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Definition: Bateson, Gregory from The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide

English-born US anthropologist and cyberneticist. His interests were wide-ranging – from the study of ritual in a New Guinea people to the exploration of communication methods in schizophrenics and dolphins – but all his work shows an interest in how systems operate and a willingness to break down the boundaries between intellectual disciplines. His publications include Steps to an Ecology of Mind 1973 and Mind and Nature 1978.


Bateson, Gregory

From Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology: An Encyclopedia
Gregory Bateson (1904-1980) was a multifaceted scholar who embraced fields as diverse as anthropology, linguistics, semiotics, systems theory, and cybernetics. He was an original thinker whose work influenced the growing environmental movement of his day, contributed to the emergence of new fields of investigation, and continues to exert an influence in a variety of disciplines, including ecological and environmental anthropology. Bateson was born on May 9, 1904, in Cambridgeshire, England, as the third son of Beatrice Durham and the distinguished geneticist William Bateson. Bateson studied biology with a focus on zoology and natural history at St. John's College at Cambridge. After completing his BA in 1925, he visited the Galapagos Islands. Bateson began studying anthropology at Cambridge after being introduced to Alfred Haddon in 1926. In January 1927, he went for ethnographic fieldwork to New Guinea. Due to problems of communicating and interacting with the local people, Bateson…
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Full text Article Bateson, Gregory

From Collins Dictionary of Sociology
(1904-80) widely influential US cultural anthropologist with academic interests ranging from zoology social anthropology, philosophy, psychology and communication studies to mysticism. He was part of the first generation to follow in the ethnographic footsteps of MALINOWSKI . Bateson's first, and…
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Full text Article Bateson, Gregory

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
(born May 9, 1904, Grantchester, Eng.—died July 4, 1980, San Francisco, Calif., U.S.) British-born U.S. anthropologist. Son of British biologist William Bateson, he studied anthropology at Cambridge University but soon thereafter moved to the U.S. His most important book, Naven (1936), was a…
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Full text Article Mead, Margaret (1901-1978)

From The Hutchinson Dictionary of Scientific Biography
Place : United States of America Subject : biography, anthropology US anthropologist who established the practice of fieldwork in anthropology and - with her account of adolescence in Samoa - popularized the idea within her own country that there are alternatives to the American way of life. She was…
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Full text Article Ethnography

From Encyclopedia of American Studies
Ethnographer Franz Boas (1858-1942) posing for...
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Full text Article Culture and reproduction

From The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality
childbirth culture ethnography health disparities midwifery Culture and reproduction are an interdisciplinary field that studies human fertility, pregnancy, labor and birth, and postpartum care. Uniquely, biocultural human reproduction involves species‐specific physiological traits as well as…
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Full text Article Quotations by Author

From Chambers Dictionary of Great Quotations
Abbott, Diane Julie 1953- Abelard, Peter 1079-1142 Abercrombie, Lascelles 1881-1938 Abrams, M(eyer) H(oward) 1912- Abse, Dannie 1923-2014 Abu’l-’Alá, Al-Ma’arri 973-1058 Abzug, Bella originally Bella Savitzky 1920-98…
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I will be loyal during my life
EDWARD WILLIAM STEPHEN STOURTON , 27th Baron Mowbray, 28th Baron Segrave, and 24th Baron Stourton, b 17 April 1953; s 2006; ed Ampleforth: m 1980, Penelope (Nell) Lucy, el da of Dr Peter Brunet, of Jesus Coll, Oxford, and has issue. Arms — Quarterly of six; 1st sable, a bend or between six…
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During the past few decades Aboriginal art has made the transition from a marginal form encountered mainly in ethnographic museums to the halls of metropolitan art galleries, crossing categories from “primitive art” to “fine art”. This shift resulted from an historic alignment of factors, with a…
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Full text Article Anthropology Theories II: Systems and Complexity

From The SAGE Handbook of the Social Sciences: The SAGE Handbook of Cultural Anthropology
Population growth simulations. Left,...
Introduction Using a term like nonlinear science is like referring to the bulk of zoology as the study of non-elephant animals. —Stanislaw Ulam In the opening quotation, Stanislaw Ulam, a nuclear physicist, mathematician, and participant in the Manhattan Project, characterizes a key scientific…
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Full text Article Family Therapy

From Gale Encyclopedia of Children's Health: Infancy Through Adolescence
Family therapy is a form of psychotherapy that involves all the members of a family, or people who are related to each other through a genetic connection, adoption, marriage, or by mutual agreement. Family therapy normally involves a psychologist, clinical social worker, or licensed therapist. …
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