Spiro, Melford E. (1992) ''Anthropological Other or Burmese Brother? Studies in Cultural Analysis''. New Brunswick (USA): Transaction Publishers.
*Spiro, Melford E. (1997) ''Gender Ideology and Psychological Reality:An Essay on Cultural Reproduction''. New Haven:Yale University Press.
*Spiro, Melford E. (1984) "Some Reflections on Cultural Determinism and Relativism with Special Reference to Emotion and Reason". pp. 323–346 in ''Culture Theory: essays on mind, self, and emotion'', edited by R. A. Shweder and R. A. LeVine. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
*
*Spiro, Melford E. (1987) "Religious systems as culturally constituted defense mechanisms". pp. 145–160 in ''Culture and human nature: theoretical papers of Melford E. Spiro'', edited by B. Kilborne and L. L. Langness. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Spiro, Melford E. (1992) "On the strange and familiar in recent anthropological thought". pp. 53–70 in ''Anthropological Other or Burmese Brother?'' edited by M. E. Spiro. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press.
*
* Kilborne, Benjamin, and L.L. Langness, eds. (1987 ''Culture and human nature: Theoretical papers of Melford E. Spiro''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
References
Further reading
* Darnell, Regna (2006) "Keeping the Faith: A Legacy of Native American Ethnography, Ethnohistory, and Psychology". In: ''New Perspectives on Native North America: Cultures, Histories, and Representations,'' ed. by Sergei A. Kan and Pauline Turner Strong, pp. 3–16. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
* Kilborne, Benjamin, and L.L. Langness, eds. (1987) ''Culture and human nature: Theoretical papers of Melford E. Spiro''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Melford Spiro's obituary
External links
Kevin Avruch, "Melford E. Spiro", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2015)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spiro, Melford
1920 births
2014 deaths
American anthropologists
University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts alumni
Northwestern University alumni
University of California, San Diego faculty
Psychological anthropologists
Anthropologists of religion
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Critics of postmodernism
Washington University in St. Louis faculty
University of Connecticut faculty
University of Washington faculty
University of Chicago faculty
Cultural anthropologists