Mana and Māori culture: Raymond Firth's pre-Tikopia years

Abstract

ABSTRACT As a preliminary biographical exploration, this article provides an introductory study into Raymond Firth's early research, as it initially related to Māoridom. Using archival and creative collaborative techniques to look at anthropology's contemporary past, it contends that Firth is amongst the earliest founders of the ethnographic approach known as ‘the anthropology of/at home’. A significant interest in the biographic description of anthropologists is currently taking place. As a newly developing self-conscious genre, the intellectual biography is becoming central to the way in which the discipline writes its own history. This paper not only provides an introduction into Firth's Māori work (as found in his MA and PhD research), but also demonstrates the use of experimental methods in creating an ‘archaeology of us’. In seeing the lesser known and largely disregarded elements of Firth's personal history as a poorly investigated type of biographical data, I suggest that such interdisciplinary approaches are essential in conducting biographical research. Despite two Festschrifts honouring Firth's contributions to the discipline, there is as yet no lengthy biography of this acclaimed economic anthropologist. He was ‘born and bred’ in Aotearoa/NZ, but migrated to the UK in 1924 to pursue his doctorate. By tracing the early career path and initial written output of one of the longest lived and most influential ethnographers/ethnologists in the discipline's legacy, this paper contributes to expanding the biographical genre – both regarding antipodean academic history, as well as in dealing with international migration, the movement of ideas and social anthropology's diasporic intellectual landscapes.