Evans-Pritchard, Sir Edward E (1902–73)

Abstract

Edward Evans-Pritchard was a key architect of ‘British social anthropology’ in the mid-twentieth century. This combined first-hand fieldwork with systematic analysis and engagement with the practical concerns of the day, at that time mainly defined by the colonial context. Trained in history at Oxford and then anthropology at the LSE, Evans-Pritchard became famous for his research in the Sudan, and specifically for his books on the Azande and Nuer peoples. He laid foundations for the systematic study of social relations and ecology, and for the new sub-discipline of political anthropology. His work also attracted the attention of philosophers, in so far as it traced the social roots of shared knowledge, and later that of theologians and students of comparative religion. Elected in 1946 to the Chair of Social Anthropology in Oxford, he built up a thriving community of scholars who helped establish the international profile of social anthropology and its links with other subjects. Evans-Pritchard's insistence that anthropology should aim to be more like history than like natural science helped the subject to modernize its focus, and to include in its scope the comparative study of the world's major civilizations and social forms.