Lucy Philip Mair (28 January 1901 – 1 April 1986) was a British

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 ...

.Lucy Mair: Oxford Biography Index Entry
/ref> She wrote on the subject of social organization, and contributed to the involvement of anthropological research in governance and politics. Her work on colonial administration was influential.

Career

Mair read

Classics Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...

Newnham College, Cambridge Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millicen ...

, graduating with a BA in 1923.Lucy Mair
obituary in Anthropology Today Volume 2, No. 4, August 1986 In 1927 she joined the LSE, studying

social anthropology Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...

under

Bronisław Malinowski Bronisław Kasper Malinowski (; 7 April 1884 – 16 May 1942) was a Polish anthropologist and ethnologist whose writings on ethnography, social theory, and field research have exerted a lasting influence on the discipline of anthropology. ...

, and commenced ethnographic fieldwork in

Uganda Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...

in 1931.Mair, Lucy Philip
in Marilyn Ogilvie and

Joy Harvey Joy Dorothy Harvey (born 1934) is an American historian of science. Life Harvey gained a PhD from Harvard University in 1983. She has been an associate editor of the Darwin Correspondence Project, and written a biography of Clémence Royer, D ...

(eds.) ''The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science'', Taylor and Francis (2000), p.832 At Malinowski's directionVideo interview with Lucy Mair
hosted by

Alan Macfarlane Alan Donald James Macfarlane (born 20 December 1941) is a British anthropologist and historian, and a Professor Emeritus of King's College, Cambridge. He is the author or editor of 20 books and numerous articles on the anthropology and histo ...

. she spent her time in Uganda studying social change, returning to the UK in 1932 to submit her dissertation and receive her PhD. For her doctorate she did field research among the

BaGanda The Baganda (endonym: ''Baganda''; singular ''Muganda''), are a Bantu ethnic group native to Buganda, a subnational kingdom within Uganda. Traditionally composed of 52 clans (although since a 1993 survey, only 46 are officially recognised), th ...

people of Uganda, and in 1934 published her findings as ''An African People in the Twentieth Century'', a title that encompassed her academic focus related to problems of change and development. She began lecturing at LSE the same year. After publishing ''An African People in the Twentieth Century'' (1934), Mair received another fellowship, from the International African Institute, for a field trip in the mandated territory of North Western Tanganyika (

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

) for 1936–1937. During that time she was also approached to work for the Chatham House Africa Research Survey. On the eve of World War II, her teaching covered "topics all central to British colonial strategy in the context of rival empires and anti-colonial resistance." She later joined the Royal Institute for International Affairs with the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. In 1943 she moved to the Ministry of Information, then at the war's end took a job training Australian administrators for work in

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

. In 1946 Mair returned to LSE as reader in colonial administration, commencing a second readership (in applied anthropology) in 1952. In 1963 she became a professor, a post she held until retirement in 1968. According to one obituary, "Perhaps her best- known work in this field was on land tenure and local political organisation, which she rightly saw as factors which must be understood in detail before plans and programmes for change stand any hope of success.". In 1964 she was made president of Section N of the

British Association for the Advancement of Science The British Science Association (BSA) is a Charitable organization, charity and learned society founded in 1831 to aid in the promotion and development of science. Until 2009 it was known as the British Association for the Advancement of Scienc ...

. She gave the 1967

Frazer Lecture The Sir James George Frazer Memorial Lectureship in Social Anthropology is a British academic lecture series. In 1920 a sum of £675 was raised by a committee of the University of Cambridge for the purpose of commemorating Sir James Frazer's cont ...

at Cambridge University.

Works

Mair published books and papers throughout her life. ''Primitive Government'', first published in 1962, discusses political patronage in relation to state formation and is cited by over 160 academic works.

Books

* ''The protection of minorities; The working and scope of the minorities treaties under the League of Nations'', Christophers, 1928 * ''An African people in the twentieth century'', G. Routledge and Sons, 1934 * ''Welfare in the British colonies'', Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1944 * ''Australia in New Guinea'', Chponeismalditosrs, 1948 * ''Native administration in central Nyasaland'',

HMSO The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) is the body responsible for the operation of His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) and of other public information services of the United Kingdom. The OPSI is part of the National Archives of the U ...

, 1952 * ''Studies in applied anthropology'', Athlone, 1957 * ''Safeguards for democracy'', Oxford University Press, 1961 * ''Primitive government'', Penguin Books, 1962 * ''The Nyasaland Elections of 1961'', Athlone Press, 1962 * ''New nations'', University of Chicago Press, c1963 * ''An introduction to social anthropology'', Clarendon Press, 1965 * ''The new Africa'', Watts, 1967 * ''African marriage and social change'', Cass, 1969 * ''Anthropology and social change'', Athlone, 1969 * ''Native policies in Africa'', Negro Universities Press, 1969 * ''Witchcraft'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969 * ''The Bantu of Western Kenya: with special reference to the Vugusu and Logoli'', published for the International African Institute by Oxford U.P., 1970. * ''Marriage'', Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1971 * ''African societies'', Cambridge University Press, 1974 * ''African Kingdoms'', Clarendon Press, 1977 * ''Anthropology and Development'', Macmillan, 1984

Royal Anthropological Institute

Mair was throughout her working life closely involved with the

Royal Anthropological Institute The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is a long-established anthropological organisation, and Learned Society, with a global membership. Its remit includes all the component fields of anthropology, such as biolo ...

: after winning the RAI Wellcome medal in 1936 she was the Hon Secretary from 1974 to 1978 and the vice-president for the year 1978–9. After her death, the RAI instituted the Lucy Mair Medal for Applied Anthropology in 1997 to commemorate her.RAI News, December 2001
, "Lucy Mair Medal for Applied Anthropology 2002".RAI news
''Anthropology Today'', Volume 13 No. 4 (April 1997)

References

External links

Interviewed by Jean La Fontaine and Alan Macfarlane, 30 July 1983 (video)
* https://link.library.eui.eu/portal/The-Baganda--An-Account-of-their-Native-Customs/3fB0qAZHHsA/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Mair, Lucy British women anthropologists Academics of the London School of Economics 1901 births 1986 deaths Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge 20th-century British women scientists 20th-century British anthropologists