Evans-Pritchard

The Azande and the Nuer both studied by Evans-Pritchard may not be expert in eclipses, but they understand perfectly well the concatenation of meteorological events that brings about a failed harvest, for example.

In the Valley of the Shadow James L. Kugel 2011

* “E-P,” as Evans-Pritchard was known, taught social anthropology at Oxford, where he was the teacher of among others Godfrey Lienhardt, whose study of the Dinka was cited earlier.

In the Valley of the Shadow James L. Kugel 2011

In the Daily Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard warned that the EU is forcing a "final catharsis" on Greece:The country appears to be in a self-feeding downward spiral that is playing havoc with budget targets, leaving Greece with a Sisyphean task of ever deeper cuts.

Eurozone crisis live: Greek president attacks Germany as bailout deadline moves to Monday 2012

Thinking about this, I came back to what the anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard had written about the Azande, a people of central Africa whom he had studied in the 1920s.

In the Valley of the Shadow James L. Kugel 2011

* “E-P,” as Evans-Pritchard was known, taught social anthropology at Oxford, where he was the teacher of among others Godfrey Lienhardt, whose study of the Dinka was cited earlier.

In the Valley of the Shadow James L. Kugel 2011

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says that the debasement of the currencies is the cure "albeit a bad one".

Garrett Johnson: The Crowning Failure of the Old Governments Garrett Johnson 2010

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says that the debasement of the currencies is the cure "albeit a bad one".

Garrett Johnson: The Crowning Failure of the Old Governments Garrett Johnson 2010

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says that the debasement of the currencies is the cure "albeit a bad one".

Garrett Johnson: The Crowning Failure of the Old Governments Garrett Johnson 2010

This attitude began with Bronislaw Malinowski, who is generally considered the founder of anthropological fieldwork Malinowski famously wrote that fieldwork was to anthropology what the blood of martyrs was to the Church but can be found in the writing of almost all the great anthropologists, people like E.E. Evans-Pritchard and Radcliffe-Brown and Claude Lèvi-Strauss.

An Interview with Mischa Berlinski 2010

Evans-Pritchard describes a somewhat foggier reckoning with this distinction among the Azande:

In the Valley of the Shadow James L. Kugel 2011