Meyer Fortes

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Meyer Fortes (born April 25, 1906 in Britstown , Cape Colony , South Africa , † January 27, 1983 in Cambridge , United Kingdom ) was a British anthropologist who is known for his work with the Tallensi and Ashanti in Ghana .

He simultaneously pursued a career as a researcher specializing in social and cultural anthropology and as a professor of social anthropology at Cambridge.

Originally trained as a psychologist , Fortes used the concept of the “person” for his structural-functional analyzes of kinship , family and ancestor worship and set the standard for studies on the social organization of African peoples. His book Oedipus and Job in West African Religion (Eng. " Oedipus and Job in West African Religions") combined his two interests and set a benchmark for comparative ethnology . He also wrote extensively on subjects such as firstborn, kinship, and divination .

Fortes received his anthropological training from Charles Gabriel Seligman at the London School of Economics . Fortes studied together with Bronisław Malinowski and Raymond Firth . Along with his contemporaries Alfred Radcliffe-Brown , Edmund Leach , Audrey Richards, and Lucy Mair , Fortes advocated functionalist views that insisted on empirical evidence to develop analyzes of society.

His work, African Political Systems (1940), published together with EE Evans-Pritchard , established the principles of segmentation and balanced opposition that were to become the hallmarks of African political anthropology.

This work on political systems in Africa is a document of political anthropology that attempts a first classification of systems and suggests a theorization of models. It is the result of field studies carried out in eight widely separated areas of Africa. The different types of social organization found among a number of African peoples ( Zulu , Bamangwato , Bemba , Ankole , Kede , Bantu , Tallensi and Nuer ) are described.

Fortes has also directed the publication of some other compilations. His research on West Africa and political systems influenced other British anthropologists, notably Max Gluckman , and played a role in developing what is known as the Manchester School of social anthropology , which emphasizes the problems of work in colonial Central Africa . Fortes spent much of his career teaching at Cambridge University . In 1964 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1967 to the British Academy . Since 1972 he was an elected member of the American Philosophical Society .

Works

  • Social and psychological Aspects of Education in Taleland. Oxford University Press, London 1938.
  • With Edward E. Evans-Pritchard , Ed .: African Political Systems. 1940.
  • The dynamics of clanship among the Tallensi: being the first part of an Analysis of the Social Structure of a Trans-Volta Tribe. Oxford Univ. Press, London [u. a.] 1945.
  • Social Structure: Studies Presented to AR Radcliffe-Brown. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1949
  • Web of Kinship Among the Tallensi. The Second Part of an Analysis of the Social Structure of a Trans-Volta Tribe. Oxford University Press for the International African Institute 1949
  • ( Jack Goody , ed.) The developmental cycle in domestic groups. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1958
  • Oedipus and Job in West African Religion (German under the title "Oedipus and Job in West African Religions") 1959
  • Cambridge Papers in Social Anthropology. Cambridge University Press 1962
  • Marriage in tribal societies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1962
  • Kinship and the Social Order: The Legacy of Lewis Henry Morgan. Chicago Aldine Publishing Company, Chicago 1969
  • Time and Social Structure and Other Essays. 1970
  • (Ed.) Social Structure 1970
  • (with Sheila Patterson, Ed.) Studies in African Social Anthropology 1975
  • (Jack Goody, ed.) Religion, morality and the person: essays on Tallensi religion. Cambridge [u. a.]: Cambridge University Press, 1987

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed May 28, 2020 .
  2. ^ Member History: Meyer Fortes. American Philosophical Society, accessed August 9, 2018 .