Robert Paine

0:00:05 Introduction; read modern history at Oxford; before finals met Evans-Pritchard who suggested he read Arensberg ‘The Irish Countryman’; took diploma in anthropology in 1951; at that time Srinivas, Steiner, the Bohannans, Peristiany, Dumont all at the Institute; Laura (Dusty) Bohannan the most memorable, but had tutorials from Dumont, Srinivas and Peristiany

0:02:50 Wanted to go to the Eskimos and Franz Steiner offered him some research work as no grants available; with £50 inheritance went from Grimsby via trawler to Tromso and attempted to get to the Saami nomads but failed; managed to study coastal Saami for two years though they would not teach him Saami language; Germans had evacuated Norway with scorched earth policy so they were rebuilding; worked as a building labourer so managed without grants and stayed with the people he was working for; also worked cutting peat, haymaking, and fishing in the winter

0:07:40 Christmas 1953 went up to the Tundra to learn Saami; managed to get job as herds-boy with nomads and then learnt Saami; went back to Oxford to write D.Phil but returned as a paying guest so could choose who I stayed with and devoted two years to research

0:10:20 In 1962 nomads thought of themselves as very different from anyone else; had meat and skins and lots of money that peasants wanted; matters of jurisprudence in hands of nomads who hoodwinked the Norwegian courts; rivalry led to attacks on rival’s reindeer; ‘big man’ would accumulate wealth in reindeer, but if too many then others would take them unless protected; collective herding leads to overgrazing of pasture

0:17:23 In 1960’s weak at representing themselves to authorities but in 1980’s not; power of ethnicity of Saami nomads has won them much politically; coastal Saami can’t share in this though nomads only represent one in ten of Saami; nomads using coastal Saami pastures

0:19:41 Frederick Barth set up department in Bergen after spell in U.S.A. and the L.S.E. as no place found for him in Oslo University; I joined him with some others; remarkable man; brought scholars to Bergen such as Leach, Gluckman, and the Firths for a week at a time; Bergen an incredible place for about six years; transactionism and debate with Barth

0:27:05 Went to St John’s Newfoundland after being offered at post at Oslo; Newfoundland so much easier because of the language and because of the hinterland of Canadian arctic and Labrador; also money for research; managed to build up department offering joint appointments in teaching and research; got Milton Freeman and Jean Briggs; research institute set up by predecessor Ian Whittaker

0:31:35 Set up area specialization in northern regions right across the world; mandate of institute was confined to Newfoundland but managed to stretch as far as the Caribbean at one point; built up publications which became niche for the institute

0:36:15 Theme to look at whites in the arctic; welfare colonialism in the arctic; John Honigmann; coined phrase ‘the nursery games’ to attract the attention of colleagues in Ottawa, described situation in terms of nanny and child, the white man could never stop being the nanny; Inuits not allowed to grow up

0:40:53 Became interested in career of Joseph Smallwood, a politician who brought Newfoundland into Canada as a province; ‘ruled’ it for about twenty-five years from 1949-1972; ‘Ayatollahs and Turkey-Trots’ written about an election in Newfoundland; colloquium from which came ‘Politically Speaking’ done under the auspices of the institute

0:45:00 Asked to appear in dispute case of Saami dam in 1982-3; concerned the ancestral home of the Saami according to the traditionalists who call themselves the Fourth Worlders through which ran a river on which it was proposed to build a dam by Labour party; this party did not have good record in dealings with minorities so agreed to make case for the existence of ancestral lands with two Norwegian anthropologists; lost the case as implied that Saami were interested in who got royalties from the dam; case published by IWIGIA

0:50:19 Description of Fourth World peoples; difficulties of advocacy – ‘Advocacy and Anthropology’; difficulties over Tromso University professorship of social anthropology on Saami ethnography where Saami applicant too young and inexperienced

0:59:43 Recently have become interested in Israel through Don Handelman’s invitation; travelled until the Lebanese war broke out; married Lisa who was in process of becoming an Israeli citizen; not a Hebrew speaker but an anthropologist in Israel so will take themes and people where I can use English; investigating prisoner exchange situation and West Bank settlers; trying to devise way of focussing anthropology on these seismic situations which the mainstream population are not interested or able to pursue; our students observing the effects of NATO in Labrador

1:07:25 Meta-history and memory in Israel; Begin using meta-history for political purposes; invented facts necessary for survival against the surrounding Arab states; playing with notions of time to fulfil prophesies

1:14:04 Emotionally drawn to Israel for its hubris but don’t want to act as an advocate; back to memories of Oxford in the late 1940s; Franz Steiner and Evans Pritchard, both closet poets and private people; Louis Dumont; M.N. Srinivas – a touch of E.M. Foster – ‘Coorgs’ book much admired; Bohannans – Jim Bohannan hogged the Third Programme; we disparaged Firth for having the temerity for speaking about religion in Evans-Pritchard’s institute; final thoughts on Evans-Pritchard.