The Institute for Intercultural Studies

When Margaret Mead established the Institute for Intercultural Studies in 1944, she defined its concerns as "advancing knowledge of the various peoples and nations of the world, with special attention to those peoples and those aspects of their life which are likely to affect intercultural and international relations."

The Institute continues to sustain the ethnographic tradition of its founder, but the events of this new millennium have made us even more sharply aware of the need to seek intercultural understanding through research and to promote it through a variety of media, both domestically and internationally. We invite others to look through Mead's eyes at the value of the world's many cultures and to share her vision of enhanced communication without the loss of distinctiveness. We hope to strengthen the public understanding of anthropological research and interdisciplinary cooperation.

Since the death of Margaret Mead, the IIS has devoted much of its resources to the preservation and accessibility of Mead's work and the papers of several other anthropologists in her collection, amounting to some half million items now in the Library of Congress. Beginning in 1997 and through the end of 2001, the Mead2001 Centennial brought her work to a new generation, and included the reissue of many of her books. We are also involved in the reissue of books by Gregory Bateson and preparations for the centennial of his birth in 2004. The Institute manages the literary estate of Gregory Bateson, his pre-World War II papers, and the literary estate of Ruth Benedict.

New directions will build on the Institute's tradition and on Margaret Mead's own work, while at the same time enabling us to partner with other organizations. One thing we are committed to is an increased focus on the kind of research in contemporary cultures which she pioneered, as reflected in the series of books recently reissued by Berghahn Books. In recent months the IIS has continued Mead's basic research interests by sponsoring workshops on youth, following Mead's long term insistence on including young people in the process. Please visit our Current Projects page for more information on IIS activities.

Past members of the IIS Board include Gregory Bateson, Ruth Benedict, Lyman Bryson, Edwin Embree, Lawrence K. Frank, G. Evelyn Hutchinson, Clyde Kluckholn, Dorothy D, Lee, Maurice Levine, Walter Modell, The Rt. Rev. J.B. Moseley, Philleo Nash, Lita Osmundsen, Roy A. Rappaport, Barbara Honeyman Roll and Fred Roll.