Reflections on Legacy

Some time ago in 1973, Edward H. Spicer (my mentor) and I (his graduate student) put on an all day event with the title, ACROSS GENERATIONS, at the SfAA. meetings in Tucson, Az. The event pitted a representative of the classic applied projects of the 1940-1960s with a graduate student or young faculty person who was familiar with the project only from the written record. Our goal was to evaluate the "present" record of these projects verses what may actually has been learned, forgotten from them or covered up. We packed the room at both session. But I doubt we really solved any of the issues.

While we never got around to turning the papers and tapes into a publication -- I still have them. This led me to think about the legacy issue. About a decade ago, Scott Spicer, Ned's grandson, posted something on the SfAA website that caught my attention about "keeping the legacy alive."  This has lead to the founding of the Edward H. and Rosamond B. Spicer Foundation in an attempt to do just that. We have found that this is more complicated than it sounds. 

My interest was based in part to the above issue but also to the discovery, on line, of the archive of Ned's papers that his wife assembled, organized, and presented to the Arizona State Museum library after his death. Playing with the archive as it appears in the posting has taught me more about who Ned was and the major contributions he was attempting to make during his lifetime. There is a real consistency and trajectory that you would find only by having the broad perspective of his works -- academic, applied, and human.

I know I was excited by the publication of Malinowski's Diaries and Margaret Mead's daughter, Kathrine Bateson's biography of her mother when they came out.. But more important, especially as an anthropologist -- is the insight into the "participant" who is doing the "observing."  The true ethnographer cannot divorce one's self from the fact that they are part of the picture they attempt to paint. The works of Price, Stocking, et al, definitely provide a more human face to our discipline than Lowie's did for me as an undergraduate.

note: These comments appeared previously in the Association of Senior Anthropologist Community of the American Anthropological Association.