The People of Alor

Abstract

DR. DU BOIS received her training in anthropology at the University of California. Her subsequent field-work among American Indians on the west coast of America led her to realize the dangers of supposing that we can deduce what individuals are from the institutions under which they live: "psychological orientations and techniques" need to be employed for this purpose; and analytic psychology appeared to her "to offer the greatest number of concepts with which the anthropologist could operate, although much of its theory, particularly in the field of social phenomena, seemed inept". Thus it came about that in 1935 she spent a year, as a U.S. National Research fellow, in exploring "the bearing of various psychiatric approaches to personality formation within our own society", and that in the spring of 1936 and 1937 she collaborated with Dr. Abram Kardiner in his seminar at the New York Psychoanalytic Society. Together, they reached the conclusion that field-work alone could test the validity of the procedures which these seminar discussions had indicated. Aided by funds contributed by Dr. Kardiner, the Social Science Research Council of Columbia University gave Dr. Du Bois the financial support which enabled her to carry out such field-work. The People of Alor A Social-Psychological Study of an East Indian Island. By Cora Du Bois.; with Analyses by Abram Kardiner and Emil Oberholzer. Pp. xi + 654 + 32 plates. (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1944.) 45s. 6d. net.