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485 APP END IX 3 The “Tiny Islands”: A Comparable Impact on the Larger Discipline? Terence E. Hays Despite increasing topical specialization within our discipline, in many respects cultural anthropology continues to be organized geographically. Through regional associations and journals, institutional staffing priorities, and numerous other means, the place where research is conducted becomes a significant dimension of the work itself. While, in principle, ethnography concerning any people is grist for the comparative mill and theory building, for a variety of reasons some peoples have become so well known that they have entered a kind of “Anthropological Hall of Fame”— one thinks immediately of the Kwakiutl potlatch, Nayar “marriage,” and the Trobrianders’ kula exchange as obvious candidates. To the extent that these institutions have become classics in the world ethnographic catalog, one could say that the studies (and authors) that yielded our knowledge of them have had a substantial impact on the discipline . But to ask what has been the overall impact of ethnography conducted in a particular geographical region, such as Micronesia, is to pose a question to which no single measure is likely to produce a complete answer. So far as Oceania is concerned, I was recently faced with a related task: selection of the societies for which summary descriptions would be included in a volume for the Encyclopedia of World Cultures (Hays 1991). The guidelines I was given by the general editor were apparently straightforward: within imposed space limits, to choose those cases that are the best described in the ethnographic literature, most often used in holocultural (worldwide) comparative studies, and most often cited in the general literature. Rather than trust my own judgment on the first point, I determined which Oceania cases had been considered by others to be sufficiently well described to be included in standard databases or samples, namely, the Human Relations Area Files, the World Ethnographic Sample, the Ethnographic Atlas, the Standard CrossCultural Sample, and the Atlas of World Cultures. With respect to holocultural studies, I examined one hundred ninety-eight published studies and recorded each Oceania society identified as having been used. Finally, viewing “the general literature” as impossible to survey, I examined the indexes of one hundred twelve introductory anthropology textbooks published between 1940 and 486 APP ENDI X 3 1990, recording each Oceania society mentioned by name and, presumably, referred to or discussed in the text. The results of these searches now can be used to explore the question of the “overall impact” of ethnographic research in Micronesia, using two measures: (1) the extent to which Micronesian cases have been included in worldwide databases and standard samples, and used in holocultural studies which, through the testing of specific hypotheses, play a major role in theory building; and (2) the frequency with which Micronesian societies have been cited and discussed in introductory anthropology textbooks—such mentions and uses being considered not only to have an impact on students’ general knowledge of the world but also to indicate which societies in the world are judged by professional anthropologists (the textbook authors themselves and those whose work they have surveyed) as particularly salient or notable. Given the focus of this volume, and the fact that the bulk of the ethnographic research conducted in Micronesia has taken place since the beginning of World War II, the time focus here is from the mid 1940s to 1990. Because most of the material used in this appendix is drawn from earlier literature in Micronesia, the place names here reflect the spellings of the time. DATABASES, STANDARD SAMPLES, AND HOLOCULTURAL STUDIES When researchers conduct holocultural studies to test hypotheses, one of their primary concerns is that the sample they use is “representative,” that is, that the full range of human variation is taken into account and that the cases used can be considered to be reasonably independent of each other. The inclusion of any particular society, Micronesian or otherwise, depends then on its suitability on these grounds (e.g., not including two different communities on Pohnpei) but also, of course, on researchers’ judgments that the case is well described in the ethnographic literature, that is, that reliable information is available for a wide range of variables. Over the past six decades, the compilation of databases (such as the Human Relations Area Files, the Ethnographic Atlas, and the Atlas of World Cultures) has made the tasks of identifying and learning about the best-described societies of the world much easier, whether the user is interested in hypothesis testing...

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