David Murray Schneider (November 11, 1918,

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

– October 30, 1995,

Santa Cruz, California Santa Cruz (Spanish language, Spanish for "Holy Cross") is the largest city and the county seat of Santa Cruz County, California, Santa Cruz County, in Northern California. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city population ...

) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

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 term s ...

, best known for his studies of

kinship In anthropology, kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated. Anthropologist Robin Fox says that ...

and as a major proponent of the symbolic anthropology approach to cultural anthropology.

Biography

He received his B.S. in 1940 and his M.S. from

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

in 1941. He received his PhD in

Social Anthropology Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...

from Harvard in 1949, based on fieldwork on the

Micronesia Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of approximately 2,000 small islands in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: Maritime Southeast Asia to the west, Poly ...

n island of

Yap Yap (, sometimes written as , or ) traditionally refers to an island group located in the Caroline Islands of the western Pacific Ocean, a part of Yap State. The name "Yap" in recent years has come to also refer to the state within the Federate ...

. After completing his graduate work, he first taught at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. In 1960, he accepted a position at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

, where he spent most of his career, teaching in Anthropology and the Committee on Human Development. He was Chairman of Anthropology from 1963 to 1966. While at Chicago, Schneider was director of the Kinship Project, a study supported by the National Science Foundation that looked at how middle-class families in the United States and Great Britain respond to their kinship relations. His findings challenged the common-sense assumption that kinship in Anglo-American cultures is primarily about recognizing biological relatedness. While a rhetoric of "blood" ties is an important conceptual structuring device in US and British kinship systems, cultural and social considerations are more important. The discoveries he demonstrated through a series of books, most famously ''American Kinship: a Cultural Account'', revolutionized and revitalized the study of kinship within anthropology, on the one hand, and contributed to the theoretical basis of

feminist anthropology Feminist anthropology is a four-field approach to anthropology ( archeological, biological, cultural, linguistic) that seeks to transform research findings, anthropological hiring practices, and the scholarly production of knowledge, using insig ...

, gender studies, and lesbian and gay studies, on the other. Schneider critiqued the so-called Western theories of kinship by accusing its supporters of being

ethnocentric Ethnocentrism in social science and anthropology—as well as in colloquial English discourse—means to apply one's own culture or ethnicity as a frame of reference to judge other cultures, practices, behaviors, beliefs, and people, instead of ...

. As a teacher, Schneider was also known for taking on and encouraging students studying nontraditional topics, and as a mentor to women and lesbian or gay graduate students, who often otherwise had difficulty finding mentors.Newton, Esther. (2000) ''Margaret Mead Made Me Gay: personal essays, public ideas''. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. p. 217 After retiring from Chicago in 1986, he joined the anthropology department at the

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of C ...

, where he remained until his death in 1995.

Criticism

Notable students

* Raymond J. DeMallie *

Esther Newton Esther Newton (born 1940, New York City) is an American cultural anthropologist who performed pioneering work on the ethnography of lesbian and gay communities in the United States. Career Newton studied history at the University of Michigan and ...

, cultural anthropologist, gay and lesbian communities in U.S. * Bradd Shore, psychological anthropologist * Roy Wagner * Gary Witherspoon

Select bibliography

*A Critique of the Study of Kinship *American Kinship : A Cultural Account *Matrilineal Kinship *Personality in Nature, Society, and Culture *Dialectics and Gender: Anthropological Approaches *History of Public Welfare in New York State: 1867–1940 *The Micronesians of Yap and Their Depopulation (1949) *1995. ''Schneider on Schneider: The Conversion of the Jews and Other Anthropological Stories by David Schneider, as told to Richard Handler''. Ed. Richard Handler. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. *1997. "The Power of Culture: Notes on Some Aspects of Gay and Lesbian Kinship in America Today." Cultural Anthropology 12 (2): 270-74.

References

External links