Anthropology and anthropologists: the british school in the twentieth century

171 Pages·2015·2.806 MB·English

by  Kuper, Adam

Anthropology and Anthropologists
Anthropology and Anthropologists provides an entertaining and provocative
account of British social anthropology from the foundations of the discipline,
through the glory years of the mid-twentieth century and on to the transfor-
mation in recent decades. The book shocked the anthropological establishment
on first publication in 1973 but soon established itself as one of the introduc-
tions for students of anthropology. Forty years later, this now classic work has
beenradicallyrevised.AdamKupersituatestheleadingactorsintheirhistorical
and institutional context, probes their rivalries, revisits their debates and
reviews their key ethnographies. Drawing on recent scholarship he shows how
the discipline was shaped by the colonial setting and by developments in the
social sciences.
Adam Kuper is a Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics and
Political Science and a Visiting Professor at Boston University. His books
include Culture: The Anthropologists’ Account (1999), The Reinvention of Pri-
mitive Society (2005) and Incest and Influence: The Private Life of Bourgeois
England (2009).
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Anthropology and
Anthropologists
The British School in the
Twentieth Century
Fourth Edition
Adam Kuper
Fourtheditionpublished2015
byRoutledge
2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN
andbyRoutledge
711ThirdAvenue,NewYork,NY10017
RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness
©1973,1983,1996,2015AdamKuper
TherightofAdamKupertobeidentifiedasauthorofthisworkhasbeen
assertedbyhiminaccordancewithsections77and78oftheCopyright,
DesignsandPatentsAct1988.
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproducedor
utilizedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,now
knownorhereafterinvented,includingphotocopyingandrecording,orinany
informationstorageorretrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwritingfrom
thepublishers.
Trademarknotice:Productorcorporatenamesmaybetrademarksor
registeredtrademarks,andareusedonlyforidentificationandexplanation
withoutintenttoinfringe.
Firstpublished1973byAllenLanethePenguinPress
Secondeditionpublished1983byRoutledge&KeganPaulLtd.
Thirdeditionpublished1996byRoutledge
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Kuper,Adam.
Anthropologyandanthropologists:thebritishschoolinthetwentieth
century/AdamKuper.–Fourthedition.
1.Ethnology–GreatBritain–History.2.Ethnologists–GreatBritain.I.Title.
GN308.3.G7K862014
306.0941–dc23
2014015672
ISBN:978-0-415-73633-6(hbk)
ISBN:978-0-415-73634-3(pbk)
ISBN:978-1-315-74919-8(ebk)
TypesetinSabon
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
In memory of Jessica
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Contents
List of illustrations viii
Preface to the fourth edition x
Acknowledgements xvii
1 Malinowski 1
2 Radcliffe-Brown 25
3 The 1930s and 1940s: from function to structure 42
4 Anthropology and colonialism 64
5 From charisma to routine: the decade after World War II 88
6 Leach and the neo-structuralists 108
7 Buddy, can you spare a paradigm? 129
Appendix 1: some contributions to the history of British social
anthropology 143
Appendix 2: notes on the theoretical and regional interests of
British-based social anthropologists, c. 1920–80, by Roeloff Kappers 147
Index 149
List of illustrations
Figures
0.1 Adam Kuper at the grave of Malinowski (Courtesy of the author.) xv
1.1 Members of the Torres Strait Expedition at Mabuiag, 1898. Alfred
Haddon (seated). Standing, left to right: W. H. R. Rivers, Charles
Seligman,Sidney RayandAnthonyWilkin(CourtesyofCambridge
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.) 5
1.2 Charles Seligman recording Hula children using an Edison Home
Phonograph. Hula, British New Guinea, 1898 (Courtesy of
Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.) 6
1.3 Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands, 1918 (Courtesy of the
Library of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Malinowski 3/18/2.) 11
3.1 Reo Fortune and Margaret Mead, Manus, Admiralty Islands, 1928
(Courtesy of Margaret Mead Collection, Library of Congress.) 46
3.2 Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, Iatmul, New Guinea, 1938
(Courtesy of Margaret Mead Collection, Library of Congress.) 47
3.3 Edward Evans-Pritchard in Zande country, Southern Sudan,
1927–30 (Courtesy of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University
of Oxford.) 51
4.1 Audrey Richards, Bemba, Zambia, 1933–4 (Courtesy of the Royal
Anthropological Institute.) 75
4.2 Hilda Kuper with the Swazi king, Sobhuza II, Swaziland, 1959
(Courtesy of the author.) 79
4.3 Isaac Schaperain the field, Botswana, 1930s (Courtesy of theRoyal
Anthropological Institute.) 80
6.1 Edmund Leach, self-portrait, China, 1933–7 (Courtesy of King’s
College, Cambridge.) 111
6.2 Claude Lévi-Strauss with a Nambikwara ‘captain’, June, 1938,
Brazil (Courtesy of the Luiz de Castro Faria Archive, Museu de
Astronomia e Ciências Afins, Brazil.) 118
6.3 Mary Douglas in her office at University College London, 1976
(Courtesy of the Royal Anthropological Institute.) 124
List of illustrations ix
Tables
A1 Characteristics of the membership 147
A2 Age and theoretical interest (Only the primary theoretical interest
is noted.) 148