Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf

Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf (born June 22, 1909 in Vienna ; † June 11, 1995 ) was an Austrian ethnologist , he is considered the doyen of the ethnology of the Himalayan peoples. He was the first European ethnologist allowed to conduct research in Nepal .

Career

Christoph Fürer von Haimendorf , who came from an old patrician family from Nuremberg , studied ethnology at the University of Vienna from 1927 and was particularly influenced by cultural studies . Among his academic teachers were Leo Frobenius and Robert von Heine-Geldern . Heine-Geldern's work inspired Haimendorf to write his dissertation on the state and society among the peoples of Assam and north-western Burma . In 1931 he was promoted to Dr. phil is doing his doctorate . Until 1934 he was then a research assistant at the University of Vienna. With a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation , he then studied for a year at the London School of Economics , where Bronisław Malinowski taught. In 1936 he carried out his first field research with the Nagas in India .

After his habilitation (1939) at the University of Vienna, Haimendorf, now married, went on his second research trip to India with his wife Elisabeth. After the outbreak of World War II he was imprisoned there by the British colonial power as an enemy alien , but was soon allowed to continue his research. In 1944 he served as an advisor to the colonial government, and in 1945 he became a professor at Haiderabad University . In 1950 Haimendorf moved to the School of Oriental and American Studies at the University of London as a professor , where he worked until his retirement in 1976.

After Nepal was opened for field research in 1953, Haimendorf concentrated for the rest of his research life on observing the way of life, social order and economy of the Sherpas . Because he did this for decades, he was able to analyze the effects of tourism on the Nepalese people.

Haimendorf's attitude to National Socialism , racism and colonialism is controversial in the history of science in ethnology. Austrian ethnologists evaluate the researcher's past more critically than their Anglo-American colleagues.

Works (selection)

The naked Nagas. 13 months among headhunters in India . FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1939
Happy barbarians. With unknown peoples on the northeast border of India . FA Brockhaus, Wiesbaden 1956
The Sherpas of Nepal. Buddhist highlanders . Murray, London 1964
Morals and merit. A study of values and social controls in South Asian Societies . University of Chicago Press, Chicago; Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London 1967
Return to the naked Nagas: An anthropologist's view of Nagaland 1936-1970. Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi 1976

literature

Hilde Schäffler: Popular minds. Christoph Fürer-Haimendorf's field research in Nagaland (northeast India) in the 1930s . Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2006

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Although he never returned to the German-speaking area, some of his writings were distributed in Nazi Germany. In 1944 an issue of the field post with the title The White Head Hunter was printed, it was an excerpt from his work The Naked Nagas . Cf. Ralf Meßner: Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf: "The position of indigenous peoples in India and Southeast Asia". SEAS
↑ See references to several online texts

personal data
SURNAME	Fürer-Haimendorf, Christoph von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Austrian ethnologist
DATE OF BIRTH	June 22, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH	Vienna
DATE OF DEATH	June 11, 1995
Place of death	London

[1] Although he never returned to the German-speaking area, some of his writings were distributed in Nazi Germany. In 1944 an issue of the field post with the title The White Head Hunter was printed, it was an excerpt from his work The Naked Nagas . Cf. Ralf Meßner: Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf: "The position of indigenous peoples in India and Southeast Asia". SEAS

[2] See references to several online texts