Reconceptualizing the Leadership Roles of Women in Higher Education

Abstract

In the early 1970s, Annette Weiner traveled to the Trobriand Islands near New Guinea in the South Pacific. The Trobriand Islands are well known to anthropologists, because those familiar with any social science, the Trobriand Islands need little introduction. Their renown is due to the voluminous and often brilliant writings of Branislaw Malinowski, who lived in the Trobriands for two years between 1915 and 1918 (Weiner, 1976, p. xv). Malinowski published extensively, using his experiences and observations among the Trobrianders to establish himself as one of the major figures in cultural anthropology and ethnography. In 1976 Weiner published her own study of the Trobriand Islanders as a book titled Women of Value, Men of Renown. Weiner juxtaposed her observations from the 1970s against those of Malinowski from the 1920s. She demonstrated sharp distinctions between the world Malinowski saw and the same, relatively untouched and unchanged world she observed some fifty years later. What becomes clear from Weiner's depiction of Trobriand life and culture in Women of Value, Men of Renown (1976) is that the interpretation of events and actions of people is often prone to misinterpretation, even obfuscation. Even more obvious when viewed through Weiner's revisions of Malinowski's ethnographic study is the notion that perspective and point of view are critical factors in making such interpretations. The ultimate point Weiner (1976) demonstrates is that the most fatal