The Enigma of Max Gluckman: The Ethnographic Life of a “Luckyman” in Africa – eBook

The Enigma of Max Gluckman, (ePub/PDF) examines one of the most powerful British anthropologists of the twentieth century. South African–born Max Gluckman was the initiator of what became known as the Manchester School of social anthropology, a prominent figure in the anthropology of anticolonialism and conflict theory in southern Africa, and one of the most creative structuralist and Marxist anthropologists of his age group. From his status at Oxford University as a graduate student and lecturer to his career at Manchester, Gluckman was known to be kind and engaged with his closest colleagues but hostile and brutish in his criticisms of their work if it did not contribute to social justice and liberal vision he held for the discipline.

Conventional histories of anthropology have considered Gluckman as an outlier from conventional British social anthropology based on his profession at the University of Manchester and his grumpy manner. He was undoubtedly not the colonial gentleman typical of his British colleagues in the field. Gluckman was deeply involved with field research in southern Africa on the Zulus, in Barotseland with the Lozi, and also in relation with his directorship of the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute from 1941 to 1947, which concealed his growing critique of anthropology’s methods and ties to Western colonialism and racial domination in the subcontinent.

Robert J. Gordon’s biography skillfully reconsiders the colorful life of Max Gluckman and restores his career in the British anthropological tradition.

Reviews

“A strong account of Max Gluckman’s family background and his educational and political formation. A particularly captivating section deals with Gluckman’s research in Zululand in the 1930s.” — Adam Kuper, visiting lecturer of anthropology at Boston University and author of Anthropology and Anthropologists: The British School in the Twentieth Century

“Gordon is a prominent scholar of the history of anthropology and an expert of the anecdote, who excels in bringing to light unfamiliar and forgotten traits of the past. In this biography, he turns his attention to Max Gluckman, one of the most powerful, but at the same time, scandalous, anthropologists of modern times. The result is intriguing reading, which deepens our understanding of the social relations personified in anthropological work.” — Isak Niehaus, senior professor in anthropology at Brunel University London and author of Witchcraft and a Life in the New South Africa

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