With Margaret Mead in New Guinea / Lenora Foerstel interviewed by Larry Birns

Interview with Lenora Foerstel, anthropologist, artist, mother of two, and professor at the Maryland Institute of Fine Art. They discuss the experiences that Foerstel and fellow anthropologist Theodore Schwartz had on Manus Island, while aiding Margaret Mead with a follow-up study in New Guinea. The first time Mead visited Manus Island and the Manus tribes, she wrote Growing Up In New Guinea (G. Routledge and Sons, Ltd. 1931). This was Mead’s return to the island 25 years after her initial trip, to study any effect on the Manus and Usiai tribes after World War II, resulting in the book New Lives For Old (Morrow, 1956). Foerstel discusses the effect of Paliau Maloat on the two previously warring tribes and recounts her arrival on Manus Island, how their boat capsized, their rescue by the islanders, and the volcanic eruption that followed. This interview was conducted in 1964, and Foerstel went on to publish Confronting the Margaret Mead Legacy: Scholarship, Empire, and the South Pacific (Temple University Press, 1992), re-examining traditional Western anthropology of non-Western cultures. Interviewed by Larry Birns. RECORDED: WBAI, 8 Aug. 1964. BROADCAST: KPFA, 25 Sept. 1964.