Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead is perhaps one of the most famous ethnographies ever written. In it, Margaret Mead discusses the lifestyle of adolescents in Samoa in order to determine which behaviors are caused by physiology and which behaviors are caused by the culture or environment the person grows up in. Each chapter of the book presents a new observation Mead talks about the life of the inhabitants of the island of Ta’u. Mead reports in her book that for the Samoan women, adolescence is not particularly stressful. She attributes the lack of trauma from the adolescent period to the differences in sexual freedom between American and Samoan girls. She also mentions that American girls are presented with so many choices and ways of doing things that it is harder to make the right choice.
In this ethnography, Margaret Mead observed groups of girls living in three villages on one coast of Ta’u. Additionally, she observed ceremonies from all seven of the villages in the Manu’a archipelago. She studied six hundred individuals than other studies in order to create a richer and more detailed account of their lives. Using island cultures as a means to study different behaviors has become more popular since Mead’s trip in 1928. Islands extremely filtered areas, making them less diverse and more culturally pure than cultures that exist on a continent. This cultural purity was important in Mead’s study, as it allowed her to look purely at the Samoans for what their culture naturally promoted. In order to collect data, Mead employed what are now standard anthropological tactics: she selected informants and interviewed them. Each of her interviewees was spoken to in their own language and were asked questions about their approximate age, questions about their family and their standing within the family (for example, the order of birth). These interviews allowed Mead to compare what she observed to what actually happened. Because Mead is a woman, she was able to gain the trust of the girls and was allowed a deeper look into the lives of these young women. While Mead doesn’t actually reference these interviews in the book, it does make her observations feel more real. Without the knowledge of her interviews, parts of the book feel like she is focusing on minute details of life that do not actually matter that much. For example, chapter five discusses the different friend groups girls have grown up in. While it is true that people make different friends and have different friendships as they age, the way she described them felt like it was too hyper-focused on a small detail of life that people do not actually think about. However, knowing Mead talked to women about their life experiences and knowledge that they probably described this phenomenon validates the observations expressed in the book.
Thick description is also standard practice in ethnography writing, so to see it expressed in one of the most well-known ethnographies is not a surprise. Mead is exceptionally detailed in her descriptions of everyday activities for these women. These descriptions are essential in placing the reader on the island of Ta’u. Perhaps the best description comes from the second chapter, where she describes the way young men and women find their way home after a romp under the palm trees: “As the dawn begins to fall among the soft brown roofs and the slender palms trees stand out against a colourless, gleaming seam lovers slip home from trysts beneath the palm trees,” Mead’s use of thick description effectively allows readers to place themselves in the life of a Samoan woman, which makes her writing valuable in construing the message that taking away complicated social interactions and decisions makes young women much less stressed and less traumatized by their adolescence. Additionally, describing, in detail, how women are able to be sexually active without being ashamed of it is essential in supporting the argument that love can be controlled without being restricted. Some sociologists argue that love needs to be controlled and restricted since it is the basis and prelude to marriage, and not controlling it weakens the bonds between lovers. Thick description allows readers to understand in greater detail, her point that shameless sex leads to a more less stressed life because it allows them to put themselves in the narrative, where they can see lovers leaving their trysts and not feeling ashamed over it.
Each chapter of the ethnography presents a new aspect of life for girls (and sometimes boys) in Samoa. This organization was effective because it allows readers to focus on each aspect of life that Mead felt contributed to the lack of stress amongst Samoan teenagers. Analyzing each chapter and understanding how the lack of options makes life less stressful is made easier by the separation of each task. For example, in chapter six Mead explains the roles women have in the community. There are a limited number of roles available and usually, the role women choose has to do more with skill than interest. In American society today, it feels like there is an ever-growing pressure to pick the perfect profession and there are also millions of jobs that can be held, each with varying skill and education requirements. This adds massive stress to young adult’s lives because of their desire to do what they think is interesting and makes them happy instead of what they are skilled at. Without the chapter by chapter breakdown of women’s lives in Samoa, it would be difficult to understand just how limited the possibilities are for Samoan women.
However, this method of organization also isolates each behavior from the overall life experience. Isolating each individual experience also makes it harder to make sense of the overall lives of Samoan women. For example, in chapter seven Mead discusses the relationships between boys and girls. She describes how girls around ten to twelve years of age are giggly and easily excited. In chapter four, Mead discusses how young girls take care of children and are essentially their mothers. Through the chapter by chapter organization, it separates these two groups of children. This makes it hard to imagine the giggly adolescents and children nursing and taking care of another human being as the same age group, even as the same girl.
This ethnography makes a compelling argument that adolescents in Samoa are significantly less stressed than American adolescents. However, the advertised lowered stress seems too fantastical to be accurate. In fact, most of the anthropological community has agreed that Mead probably makes Samoa more idyllic than it actually is. There are many voices in the anthropological community that want to blame Mead’s over-idealization on her attempts to push a sex-positive agenda. However, the only evidence that supports this argument is Mead’s publically positive stance on sex. Out of all the complaints about Mead’s first ethnography, one has been dividing people throughout time: Derek Freeman’s criticism that Mead was mistaken in her observations and shaped them to fit an academic theory, instead of using her research to understand island life. In an effort to prove his criticism, Derek Freeman went to Samoa and attempted to interview family members of the women Mead spoke to. His research resulted in relatives of the women explaining how Mead’s book ruined their mother’s reputation. Additionally, when he interviewed women around the same age as those in her study, they gave him different information. Freeman’s argument against Mead was taken as the truth for many years because of his standing as an expert on Samoa. However, in effort to save Mead’s reputation, many other anthropologists have researched Freeman’s claims and found that the reason the women wouldn’t tell him the intimate details of their sex lives (and lives in general) was because they were uncomfortable telling a man the same things they would easily tell another woman. This is generally the truth in any society. Even in a developed country, women generally feel more comfortable using female medical doctors than male doctors because they feel their problems will not be marginalized. Additionally, evidence was found that Freeman manipulated data in order to discredit Mead. Knowing that Freeman manipulated data discredits his claims, however, his argument is not to be entirely invalidated. Freeman may have gone too far in trying to discredit Mead, but it does still raise the important point of taking Mead’s findings with a grain of salt. The society presented in coming of age in Samoa was all too idealistic for it to be real, and while Mead probably didn’t make everything up, she may have generalized some points and glossed over others.
In fact, there is a whole chapter where Mead discusses the two sexual relationships that exist other than marriage. In this section, Mead practically glosses over the fact that sometimes there are very violent rapes that occur in the village. The concept of rape does not fit into her ideal society and so, while it is addressed, it feels much lighter in the book than it would actually be. Mead says that the first instance of rape was brought over with white visitors she says “[Rape] is far less congenial, however, to the Samoan attitude than moetotolo, in which a man stealthily appropriates the favors which are meant for another”. While this one line makes it seem like Mead is going to address moetotolo as a serious topic and issue within Samoan society, she then discusses how catching a moetotolo is considered a great sport and the possible reasons for why boys will violently rape a young woman while sleeping. Rape is one of the worst things that can happen to a woman and while she does allow the issue to penetrate her perfect society, she does not do it justice in merely discussing it for one and a half pages. Worse, Mead even describes the hardships that moetotolo boys have to endure after the fact and makes it seem like readers should almost feel bad for these sometimes charming men. Mead even goes so far as to say that “The moetotolo, therefore, complicates and adds zest to the surreptitious lovemaking which is conducted at home” To say something adds zest means that it adds an exciting quality to it, while she is not technically wrong, adding zest is usually associated with positive traits. While there were different attitudes towards rapists in the 1920s, Mead is also seemingly trying to make a horrific situation more ideal in hopes of making Samoa seem like a romantic paradise.
Overall, I do not agree with Freeman that Mead made the whole thing up. I genuinely believe that women in cultures with fewer options are less stressed than women in cultures where every small decision impacts their life immensely. However, I also do not agree with Mead’s anger towards her society for being so negative towards sex. While sex is a positive life thing and regularly engaging in it has been shown to reduce stress, Mead is almost too messianic in her depictions of a culture that allows teenagers to engage in sexual activity with minimal consequences. In doing so she paints America as some sort of evil society that makes adolescents stressed out by making them sexually repressed. This anger may have influenced the integrity of her ethnography by allowing her to see this society in which the adolescents are more relaxed about their social lives. While they may be more relaxed socially, Mead chose to attribute this to their sexual freedom and not their simpler lifestyle. Attributing the lack of trauma to a simpler lifestyle may be more believable and realistic than attributing it to sexual freedom. Furthermore, the lengthy descriptions and the general idealness that Mead describes could not be possible. She admits there are conflicts within the village, but she describes only a place where the only stressors in life are those of making mats and achieving a decent title. In order to make her ethnography more effective and less controversial, it would be imperative to address the conflicts that arise in Samoan societies as well as positive experiences.
Coming of Age in Samoa was well written and used thick description to place readers in the scenarios described, however her conclusions from the data she collected felt like they were overly idyllic and lacked realistic details about conflict. This ethnography is one of the most famous in the field and provides an abundance of interesting content about how the culture people live in affects their life. Mead’s work is commonly cited in debates about nature vs. nurture and the importance of love. Mead’s description of the amiable and peaceful people of Samoa provides an amazing base for debaters claiming that nurture is the reason people develop into who they are. Her thick descriptions of lifestyles and excited lovers departing from a nighttime tryst allow readers to better understand her rationale for assuming sexual freedom makes adolescents less stressed. Overall this ethnography is exceptionally important in understanding the differences in behaviors and as a reference for how ethnographic studies should be conducted and written, however as with everything it is important to consider all sides of the argument and take every opinion witch a grain of salt.