# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/melford-spiro
# Generated: 2026-08-13T19:10:25.183Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/melford-spiro"
name: "Melford Spiro"
slug: "melford-spiro"
description: "Melford Elliot Spiro was an American cultural anthropologist specializing in religion and psychological anthropology. He is known for his critiques of the pillars of contemporary anthropological theory—wholesale cultural determinism, radical cultural relativism, and virtually limitless cultural diversity—and for his emphasis on the theoretical importance of unconscious desires and beliefs in the study of stability and change in social and cultural systems, particularly in respect to the family, politics, and religion. Explicated in numerous theoretical publications, they are empirically exemplified in monographs based on his fieldwork in Ifaluk atoll in Micronesia, an Israeli kibbutz, and a village in Burma."
tagline: "American anthropologist (1920–2014)"
gender: "male"
country:
  name: "United States"
  isoCode: "US"
category:
  name: "Academics"
  slug: "academics"
profileType:
  name: "Academic"
  slug: "academic"
  entityType: "https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q39631"
birthDate: "1920-04-26"
deathDate: "2014-10-18"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
  popularity:           41.18
  momentum:             0
  historical:           8.942693333333333
  currentAttention:     0
  sourceConfidence:     54.99999999999999
  profileCompleteness:  55
  trendDirection:       "FALLING"
ranks:
  global:   null
  country:  null
  category: null
sources:
  - url: "https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A2%85%E5%B0%94%E7%A6%8F%E5%BE%B7%C2%B7%E6%96%AF%E7%9A%AE%E7%BD%97"
    title: "梅尔福德·斯皮罗"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://arz.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%85%D9%8A%D9%84%D9%81%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%AF_%D8%B3%D9%BE%D9%8A%D8%B1%D9%88"
    title: "ميلفورد سپيرو"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melford_E._Spiro"
    title: "Melford E. Spiro"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melford_Spiro"
    title: "Melford Spiro"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melford_Spiro"
    title: "Melford Spiro"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melford_E._Spiro"
    title: "Melford E. Spiro"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A1%E3%83%AB%E3%83%95%E3%82%A9%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B9%E3%83%91%E3%82%A4%E3%83%AD"
    title: "メルフォード・スパイロ"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melford_Spiro"
    title: "Melford Spiro"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melford_Spiro"
    title: "Melford Spiro"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melford_Spiro"
    title: "Melford Spiro"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q436119"
    title: "Wikidata"
    type:  "WIKIDATA"

# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Imported from discovery source: wikidata-dump