Sigrid Westphal-Hellbusch

Sigrid Westphal-Hellbusch (born June 10, 1915 in Rendsburg , † February 1, 1984 in Oldenburg ) was a German anthropologist .

Life

Westphal-Hellbusch was born in Rendsburg, but grew up in Berlin, where she passed her Abitur in 1934. From 1935 she studied ethnology, anthropology, geography and psychology with Richard Thurnwald and Diedrich Westermann at the Berlin Friedrich Wilhelms University . In 1940 she completed her studies with a doctorate with a dissertation on the importance of hunting for the indigenous people of Australia. In the same year she became a scientific volunteer at the State Museum of Ethnology (today: Ethnological Museum ) and later a research assistant in the department for the South Pacific region.

She started her habilitation thesis during the Second World War, but had to interrupt it because her contract with the museum expired in 1945. She went to her parents in Oldenburg, but returned to Berlin a year later. In 1946 she completed her habilitation with a thesis on the totem culture in Australia ( The totemism among the Bushmen ). The following year she started teaching at the Humboldt University in Berlin . In 1951 she was appointed full professor and from 1952 headed the Institute for Ethnology.

In 1953, Westphal-Hellbusch decided to take on an assistantship with Richard Thurnwald, who meanwhile headed the Institute for Social Psychology and Ethnology at the Free University. She also held lectures in the philosophy department. After Thurnwald's death in 1954, she took over the acting management of the institute. From 1956 she was employed there as a private lecturer, became an associate professor in 1957 and finally in 1964 a full professor at the Chair of Ethnology.

In the 1950s, Sigrid Westphal-Hellbusch and her husband carried out intensive field research among the Maʿdan in southern Iraq and the Jat in Pakistan . From 1959 onwards it concentrated on Turkey, the Near and Middle East and the Maghreb states. Due to their work, the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology focused on the Near and Middle East.

With the protests of the student movement of 1968 , Westphal-Hellbusch decided to give up her position at the university and in 1970 accepted a position at the State Museum of Ethnology. She took over the management of the newly created department for West and Central Asia.

In 1976 Sigrid Westphal-Hellbusch retired and moved to Oldenburg. She was married to the anthropologist Karl Westphal.

Fonts (selection)

• Influence of the hunt on the life forms of the Australians . also dissertation, Ebering, Berlin 1941
• with Heinz Westphal: The Ma'dan: Culture and history of the marshlands in southern Iraq . (= Volume 4 of research on ethnology and social psychology) Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1962
• with Heinz Westphal: On the history and culture of the Jat . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1968
• with Heinz Westphal: Hindu cattle breeders in north-western India: The Rabari . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974
• with Ilse Bruns: metal vessels from Bukhara . Publications of the Museum für Völkerkunde Berlin, Berlin 1974
• with Gisela Soltkahn: hats from Central Asia and Persia . Publications of the Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin 1976
• with Heinz Westphal :: Hindu cattle breeders in north-western India: II. The Bharvad and the Charan . (= Volume 9 of research on ethnology and social psychology) Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1976
• Animal and totem: closeness to nature in archaic cultures; Texts on totemism . Edition Amalia, Bern 1998, ISBN 978-3-905581-03-4

literature

• Gisela Dombrowski: Sigrid Westphal-Hellbusch, June 10, 1915 - February 1, 1984 . In: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie , Vol. 111, H. 1 (1986), pp. 1-10 ( JSTOR 25841959 ).
• Bettina Beer : Women in German-speaking Ethnology: A Handbook . Böhlau, Vienna / Weimar / New York 2007, ISBN 978-3-412-11206-6 , pp. 233-239.

Web links

• Biography at germananthropology.com