Max Gluckman and the Critique of Segregation in South African Anthropology, 1921–1940

Abstract

Max Gluckman's essay, 'Analysis of a Social Situation in Modern Zululand' (the 'Bridge Paper' to his students), first published in 1940, came to be recognised in the postwar period as constituting a major methodological breakthrough for British social anthropology. His chief innovation was to describe in great detail the events of a single day ‐ a 'social situation' ‐ from which he then proceeded to abstract the sociological patterns of the wider society. In addition, the 'Bridge Paper' is also recognised as one of the most significant anthropological critiques of segregationist policy in South Africa in the first half of the twentieth century. This article will argue that the coexistence of methodological innovation and incisive critique of segregation was not coincidental. I will demonstrate that by using what became known as 'situational analysis' or the 'extended case method', Gluckman was able to provide a more effective critique of segregation than his mentors, A. R. RadcliffeBrown and Isaac Schapera, had done. Indeed, it also enabled him to answer effectively W. M. Macmillan's criticism of anthropology by demonstrating that anthropology's theory and method could defend the coherent vision of the 'common society' that Macmillan fought so hard in intellectual circles to advocate.