Lucy Mair

[Originally filmed on Low-Band U-matic, transferred to Hi-8, and then to mini-DV tape, then edited on iMovie into a film of c. 62 mins, from about 66 original]

[Some buzz on the original]
Early career and African fieldwork (12 mins)

0:00:05

Jean La Fontaine introduces Lucy Mair

How did you move into anthropology?

Who was at Malinowski’s seminar before you went to the field and what was it like?

What was the format of the Malinowski seminar?

Did he have ethnography from returned fieldworkers?

Was it Malinowski who encouraged you to go to Buganda?

If he had not wanted you to go, would you have gone?

What did people think about your going to Africa?

Did you enjoy the fieldwork?

How Christianized were the people?

Jean comments on traditional religion and religious syncretism

Do you remember any individuals with particular affection? Key informants.
Return to the LSE after fieldwork (12 mins)

0:12:04

Was Malinowski’s seminar different when you came back?

Was Kenyatta there then?

How did the Department at the LSE work and Malinowski?

What was the colonial role of anthropology?

Who were the first undergraduates at the LSE?

When did Edmund Leach and Audrey Richards join the Department?

Edmund Leach’s exciting ideas.

Schapera’s south African accent

Malinowski and Schapera – why relations so bad? Malinowski’s anti-Semitism

Malinowski’s ideas, methods and role

Were students then more mature?
Raymond Firth, Edmund Leach (5 mins)

0:24:27

Raymond Firth’s character and ideas

Meyer Fortes and his dwindling socialism

Edmund Leach as an eccentric and the first Malinowski lecture

Evans-Pritchard and his feud with Malinowski

Firth’s way of dealing with Malinowski

Seligman’s position and character
Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski (5 mins)

0:29:05

The character and ideas and influence of Radcliffe-Brown

Culture and structure and Audrey Richards

The value of Radcliffe-Brown’s simple principles

Malinowski’s schemes

Radcliffe-Brown – reminiscences by Jean La Fontaine – an enthusiast

Anarchy Brown
Teaching Colonial Anthropology, work in Australia and New Guinea (5 mins)

0:34:14

Did you enjoy teaching Colonial cadets and keep in touch with any of them?

Visit to Nigeria and later trip to Nigeria

Trip to Australia and New Guinea – impressions

Sailing round the coast steered by a murderer

Contrast with Africa
Evans-Pritchard and Gluckman (4 mins)

0:39:28

Evans-Pritchard as a person

Max Gluckman and his influence, Paul Stirling

Max Gluckman, Elizabeth Colson and others

Modern specialization of knowledge and increasing difficulty of spanning anthropology
Anthropology and the Colonial Context (3 mins)

0:43:27

What were the effects of working within the Colonial structure?

Was anthropology the handmaiden of colonialism?

What effect did taking grants from the Colonial Research Council have?
Writing and teaching (4 mins)

0:46:01

What did you enjoy working on most in terms of writing?

Do you enjoy writing and why?

The necessity of combining teaching and research.

Insecurities about teaching; preferring lecturing

Raymond Firth’s superlative seminar handling

Alan reminisces about the seminars

Where did the real conversations occur? Pubs, lunches etc?

Malinowski’s parties and sociality

What were the house parties in Austria like?

Discussions and walks in Austria

Opinions of Malinowski’s diary

Malinowski as believer in universal rationality

Why the Malinowski and Evans-Pritchard feud?
Other contemporaries: Freedman, Lienhardt, Fortes… (6 mins)

0:54:20

Maurice Freedman

Godfrey Lienhardt and E-P

E-P’s tall stories…

Meyer Fortes – as a man and thinker

Lucy Mair’s gaucheness

Who does she think of her contemporaries are immortal? Meyer and E-P and perhaps Max Gluckman

Not much influenced by workers outside Britain and anthropology

(Total length: 62 mins)