Marc J. Swartz

Marc J. Swartz received his Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from Social Relations, Harvard University, 1958, based on dissertation research concerning relations among kinsmen on Romonum, Truk. He has been a professor of anthropology at UCSD since 1969. He retired in 2005.

Professor Swartz is interested in social and psychological anthropology and in political anthropology, as well as in cultural theory and the dynamics of culture, and in the study of the nuclear family. Swartz has done fieldwork in Truk (Chuuk) in Micronesia and subsequently in Tanzania and Kenya in East Africa. Some of his publications include:

Swartz, Marc J.

1991 The Way the World Is: Cultural Processes and Social Relations Among the Mombasa Swahili. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Swartz, Marc J. & David K. Jordan

1976 Anthropology: Perspective on Humanity. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

1980 Culture: The Anthropological Perspective. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Edited Volumes:

David K. Jordan & Swartz, Marc J. (eds.)

1990 Personality and the Cultural Construction of Society: Papers in Honor of Melford E. Spiro. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.

Swartz, Marc J. (ed).

1968 Local-Level Politics: Social and Cultural Perspectives. Chicago: Aldine.

Swartz, Marc J., Victor Turner, and Arthur Tuden (eds.)

1966 Political Anthropology. Chicago: Aldine.

In The Way the World Is, Swartz describes the Swahili, who have inhabited the port of Mombassa (Kenya) for centuries, and whose private lives are conducted very much behind closed doors. Based on Swartz's long fieldwork among the Swahili, the book develops a general model for the operation and transmission of culture, asking how cultural elements influence social behavior for those who do not share them as well as for those who do. The answer centers on the mediation of status, as the wide range of statuses available to each individual provide constant guidelines for behavior.