Evans-Pritchard

Mary Douglas

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415291101
• eBook ISBN: 9781134557226
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

First published in 1980, this book provides an overview of E. E. Evans-Pritchard's approach to anthropology. His seminal works on the Azande and the Nuer had an immense impact on the field in Britain. He wrote these works in his thirties and forties, after which time he became chair of anthropology at Oxford. His pupils and colleagues from his days as the head of Institute of Social Anthropology went from Oxford to complete the institutional establishment of social anthropology. In this book Douglas links the development of her own theories to her training under Evans-Pritchard at the institute and to the close friendship that they forged in the years after.

INDEX

Abstractions in philosophy, 33

Accountability, 2, 3, 31–33, 94, 111, 127, 132–34

Accountability among the Azande, 48–60; accusations, 50–52, 56–57; aristocrats and, 57; autopsy of convicted witches, 52; boundaries of system of, 56–57; changes under Anglo-Egyptian Condominium, 53–54; curiosity about “Why me?” question, 48–49; inheritance of witchcraft, 50, 52, 55–58; institutions and ideas, relationship between, 57–58; unconscious witchcraft, 50, 56; vengeance, 51, 53–54. See also Oracles, Azande

Accountability among the Nuer, 71–74, 82, 84–85; “being in the right,” concept of, 103; religion and, 103–105, 107; spirits and God, 118

Adoption among Nuer, 80–81

Agape (agapo), 96; Christian concept of, 97–101, 105, 114

Anthropology (anthropologists): American, 126, 127; British, 127–29; Evans-Pritchard’s influence on, 126–35; history and, 111, 112; in 1920s, 6–7; religion and, 110–13. See also Fieldwork; and specific topics

Assumptions, fundamental, 32–33

Attention: selective principles of, 17, 19, 21, 23–24, 78; suspension of, 20–21. See also Perception

Augustine, Saint, 33, 100

Austin, J. L., 46

Azande, 37, 112; accountability (see Accountability among the Azande); contradictions, 115–16; fieldwork on, 39–40, 42; oracles (see Oracles, Azande); witchcraft, 39, 42, 49–59, 110 (see also Accountability among the Azande)

Balfour, H., 36n

Barnes, J. A., 88n

Bartlett, Frederick C., 15–20, 85; on memory, 75–76, 79

Bauman, Z., 126n

Beattie, J., 128n

Bedouin, 44, 45. See also Sanusiya Brotherhood

Beidelman, T. O., 128n

Blood-pollution theory, Nuer, 69–71

Boas, Franz, 36

Bohannon, L., 88n

Bororo, prelogical thinking among, 8–9

Buxton, J., 128n

Caritas motif, 114; in Catholic medieval theology, 100

Catholicism, 120; caritas motif in, 100; magic and, 104. See also Christianity

Cattle, Nuer, 64, 69, 73, 77, 80–84, 102, 105–108

Chomsky, Noam, 129

Christianity: love and, 97–100, 105; Lutheran, 102, 103, 114–15; Nuer religion and, 102–104, 114–15; spontaneity versus formalism in, 103–104

Cicourel, Aaron, 46

Collective representations, 29

Colson, E., 128n

Comparative m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Biographical Note
• i / Introduction
• ii / Human Mental Faculties
• iii / The Continuity of Evans-Pritchard’s Program
• iv / Fieldwork Methods
• v / Accountability among the Azande
• vi / Accountability among the Nuer
• vii / Reasoning and Memory
• viii / Nuer Religion
• ix / Contradiction
• x / Evans-Pritchard’s Contemporary Influence
• Short Bibliography
• Index