Pioneers of the Field

South Africa's Women Anthropologists

Andrew Bank

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781107150492
• eBook ISBN: 9781316723357
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Focusing on the crucial contributions of women researchers, Andrew Bank demonstrates that the modern school of social anthropology in South Africa was uniquely female-dominated. The book traces the personal and intellectual histories of six remarkable women through the use of a rich cocktail of archival sources, including family photographs, private and professional correspondence, field-notes and field diaries, published and other public writings and even love letters. The book also sheds new light on the close connections between their personal lives, their academic work and their anti-segregationist and anti-apartheid politics. It will be welcomed by anthropologists, historians and students in African studies interested in the development of social anthropology in twentieth-century Africa, as well as by students and researchers in the field of gender studies.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: rethinking the canon
• 1 Feminizing the foundational narrative: the collaborative anthropology of Winifred Tucker Hoernlé (1885–1960)
• 2 An adopted daughter: Christianity and anthropology in the life and work of Monica Hunter Wilson (1908–1982)
• 3 Anthropology and Jewish identity: the urban fieldwork and ethnographies of Ellen Hellmann (1908–1982)
• 4 ‘A genius for friendship’: Audrey Richards at Wits, 1938–1940
• 5 Historical ethnography and ethnographic fiction: the South African writings of Hilda Beemer Kuper (1911–1992)
• 6 Feminizing the discipline: the long career of Eileen Jensen Krige (1904–1995)
• Conclusion: a humanist legacy
• Bibliography
• Index