Jean La Fontaine

0:00:05 Reasons for doing anthropology at Cambridge; born in Kenya, father a Colonial official; father’s ancestors lived in Turkey after leaving France; went to the Government School in Kenya; Newnham interview

0:03:12 Came to Cambridge 1950 in Meyer Fortes first year as Professor; other staff – Ethel John Lindgren - supervisor, then G.I. Jones - supervisor, Mrs Quiggin – director of studies; supervisions in the Archaeology and Ethnography Museum

0:06:00 Other teachers: Geoffrey Bushnell, Jack Trevor, Miles Burkett; two year Part 1 in archaeology, physical anthropology and material culture as well as social anthropology; changed to two year Part 2 in middle of course which included with an optional subject; took economics with fellow student, Nur Yalman

0:08:25 Other teachers included Jack Goody, Emry Peters, and other research students; Reo Fortune also taught – recollection of supervisions;

0:10:30 Co-students included Anthony Forge, Nur Yalman, John Blacking, and later Martin Southwold and Wyatt Mcgaffrey??, John Campbell and Malcolm Ruel were in the previous year’s intake, and Derek Stenning and Ray Smith were just going to do fieldwork

0:13:20 Finished degree in 1953 and went straight into fieldwork, funded by a junior bursary from Makerere College attached to the East African Institute of Social Research which was run by Audrey Richards, who was her supervisor in the field;

0:14:08 Before going to the field had to learn to type and have session with Wilfred Whiteley, the linguist, on the Gisu language which Audrey Richards had directed her to study; Gisu had been troublesome to the Uganda Government some fifteen year’s before but not by then;

0:17:00 Audrey Richards as a supervisor; typed carbon copies of field notes to be sent to Audrey for security; occasionally called in to give a field report; field work lasted nearly two years and then returned to Cambridge to write up

0:20:45 Had three months money from original scholarship, then survived by cashing in pension and taking supervisions, and also on a post-graduate scholarship from Newnham, also some research assistantship for Audrey Richards and Meyer Fortes

0:22:00 Got PhD in 1957; supervised by Meyer Fortes; lively graduate seminar – Edmund Leach here by then – difficult to find opportunity to speak and very frightening to give a paper to; seminar held in Meyer Fortes’ room in King’s; recollection of Edmund Leach’s behaviour at the seminar

0:23:40 Fellow graduate students included Frederick Barth who was writing up his fieldwork in Swat, Michael Banks who had worked in Ceylon, Bill Dunning who worked among the Eskimo, Grace Harris and her husband Al, Jack Goody, Martin Southwold, Nur Yalman back from Ceylon, very lively place

0:25:40 1957 went to Chicago for a year on a post-doctoral fellowship; took unpaid job in market research department of Chicago Herald Tribune delivering questionnaires to look at quantitative methods; married; taught in Kinshasa (then called Leopoldville) and there did some research work for a project run by Jim Bohannan;

0:29:48 1962-63 Work on Kinshasa; then Rhodesia where stayed 8 months then returned to England; taught at Birkbeck College in evenings as had children; then to LSE in 1968 where taught ever since

0:32:50 Memory of Audrey Richards in Kampala; as a supervisor; Aidan Southall, Tom Fallers, in Uganda at the same time, Bohannans working over the border in Kenya; also a number of economists and child psychologist; Edward Winter also there

0:39:22 Weekend with the Bohannans; went with Stephen Morris and Barbara Ward to the Karimojong

0:43:01 Further memories of Audrey Richards; young woman a shock to Colonial Officer in the Gisu area; drive with Audrey; shock of fieldwork, only previous advice from Ethel John Lindgren was to do string figures to root out any “native” who could speak English; firstly put into a convent for safety, then put in a teacher’s house at the top of a hill and stayed for a year

0:49:28 Studied male circumcision rituals among the Gisu; local government allocated different areas for ceremonies although they would have liked to have abolished them; have not returned but Gisu suffered under Amin, but initiation ritual still goes on (cf. film by Suzette Heald); ritual had been influenced by missionaries

0:56:49 Description of Social and Economic Institutes like Makerere all started after the war and financed by the Colonial Office; the effect on anthropologists; accused of being puppets of the Colonial regime, but could work safely unlike later when it became impossible to study in Africa; focus of anthropology has shifted to New Guinea and Latin America

1:05:00 Shifts in anthropological interests and influence; strengths of the institutes gave support and protection to young anthropologists, now on their own; anthropologists did play central role in these, but now development economists etc. have taken over; distanced self from government interests

1:13:44 Now might try to probe Gisu understanding of their own rituals; nature of symbolism; Victor Turner did try but Gisu not keen to say more;

1:15:28 Final thoughts on Edmund Leach, Reo Fortune and Meyer Fortes