Peter Loizos

0:00:05 Introduction; parentage; mother, maternal grandfather; mother’s early life; father from Cyprus; marriage breakdown, brought up by mother; schooldays; difficulty of explaining lack of a father; personal need to identify as of Greek origin led to studying classics at Dulwich and coloured the rest of life; by 29 had met father a few times and mother dead, no longer want to be TV film maker; at Cambridge read English but halfway through tempted to do anthropology but dissuaded by college as it would have meant an extra year without a grant; did read William Foote Wright’s ‘Street Corner Society’ as wanted to know more about social science

0:09:30 Initially attracted by Leavis but found he lacked spontaneity; dissuaded by Donald Davey from doing a PhD though got firsts in both parts of the Tripos; went to Harvard on the Knox Fellowship but toyed with going to a film school in Poland or to work with Ivor Winters at Stamford with the idea of becoming a poet; at Harvard did a year’s introduction to social science in Social Relations department under Parsons; taught by George Caspar Homans, David McClelland, Robert Rappaport, Stanton Wheeler (criminology), and Barrington Moore; got interested in film and met Robert Gardner at the Peabody who allowed me to take a reading course, after which given a 16mm camera and film and with the help of Timothy Asch, shot some film; next five years obsessed with cinema and ended up at the BBC in the science documentary department; did not have the courage to risk going to Hollywood but always stuck with well-funded institutions, probably as a result of fear of poverty in childhood

0:19:45 Really wanted to do films similar to those made by Timothy Asch where he held the camera, but the unionisation of the BBC meant that as an assistant director was not allowed to touch the camera; to use the camera would have had to have gone in as a technical trainee in an “officers and other ranks” situation; after a few years as found it unsatisfying; took to reading anthropology books in the British Museum and in 1966 went to the L.S.E. and met Raymond Firth; very welcoming; in British Museum had read and essay by Evans-Pritchard which suggested it would take ten years to become an anthropologist but Firth said it should be possible to halve the time; at Dulwich had thought of becoming a doctor but had taken the wrong path although now embarking on work that will include medical matters

0:23:16 Decided on the L.S.E. as it was the only place I knew; at BBC found projects uninteresting as really wanted to be a creative film-maker; shared memories of the L.S.E.; initially course painful and difficult; wrote many essays on kinship, encouraged by Anthony Forge; memories of Robin Fox, Ortiz, Burton Benedict, Maurice Freedman, Lucy Mair; comparative seminar run by Isaac Schapera, Percy Cohen and Lucy Mair, last joint activity between sociology and anthropology; gave paper on Greek-Turkish intermarriage; Audrey Hayley; Firth seminar and his summaries

0:36:39 Went to do PhD in Cyprus; ‘Kula Ring’ communication between fellows; in Cyprus visited by a number of colleagues; worked on stratification and marriage; much influenced by William Goode who responded enthusiastically to comments from the field; became apparent during fieldwork that politics were much more volatile and fundamental than had understood; first went to father’s village in 1966 and between then and fieldwork in 1968, a military coup had occurred in Greece and the authoritarian nature of the regime extended even into the village; dampened the pleasure of fieldwork because of incipient violence

0:43:50 After PhD made a film on the village; had wanted to make a film in Taiwan with Martin Nettleship in 1966-7 but discouraged by Raymond Firth; Anthony Forge and Arianne Lewis had been shooting film and there was a feeling in the department that film was important, also James Woodburn; [omitted]; memories of Raymond Firth

0:51:39 Other influences; Kurusawa’s early films; Hannah Arendt; Primo Levi; war crimes; Karl Marx; on anthropology and how it is practised

0:57:52 War and dislocation; influence of Colson’s work on the Gwembe Tonga and the dislocation caused by the Kariba dam and Peter Marris’s ‘Loss and Change’; build on other’s insights; ethnographic films.