Transcript E.E.Evans-Pitchard

E.E.Evans-Pritchard
Publications:
1937:Witchcraft Oracles and Magic among the Azande
Political Studies of the Nuer and Anuak
His Life
1920s worked as colonial administrator in Anglo-Egyptian
Sudan
1930s studied the Nuer (200 000 in an area of 30,000 square
miles in the southern Sudan.
1946: Chairman and secretary of ASA (Association of Social
Anthropologists)
1948: inaugural lecture on social anthropology at Oxford,
converted to Catholicism.(Kuper 125)
1949 studies of the Sanusi of Cyrenaica
His views
- Comparison of all kinds of societies is necessary in order to
discover general tendencies and functional relationships that are
common to human society as a whole. (Kuper 1996: 82)
- Advocated the views of Radcliffe-Brown but criticised
Mallinowski (generalising from the facts of a single isolated
society)
Evans-Pritchard’s Contributions
Founder of ethnography on witchcraft.
Genealogy of works on witchcraft:
Durkheim, Année Sociologique (‘collective representation’), Marx, Levy-Bruhl,
Evans-Pritchard
- enriched studies into micro politics’
- accuracy of observation and depth of understanding is exemplary.
- accepted that religions are conditioned by the social environment (Kuper 132)
- advocated a move to historical ethnography (Kuper 182).
- advocated that American Anthropologist preferred to talk of culture rather than
social structures because of lack of extensive field work in the vernaculars.
His work on Azande in AngloEgyptian Sudan during 1926-9
1. Description of oracles with poisoned fowls
2. Distinction of Ambomu (true Azande) and Auro (subdued tribes), Avongara (leading
aristocracy ad princes)
3. Great research among the commoners who were most friendly and welcoming
4. Reported their life before it changed drastically through colonial cotton plantations,
independence in 1956, 17 years of bloody civil wars