Category:CIMA

Before the Second World War, relatively few American anthropologists had worked in the Pacific, and Micronesia was virtually unknown. After the war, the U.S. Navy sponsored the Coordinated Investigation of Micronesian Anthropology, the largest research project in the history of the discipline. Several CIMA participants became major figures, and they inspired substantial further work in the region.

CIMA officially took place between 1947 and 1948, emerging as the largest research project in the history of modern American anthropology. It involved 41 researchers who were divided into teams and assigned throughout the United States Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI). These teams comprised 25 cultural anthropologists, accompanied by other professionals such as physical anthropologists, linguists, geographers, sociologists, and even a botanist.