Signe Lise Howell (born 15 July 1942) is a Norwegian

social anthropologist 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 ...

Personal life

Howell was born in

Tinn Tinn is a municipality in Telemark in the county of Vestfold og Telemark in Norway. It is part of the traditional regions of Upper Telemark and Øst-Telemark. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Rjukan. The parish of ' ...

to physician Finn Oddvar Lie and Lise Thomassen. She was married to performance artist Anthony Howell from 1970 to 1977, and to Desmond James McNeill from 1986.

Career

Howell was a co-founder of the experimental street theatre

The Theatre of Mistakes The Theatre of Mistakes was a performance art company in London, operating in the 1970s-1980s. The group was known for its live performance art that was built around interactive games and workshops. The work was minimalist, structuralist, and c ...

in the 1960s. She studied history at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies and

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 ...

at the

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. She investigated social structures in South-East Asia, and made field studies among the Chewong people in

Malaya Malaya refers to a number of historical and current political entities related to what is currently Peninsular Malaysia in Southeast Asia: Political entities * British Malaya (1826–1957), a loose collection of the British colony of the Straits ...

and

Lio Vanda Maria Ribeiro Furtado Tavares de Vasconcelos (born 17 June 1962), known professionally as Lio, is a Portuguese-Belgian singer and actress who was a pop icon in France and Belgium during the 1980s. Life and career Vanda Maria Ribeiro Furt ...

people in Flores in Indonesia. She was appointed professor at the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top univers ...

from 1989. Among her works are ''Chewong Myths and Legends'' from 1982, and ''Society and Cosmos. Chewong of Peninsular Malaysia'' from 1984. She co-edited ''Blod – tykkere enn vann? Betydninger av slektskap i Norge'' (2001).

References

1942 births Living people People from Tinn Alumni of SOAS University of London Alumni of the University of Oxford Norwegian expatriates in the United Kingdom Norwegian anthropologists Norwegian women anthropologists Academic staff of the University of Oslo {{Norway-academic-bio-stub