Richard Borshay Lee (born 1937) is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

. Lee has studied at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

and

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, where he received a Ph.D. He holds a position at the University of Toronto as Professor Emeritus of Anthropology. Lee researches issues concerning the

indigenous people There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

Botswana Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...

and

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

, particularly their ecology and history. Known best for his work on the Ju'/hoansi, Lee won the 1980 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for his book ''The !Kung San: Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging Society''. With Irven DeVore, Lee was co-organiser of the 1966

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

Symposium In Ancient Greece, the symposium (, ''sympósion'', from συμπίνειν, ''sympínein'', 'to drink together') was the part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was accompanied by music, dancing, recitals, o ...

on "Man the Hunter". Lee co-edited with Richard Daly ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunter-Gatherers'', which was first published in 1999. In 2003, ''Anthropologica'', the journal of the Canadian Anthropology Society, dedicated an issue to Lee's oeuvre. In 2011 he co-authored the children's book ''Africans Thought of It: Amazing Innovations'' with Bathseba Opini. Most recently his research has focused on the anthropology of health and the cultural and social factors in AIDS epidemic in southern Africa for which he has received funds from the National Institutes of Health (U.S.) via Columbia University School of Public Health as well as directly from the University of Toronto.

Professional associations

Lee has been active in several professional associations including: the Association of American

Anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

s for which he organized several meetings and symposiums; founding member of Anthropologists for Radical

Political Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

Change; past president of the Canadian Anthropologist Society and the Canadian

Ethnology Ethnology (from the , meaning 'nation') is an academic field and discipline that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). Sci ...

Society. He has also been a referee for various publications (American Anthropologist, Current Anthropology) and granting agencies (

Social Science Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the ...

s and

Humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...

Research Council, Wenner-Gren Foundation and the National Science Foundation). He is a member of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

of Canada and is a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Selected publications

*''

Subsistence A subsistence economy is an economy directed to basic subsistence (the provision of food, clothing and shelter) rather than to the market. Definition "Subsistence" is understood as supporting oneself and family at a minimum level. Basic subsiste ...

Ecology Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...

of !Kung

Bushmen The San peoples (also Saan), or Bushmen, are the members of any of the indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures of southern Africa, and the Indigenous peoples of Africa, oldest surviving cultures of the region. They are thought to have diverged fro ...

'' (1965), PhD Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
Hunter-gatherers in process: The Kalahari Research Project, 1963-76
(1978), in G. Foster et al. (Eds.), ''Long-term field research in social anthropology'' (pp. 303–321). New York: Academic Publishing. *''The !Kung San: Men, Women and Work in a

Foraging Foraging is searching for wild food resources. It affects an animal's fitness because it plays an important role in an animal's ability to survive and reproduce. Foraging theory is a branch of behavioral ecology that studies the foraging behavi ...

Society'' (1979), Cambridge and New York:

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

Chapter 9 available here

Anthropology at the crossroads: From the age of ethnography to the age of world systems
(1998), ''Social Dynamics 24''(1), 34-65. *
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunter-Gatherers
'(1999), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Indigenous rights and the politics of identity in post-apartheid southern Africa
(2003), in B. Dean & J. M. Levi (Eds.), ''At the risk of being heard: Identity, indigenous rights, and

postcolonial Postcolonialism (also post-colonial theory) is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic consequences of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and extractivism, exploitation of colonized pe ...

states'' (pp. 80–111). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. *''The Dobe Ju/'hoansi'' (2003), 3rd ed., Thomson Learning/Wadsworth.
Power and property in twenty-first century foragers: A critical examination
(2004), in T. Widlok & T. Wolde, (Eds.), ''Power and equality: Encapsulation,

commercialization Commercialisation or commercialization is the process of introducing a new product or production method into commerce—making it available on the market. The term often connotes especially entry into the mass market (as opposed to entry into e ...

discrimination Discrimination is the process of making unfair or prejudicial distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong, such as race, gender, age, class, religion, or sex ...

'' (pp. 16–31). Oxford: Berg Publishing. *
Africans Thought of It: Amazing Innovations
' (2011)
Collection of publications and pictures
by Dr. Lee, Richard B.

Awards

*1980 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for ''The !Kung San: Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging Society'' *1980 Herskovits Award of the African Studies Association for ''The !Kung San: Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging Society'' * 2016 Appointed as an Officer of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada () is a Canadian state order, national order and the second-highest Award, honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the Canadian Centennial, ce ...

References

External links

Anthropologica Vol. 45 No. 1, 2003Expanded Bibliography by Jacqueline SolwayRichard Lee archival papers
held at th
University of Toronto Archives and Records Management Services
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Richard Borshay 1937 births Living people Canadian anthropologists Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences University of Toronto alumni Academic staff of the University of Toronto Officers of the Order of Canada University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty ASA Best Book Prize winners

Professional associations

Selected publications

Awards

See also

References

External links