Pioneers of the Field
South Africa's Women Anthropologists

This book traces the personal and intellectual histories of six remarkable women anthropologists, using a rich cocktail of archival sources.

Andrew Bank (Author)

9781316604915, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 29 November 2018

335 pages, 43 b/w illus.
23 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.45 kg

'Andrew Bank has provided us with a panoply of new stories and a range of far-reaching analyses that will, for many years to come, inform our teaching, research, writing and, perhaps, even our sense of what on earth anthropology was and is all about.' Joanna Davidson, Journal of Southern African Studies

Focusing on the crucial contributions of women researchers, Andrew Bank demonstrates that the modern school of social anthropology in South Africa was uniquely female-dominated. The book traces the personal and intellectual histories of six remarkable women through the use of a rich cocktail of archival sources, including family photographs, private and professional correspondence, field-notes and field diaries, published and other public writings and even love letters. The book also sheds new light on the close connections between their personal lives, their academic work and their anti-segregationist and anti-apartheid politics. It will be welcomed by anthropologists, historians and students in African studies interested in the development of social anthropology in twentieth-century Africa, as well as by students and researchers in the field of gender studies.

Introduction: rethinking the canon
1. Feminizing the foundational narrative: the collaborative anthropology of Winifred Tucker Hoernle (1885–1960)
2. An adopted daughter: Christianity and anthropology in the life and work of Monica Hunter Wilson (1908–82)
3. Anthropology and Jewish identity: the urban fieldwork and ethnographies of Ellen Hellmann (1908–82)
4. 'A genius for friendship': Audrey Richards at Wits, 1938–40
5. Historical ethnography and ethnographic fiction: the South African writings of Hilda Beemer Kuper (1911–92)
6. Feminising the discipline: the long career of Eileen Jensen Krige (1904–95)
Conclusion: a humanist legacy.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], African history [HBJH], Biography: general [BG]