Günter Wagner (anthropologist)

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Günter Wagner (born September 28, 1908 in Berlin ; † August 21, 1952 ) was a German anthropologist and Africanist .

life and career

After studying in Freiburg , Hamburg and with Franz Boas at Columbia University in New York in 1926 , Wagner first went on a study trip to research the peyote cult . In 1932 he received his doctorate at the seminar for African languages ​​and cultures at the University of Hamburg . After stays at the University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley , he was a Rockefeller and Research Fellow from 1933 to 1939. During this time he was doing field research in the west of the British colony of Kenya . He published his research for the International African Institute (London) under the Luhya group of the Bukusu in a two-volume monograph after the war.

In 1940 Wagner completed his habilitation with Richard Thurnwald at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin. He then worked as a lecturer in ethnology in Tübingen and for the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and took part in the Second World War in the Soviet Union, Greece and Italy.

After the end of the war, Wagner was unable to find a new job in Germany; he did scientific papers and translations. In 1950 he traveled to South West Africa , where he became Assistant Government Ethnologist for the Department of Native Affairs . During a field study with the Herero , Wagner died of complications from phlebitis and pneumonia.

Wagner's collected material from his field research is now at the Seminar for African Languages ​​and Cultures at the University of Hamburg.

Fonts

  • Development and spread of the peyote cult. Dissertation. In: Baessler archive . Contributions to ethnology. 15, 1932, pp. 59-144.
  • The changing family among the Bantu Kavirondo. Supplement to Africa Volume XII, N ° 1. Oxford University Press, London 1939.
  • The political organization of the Bantu of Kavirondo. In: Meyer Fortes , Edward E. Evans-Pritchard (Eds.): African Political Systems . Oxford 1940.
  • The Bantu of North Kavirondo. 2 volumes. Oxford 1949-1956.

literature

  • Udo Mischek: Life and Work of Günter Wagner (1908–1952). Gehren 2002 (publications by the Institute for Social Anthropology at the University of Leipzig, series of specialist history, volume 2)
  • Jan J. de Wolf: Bukusu Tales. Collected by research assistants of Günter Wagner (1908–1952) approx. 1936 (= contributions to African studies. Volume 5). 1995, ISBN 3-8258-2399-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Bantu of North Kavirondo. 2 volumes. Oxford 1949-1956.
  2. ↑ a b Martin Rössler: The German-speaking ethnology until around 1960: A demolition. ( Memento from June 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Cologne Working Papers on Ethnology No. 1. p. 26.
  3. ^ Richard Thurnwald: Obituary for Günter Wagner. In: Sociologus. 2, 1952, p. 81.
personal data
SURNAME Wagner, Günter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German anthropologist and Africanist
DATE OF BIRTH September 28, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH August 21, 1952