Cathy Small

Who is Cathy Small?

Cathy Small is professor and graduate coordinator of anthropology at Northern Arizona University, and has written under the pen name of Rebekah Nathan. During a leave of absence from teaching, during the fall of 2002 at the age of 52 she enrolled as a student at Northern Arizona University, signing up for a standard first year range of courses.After teaching for more than fifteen years, she realized that she no longer understood the behavior and attitudes of her students. As fewer people participated in class discussions or had decided not to discuss problems during her office hours. Her contributions to anthropology have focused on understanding long-term social change including the rise and fall of social institutions, the long-term implications of social structures, and the processes by which culture changes. Her work is characterized by a critical empathetic feminism, reflexivity, and a creative re-adaptation of focus: From Tonga to computer simulations of gender in Polynesian hierarchies, to U.S. college life.In 1997, Dr. Cathy Small was awarded a National Science Foundation grant for 1998 and 1999 to model and simulate Polynesian social systems.It was the publication of her ethnography of American university student life under the pen name 'Rebekah Nathan', and the ensuing discussions of ethnographic ethics, for which she has most received attention.