Isaac Schapera FBA FRAI (23 June 1905

Garies Garies is a small agricultural centre situated in South Africa's Northern Cape province about 110 km south of Springbok, the chief town of the Namaqualand district. Current population approximately 1500. The Letterklip The Letterklip, Af ...

, Cape Colony – 26 June 2003

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major s ...

, England), was a social anthropologist at the London School of Economics specialising in South Africa. He was notable for his contributions of ethnographic and typological studies of the indigenous peoples of Botswana and South Africa. Additionally, he was one of the founders of the group that would develop British social anthropology. Not only did Schapera write numerous publications of his extensive research done in South Africa and Botswana, he published his work throughout his career (1923–1969), and even after he retired. As an anthropologist he focused on the lives and customs of the indigenous peoples of South Africa and was considered to be a specialist in the topic. Early in his career he would focus on studies of the

Khoisan Khoisan , or (), according to the contemporary Khoekhoegowab orthography, is a catch-all term for those indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who do not speak one of the Bantu languages, combining the (formerly "Khoikhoi") and the or ( in ...

of South Africa until the 1930s, when he would begin to focus on

Tswana Tswana may refer to: * Tswana people, the Bantu speaking people in Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and other Southern Africa regions * Tswana language, the language spoken by the (Ba)Tswana people * Bophuthatswana Bophuthat ...

of Botswana. Schapera also received many honours and titles, such as being the president of the Royal Anthropology Institute.Schapera Isaac, Picturing a Colonial Past; The African Photographs by Isaac Schapera, ed. Comaroff et al. (University of Chicago; 2007). Additionally, he was awarded an honorary doctorate when the

University of Botswana The University of Botswana, popularly known as UB, was established in 1982 as the first institution of higher education in Botswana. The university has three campuses: one in the capital city Gaborone, one in Francistown, and another in Maun. Th ...

was founded in 1985, was elected as Chair of the Association of Social Anthropology, and the ''Journal of African Law'' was founded in his honour. To compile his work for

future generations Future generations are cohorts of hypothetical people not yet born. Future generations are contrasted with current and past generations, and evoked in order to encourage thinking about intergenerational equity. The moral patienthood of future ge ...

and note his anthropological contributions a bibliography was published in the ''Botswana Journal of African African Studies''. This academic journal has also dedicated an entire issue to the work he had done throughout his career. In 2003 his obituary was published in the academic journal ''Anthropology Today'', titled "The Legacy of Isaac Schapera". In the wake of his death, photographs he had taken of South Africa were published in a book ''Picturing a Colonial Past; The African Photographs by Isaac Schapera'' and the Recovering the Botswana project would be dedicated to him.

Life, education, and career

Schapera was born in Garies,

Namaqualand Namaqualand (khoekhoe: "Nama-kwa" meaning Nama Khoe people's land) is an arid region of Namibia and South Africa, extending along the west coast over and covering a total area of . It is divided by the lower course of the Orange River into ...

, South Africa where his father owned a general store. In his youth he attended school, and later university, in

Cape Town, South Africa Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ( ...

. During his early university career he was enrolled in law, but would later switch to anthropology. He was a student of

Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown, FBA (born Alfred Reginald Brown; 17 January 1881 – 24 October 1955) was an English social anthropologist who helped further develop the theory of structural functionalism. Biography Alfred Reginald Radcli ...

, who is considered a founder of structural-functionalism theory in anthropology.Schapera Isaac, Picturing a Colonial Past; The African Photographs by Isaac Schapera, ed. Comaroff et al (University of Chicago; 2007). After finishing his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in anthropology, Schapera completed his doctorate at the London School of Economics and Politics (LSE) where he would be influenced by Bronislaw Malinowski. His thesis was title
The tribal system in South Africa: a study of the Bushmen and the Hottentots
Thereafter he taught briefly at the

University of Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( or ). The univers ...

before returning to Cape Town. There he worked as a professor of social anthropology before joining the Department of Anthropology at LSE. His continued to work there until he retired in 1969. Schapera's students would include future important figures of anthropology, such as Eileen Krige,

Hilda Kuper Hilda Beemer Kuper (''née'' Beemer; 23 August 1911 – 23 April 1992) was a social anthropologist most notable for her extensive work on Swazi culture. Early life Born to Lithuanian Jewish and Austrian Jewish parents in Bulawayo, Southern R ...

Max Gluckman Herman Max Gluckman (; 26 January 1911 – 13 April 1975) was a South African and British social anthropologist. He is best known as the founder of the Manchester School of anthropology. Biography and major works Gluckman was born in Johan ...

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Johan Frederik Holleman Johan 'Hans' Frederik Holleman (18 December 1915 – 28 August 2001) was a Dutch and South African professor, ethnologist, and legal scholar, best known for his research into the indigenous legal systems of Southern Africa. During his life he pub ...

and

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. After his death, a research program called "Recovering the Schapera Project" was carried out by the University of Botswana to build upon Schapera's research. As a professor he was noted by Kuper as "not being an inspiring lecturer, but avingwonderful material". Schapera's life was his work, and he never married. In his later years, Schapera rarely returned to the place of his studies, but did return to Botswana to receive the honorary degree awarded to him by the University of Botswana.Schapera Isaac, Picturing a Colonial Past; The African Photographs by Isaac Schapera, ed. Comaroff et al. (University of Chicago; 2007) Additionally, because of the damages to his vocal cords caused by surgery, he withdrew from socializing, though he maintained contact with students to stay up to date with ongoing anthropological studies.

His legacy

"Recovering the Schapera Project" is the continuation of the extensive research made by Schapera of the people of Botswana. His style of recording and studying was applied to all aspects of lifeHeald Suzette, "The Legacy of Isaac Schapera," Anthropology Today Vol. 19 No. 6, (December 2003) 18–19. and thus resulted in a wealth of unpublished material. This material includes unpublished genealogies, history, and other culturally significant data. The Shapera Project is funded by the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Botswana for the university overtook assessing this data and building upon it after Schapera's death.

Published material

He published numerous journal articles, nearly 200, as mentioned in the academic ''Journal of African Studies'', which published a bibliography in 1998. Notable titles include: "The Khoisan Peoples of South Africa" (Schapera; 1930), "A Handbook of Tswana Law and Custom" (Schapera; 1938), "Married Life in an African Tribe" (Schapera; 1940), "The Ethnic Composition of Tswana Tribes" (Schapera; 1952); "The Tswana" (Schapera; 1953), "Government and Politics in Tribal Societies", (Schapera; 1956), "Praise Poems of Tswana Chiefs" (Schapera; 1965), "David Livingstone's Journals and Letters" (Schapera; 1841–1856 (6 vols), 1959–1963), "David Livingstone: South African papers" (Schapera; 1849–1853, 1974).

Life, education, and career

His legacy

Published material

Further reading

References

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