George Foster

Biografia1
Born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on October 9, 1913, George M.
Foster Jr. died on May 18, 2006, at his home in the hills above the
campus of the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a
professor emeritus for more years than he was an active member of
the faculty. His contributions to anthropological theory and practice
still challenge us; in more than 300 publications, his writings
encompass a wide diversity of topics, including acculturation, longterm fieldwork, peasant economies, pottery making, public health,
social structure, symbolic systems, technological change, theories of
illness and wellness, humoral medicine in Latin America, and
worldview. The quantity, quality, and long-term value of his scholarly
work is extraordinary; virtually all of his major publications have been
reprinted and/or translated.
George Foster grew up in an affluent family in Ottumwa, Iowa, where
his father was an executive in the meat packing industry. Expecting to
follow a career in engineering, Foster entered Harvard College in
1931. After a year, he transferred to Northwestern University, where
he eventually had the good luck to enroll in an introductory
anthropology class taught by Melville Herskovits. His future life
partner, Mary (Mickie) LeCron, was also a student in this course.
Foster often said, I found my wife and my profession in the same
class.
Foster arrived in Berkeley in mid-August 1935 to begin his graduate
studies, under the tutelage of Alfred Kroeber and Robert Lowie. After
he completed his Ph.D. examinations, the Fosters went to Soteapan,
Veracruz, where his dissertation research focused on the Sierra
Popoluca economy, a theme to which he would return in many of his
later studies on peasant communities. With academic posts in
anthropology scarce, Foster was lucky to land a job as an instructor in
sociology at Syracuse University for the 194142 academic year. He
re-crossed the country to take a lecturer position at the University of
California, Los Angeles (UCLA), for 194243. Soon after the UCLA job
ended, he became the first anthropologist hired to work in Latin
America as a representative of the new Institute of Social
Anthropology, created within the Smithsonian Institution. Based in
Mexico City, where he taught at the Escuela Nacional de Antropologa
e Historia (ENAH), he also carried out fieldwork in the town of
Tzintzuntzan, Michoacn, where he continued anthropological
research for more than a half century.

De: Universidad de California, pgina web.

In 194950, with a Guggenheim Fellowship, Foster traveled to Spain

to carry out what proved to be one of the last major anthropological
studies within the acculturation framework. This field research led to
the publication in 1960 of Culture and Conquest: Latin Americas
Spanish Legacy, where Foster developed the important concepts of
conquest culture and cultural crystallization. This book received
two Spanish translations, the most recent in 2003. Concepts
developed in that volume served as a precursor to later work in
medical anthropology, especially to publication of Hippocrates' Latin
American Legacy: Humoral Medicine in the New World (1994). After a
decade of serving in government agencies, Foster made the decision
that, at age 39, he should return to a university position, or abandon
any hope of becoming a professor. Laying aside inquiries from other
universities, Foster and his family traveled back to Berkeley, where he
replaced E. W. Gifford, retiring director of the anthropology museum.
Foster received a full-time tenured appointment in the Department of
Anthropology in 1955; he served as chair of the department from
1958 to 1961 and then again from 1973 to 1974. In 1958, Foster
returned to Tzintzuntzan with a large grant from the National Science
Foundation. This research resulted in many important contributions to
understanding peasant life. In all, Foster showed great insight into
how peasants think and how they survive in difficult times and in
states that are often hostile toward them. Fosters analyses of the
dyadic contract, the image of limited good, and cultural
responses to envy have illuminated the social mechanisms and
psychological defenses people use to adapt to conditions of chronic
scarcity. Foster's once controversial and deeply contested concept of
"limited good" has found new salience in the work of political and
cultural ecologists concerned about scarcity in the areas of natural
and human resources. Like all truly creative thinkers, Foster was a few
generations ahead of his time.
Foster was a dogged field-worker, ever willing to put in the time
necessary to reach defensible conclusions. He developed the concept
and norms guiding longtermeven lifelongfieldwork in key sites. He
wrote (1979): As time passed, I also realized that the original
Tzintzuntzan research barely scratched the surface of the cultural
reality and that in all areas of life there was still much to be learned.
Foster was a formidable teacher and exacting mentor. He trained
countless social and medical anthropologists, many of whom became
leaders in their respective fields. He was one of the rare professional
anthropologists who took graduate students to the field with him,
directly involving them in his own Mexican fieldwork and thereby
stimulating valuable trans-generational ethnographic studies and
restudies.
A great believer in luck and serendipity, Foster often recognized new
opportunities where others saw nothing but shadows. This was
especially true in his work in developing the field of medical

anthropology. Upon learning about federal interest in training

medically oriented behavioral scientists, Foster promptly submitted
an ambitious grant proposal to the NIGMS (National Institute for
General Medical Sciences), not a standard source for anthropological
funding. Over a period of 15 years, from 1965 to 1979, the grant
brought in some $3,000,000 (equivalent to more than $15,000,000 in
2006 dollars) to support about 100 students in the Berkeley doctoral
program. Eager to institutionalize training in medical anthropology,
Foster established and directed the joint Berkeley-UCSF (University of
California, San Francisco) Ph.D. program from 1972 until his
retirement in 1979. Although the doctoral program he founded
remains the only separate Ph.D. program in medical anthropology in
the world, many postgraduate programs specializing in medical
anthropology (such as at Harvard University) were modeled after the
Berkeley-San Francisco program. With Barbara Gallatin Anderson,
Foster coauthored the first textbook in the field (1978).
Although trained by Kroeber and Lowie to despise applied
anthropology, Fosters extensive experience in the Institute of Social
Anthropology and with other government assignments led him to
recognize the importance of understanding how traditional cultures
respond to technological change. Between 1951 and 1983, Foster
accepted 36 international consulting assignments related to public
health and community health. Through his travels to Latin America,
Africa, Asia, and Europe, Foster came to appreciate the importance of
the interaction setting between innovating organizations and
target groups in determining the success or failure of development
projects. His consulting experiences informed his best-selling
volume, Traditional Cultures and the Impact of Technological
Change (1962; reissued as Traditional Societies and Technological
Change, 1973), as well asApplied Anthropology (1969), the first
textbook in the field.
During his long career, Fosters accomplishments were recognized
with many honors and awards. Upon his retirement in 1979, Foster
received the Berkeley Citation. He was elected to the National
Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, served as president of the American Anthropological
Association during the turbulent Vietnam years of 1969-1970, and
was recognized with the associations Distinguished Service Award
(1980). He received the Malinowski Award from the Society for
Applied Anthropology in 1982 and an honorary Doctor of Humane
Letters degree from Southern Methodist University in 1990. In 1997,
the Berkeley Anthropology Library was renamed in honor of the
Fosters. Finally, in 2005, Foster was awarded the Society for Medical
Anthropologys first Lifetime Achievement Award (renamed in his
honor in 2006).
Conceptos:

La imagen del bien limitado: Mecanismo de comportamiento

basado en la conciencia colectiva al interior de las sociedades
campesinas de que los bienes, sean estos materiales o sociales,
son limitados y su cantidad no puede ser incrementada. A partir
de aqu emerge una tica de conducta, por la cual uno no toma
ventaja material (riqueza) y/o social (estatus) a expensas del
otro. As, es necesaria una suerte de equilibrio mediante una
constante redistribucin de los bienes, mediante las relaciones
sociales.

El contrato didico: En consonancia con lo anterior, las

relaciones sociales tienen bsicamente dos partes. La repeticin
incesante y renovadora del vinculo social entre dos partes
forma un contrato didico, que puede tomar una dinmica
distinta, como el intercambio o la reciprocidad. La estructura
social es el conglomerado organizado y jerarquizado de estos
contratos. En las sociedades campesinas, el equilibrio de la
distribucin de los bienes se da mediante el balance de los
intercambios que se dan por medio de los contratos didicos
(como el compadrazgo).

La cultura Folk: Modo de vida comn a las personas que

viven en villas, pueblos y ciudades de un rea dada. Tambin
se entiende por patrones alimenticios, supersticiones, medicina,
msica y folclore concentrados y observables en un grupo de
personas. Con esto critica los limites de la sociedad folk
(diferente a cultura folk) de Redfield, ya que no se tratara de
grupos cerrados casi sin contacto con la urbe, sino de colectivos
abiertos que realimentan y transforman su cultura como parte
de una estrategia de cohesin, con independencia de su
ubicacin en el campo o en la urbe.

Robert Redfield2
Robert Redfield naci el 4 de diciembre de 1897 en la ciudad donde
se fund la escuela ms importante del pensamiento sociolgico
durante las primeras dcadas del siglo XX: Chicago (Illinois).
Era hijo de una aristcrata danesa y un jurista, y este origen social le
distingua de los diplomados en Sociologa de su generacin.
Redfield no fue un antroplogo de origen, ya que primero se recibi
como abogado la Universidad de Chicago en 1921, una vez graduado
empez a trabajar en el bufete de su padre. Descontento con el
ejercicio de abogaca viaj a Mxico donde conoci a uno de los
antroplogos ms reconocidos de ese momento: Manuel Gamio. El
contacto con Gamio, as como las circunstancias polticas de ese
momento, producto de la Revolucin mexicana, estimul en Redfield
un creciente inters por la investigacin social de corte antropolgico.
Al regresar a Chicago su suegro Robert Ezra Park (distinguido
socilogo), lo convenci para que estudiara antropologa. Hacia 1924
Redfield inici su posgrado en Antropologa en la Universidad de
Chicago. La escuela de Chicago fue la fuente de inspiracin e
influencia en el pensamiento de Redfield. Sin embargo sus ideas
evolucionaron gracias al trabajo de campo que realiz en Tepoztln a
partir de 1926 donde comenz sus investigaciones etnogrficas y as
la configuracin de su pensamiento terico.
2

Wikipedia.

En 1927 Redfield se integr al equipo de investigacin de la

Universidad de Chicago y en 1929 recibi su ttulo de doctor. En 1930
fue invitado como colaborador de Institute Carnegie of Washington,
perodo en que combin sus actividades acadmicas con el trabajo de
campo en Yucatn y Guatemala durante 16 aos.
En 1953 le fue concedido el ttulo Robert Maynard Hutchins por su
labor investigadora y docente. Adems impuls un programa de
ayuda e informacin entre investigadores para hablar y conocer a
travs de estudios comparativos de diferentes sociedades.
Redfield hizo grandes aportes a la Antropologa porque pudo construir
un discurso producto de la combinacin entre la teora antropolgica
y sociolgica durante los trabajos de investigacin y de campo que
realiz en los aos que estuvo en Centroamrica. La influencia de
este antroplogo sigue siendo vigente porque fue uno de los pioneros
de la antropologa jurdica.
Fue presidente de la American Anthropological Association en 1944, y
miembro de Committee to frame a World Constitution en 1945-47,
tambin fue husped de Board of the Social Science Foundation
en Denver durante 1948-55
Robert Redfield muri el 16 de octubre de 1958 en la ciudad de
Chicago a la edad de 61 aos. Se cuentan varios escritos entre
artculos y libros entre los cuales se encuentran:

El Calpulli barrio en un pueblo mexicano actual (1928)

Primitive Marchants of Guatemala, en Quaterly Journal of

Interamerican elations. Vol.1, Nm. 4, octubre (1939)

The Folk Culture of Yucatn (1941)
A Village that Chose Progress (1950)
The Primitive World and Its transformations (1953
The little Community Viewpoints for the Study of a Human

Whole (1955)
Peasant Culture and Society (1956)