The Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography (SSAG; ) is a scientific

learned society A learned society ( ; also scholarly, intellectual, or academic society) is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline, profession, or a group of related disciplines such as the arts and sciences. Membership may be open to al ...

founded in December 1877. It was established after a rearrangement of various sections of the Anthropological Society, which was formed in 1873 by Hjalmar Stolpe, Hans Hildebrand,

Oscar Montelius Gustaf Oscar Augustin Montelius, known as Oscar Montelius (9September 18434November 1921) was a Swedish archaeologist who refined the concept of seriation, a relative chronological dating method. Biography Oscar Montelius refined the conce ...

, and Gustaf Retzius. The society functions as a link between science and the public, especially in the subjects of

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...

and

geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...

. It awards research fellowships, organizes excursions and lectures, and hands out awards including the Vega Medal and Retzius Medal. In 1880, the society published the first edition of the Swedish yearbook ''Ymer'', and it has published the international journal ''

Geografiska Annaler ''Geografiska Annaler'' is a scientific journal published by the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography in Stockholm, Sweden. The journal is founded in 1919. Since 1965 the journal is published in two series A and B. Series A deals with ar ...

'' since 1919, a publication that is divided between

physical geography Physical geography (also known as physiography) is one of the three main branches of geography. Physical geography is the branch of natural science which deals with the processes and patterns in the natural environment such as the atmosphere, h ...

and

human geography Human geography or anthropogeography is the branch of geography which studies spatial relationships between human communities, cultures, economies, and their interactions with the environment, examples of which include urban sprawl and urban ...

. In 2018, it established ''Kritisk Etnografi'', an academic journal of

ethnography Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

Society awards

The society created the Vega Medal in 1881, on the occasion of

Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld (; 18 November 183212 August 1901) was a Finland-Swedish aristocrat, geologist, mineralogist and Arctic explorer. He was a member of the noble Nordenskiöld family of scientists and held the title of a friherre (ba ...

's return to Stockholm after the ''Vega'' expedition – his discovery of the

Northeast Passage The Northeast Passage (abbreviated as NEP; , ) is the Arctic shipping routes, shipping route between the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, Pacific Oceans, along the Arctic coasts of Norway and Russia. The western route through the islan ...

. Since then, the Vega Medal has been awarded to an outstanding physical geographer roughly every three years. In the intervening years, the society has awarded the Anders Retzius Medal to a geographer or anthropologist. In 2015, the Society decided that awarding a medal named after Retzius was inappropriate; his racial studies—including a collection of skulls of indigenous peoples—are viewed with disapproval by modern anthropologists. Thereafter, the Retzius Medal was renamed the SSAG medal, and it was given to Didier Fassin in 2016. The society's awards are handed out by the King of Sweden on 24 April, the anniversary of Nordenskiöld's return to Stockholm.

Recipients

The following people are among the recipients of the society's awards:

Vega Medal

* 1881:

* 1882: Louis Palander * 1883:

Henry Morton Stanley Sir Henry Morton Stanley (born John Rowlands; 28 January 1841 – 10 May 1904) was a Welsh-American explorer, journalist, soldier, colonial administrator, author, and politician famous for his exploration of Central Africa and search for missi ...

* 1884: Nikolai Przhevalsky * 1888: Wilhelm Junker * 1889:

Fridtjof Nansen Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen (; 10 October 1861 – 13 May 1930) was a Norwegian polymath and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. He gained prominence at various points in his life as an explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and co-founded the ...

* 1890: Emin Pasha * 1892: Louis Gustave Binger * 1897: Otto Sverdrup * 1898: Sven Hedin * 1899:

Georg August Schweinfurth Georg August Schweinfurth (29 December 1836 – 19 September 1925) was a Baltic Germans, Baltic German botanist and ethnologist who explored East Central Africa. Life and explorations He was born at Riga, Latvia, then part of the Russian Emp ...

* 1900:

Alfred Gabriel Nathorst Alfred Gabriel Nathorst (7 November 1850 – 20 January 1921) was a Swedish Arctic explorer, geologist, and palaeobotanist. He travelled to Spitzbergen, Svalbard and Greenland where he took an interest in the Arctic floras from the Paleozoic ...

* 1901: Prince Luigi Amedeo * 1903: Ferdinand von Richthofen * 1904:

Otto Nordenskiöld Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants '' Audo'', '' Odo'', '' Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity". The name is recorded ...

* Johan G. Andersson * 1905:

Robert Falcon Scott Captain Robert Falcon Scott (6 June 1868 – ) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition, ''Discovery'' expedition of 1901–04 and the Terra Nova Expedition ...

* 1907: Otto Pettersson * 1909: Johan Peter Koch * 1910:

Ernest Shackleton Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarcti ...

* 1912: John Murray * 1913:

Roald Amundsen Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (, ; ; 16 July 1872 – ) was a Norwegians, Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He was a key figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Born in Borge, Østfold, Norway, Am ...

* 1915:

Gerard De Geer Baron Gerard Jacob De Geer (20 November 1858 – 24 July 1943) was a Swedish geologist who made significant contributions to Quaternary geology, particularly geomorphology and geochronology. De Geer is best known for his work on varves. In 1890 ...

* 1919: Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen * 1920: William Morris Davis * 1922: Albert I, Prince of Monaco * 1923: Albrecht Penck * 1924: Lauge Koch * 1926: Boris Vilkitsky * 1930: Harald Sverdrup * 1931: Émile-Félix Gautier * 1932: Albert Defant * 1937:

Roy Chapman Andrews Roy Chapman Andrews (January 26, 1884 – March 11, 1960) was an American explorer, adventurer, and Natural history, naturalist who became the director of the American Museum of Natural History. He led a series of expeditions through the politi ...

* 1939: Vilhelm Bjerknes * Vagn W. Ekman * 1941: Bjørn Helland-Hansen * Hans W. Ahlmann * 1944: Lennart von Post * 1946: Emmanuel de Martonne * 1948: Richard Evelyn Byrd * 1950: Hans Pettersson * 1951: Carl Troll * 1954: Laurence Dudley Stamp * 1955: Paul-Émile Victor * 1957: Carl O. Sauer * 1958: Jacob Bjerknes * Tor Bergeron * 1959: Mikhail Somov * 1961: Richard Joel Russell * 1962:

Thor Heyerdahl Thor Heyerdahl KStJ (; 6 October 1914 – 18 April 2002) was a Norwegian adventurer and Ethnography, ethnographer with a background in biology with specialization in zoology, botany and geography. Heyerdahl is notable for his Kon-Tiki expediti ...

* 1963:

Louis Leakey Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey (7 August 1903 – 1 October 1972) was a Kenyan-British palaeoanthropologist and archaeologist whose work was important in demonstrating that humans evolved in Africa, particularly through discoveries made at Olduvai ...

* 1965: Maurice Ewing * 1970: Filip Hjulström * Sigurður Þórarinsson * 1972: Albert P. Crary * 1975: Willi Dansgaard * 1981: Valter Schytt * 1983: Cesare Emiliani * 1984: Hubert Lamb * 1986: John Ross Mackay * 1987: Gunnar Hoppe *

Åke Sundborg Åke Sundborg (15 October 1921 – 23 May 2007) was a Swedish geographer and geomorphologist known for his contributions to the hydrology and geomorphological dynamics of rivers. He was active at Uppsala University where he studied under the ...

* 1990: George H. Denton * 1993: David E. Sugden * 1994: Gösta Hjalmar Liljequist * 1997: Albert Lincoln Washburn * 1999: John Imbrie * 2002: Lonnie Thompson * 2005: Françoise Gasse * 2008: Dorthe Dahl-Jensen * 2011: Terry Callaghan * 2014: Compton J. Tucker * 2015: Lesley Head * 2017: Yao Tandong * 2018: Gillian Hart * 2020:

David R. Montgomery David R. Montgomery is a professor of earth and space sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he is a member of the Quaternary Research Center. Montgomery received his B.S. in geology from Stanford University in 1984, and his ...

* 2021: Anssi Paasi * 2023: John Smol

Retzius Medal

* 1913:

* 1920:

Arthur Evans Sir Arthur John Evans (8 July 1851 – 11 July 1941) was a British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age. The first excavations at the Minoan palace of Knossos on the List of islands of Greece, Gree ...

* 1923:

Aurel Stein Sir Marc Aurel Stein, (; 26 November 1862 – 26 October 1943) was a Hungarian-born British archaeologist, primarily known for his explorations and archaeological discoveries in Central Asia. He was also a professor at Indian universities. ...

* 1925:

Johan Gunnar Andersson Johan Gunnar Andersson (3 July 1874 – 29 October 1960)"Andersson, Johan Gunnar" in '' The New Encyclopædia Britannica''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th edn., 1992, Vol. 1, p. 385. was a Swedish archaeologist, geomorphologist, ...

* 1930: Erland Nordenskiöld * 1967: Walter Christaller * 1969: David Hannerberg * 1973:

Torsten Hägerstrand Torsten Hägerstrand (October 11, 1916, in Moheda – May 3, 2004, in Lund) was a Swedish geographer. He is known for his work on migration, cultural diffusion and time geography. A native and resident of Sweden, Hägerstrand was a professor ...

* 1976: William William-Olsson * 1978: Wolfgang Hartke * 1985: Akin Mabogunje * 1988: Fredrik Barth * 1989: David Harvey * Sven Godlund * 1991: Allan Pred * 1992:

Jack Goody Sir John Rankine Goody (27 July 1919 – 16 July 2015) was an English social anthropologist. He was a prominent lecturer at Cambridge University, and was William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology from 1973 to 1984. Among his main publica ...

* 1994:

Peter Haggett Peter Haggett CBE (24 January 1933 – 9 February 2025) was a British geographer and academic, Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Fellow in Urban and Regional Geography at the School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol. Life ...

* 1995: Veena Das * 1997: Peter Gould * 1998: David Maybury-Lewis * 2000: Erik Bylund * 2001: Sherry Ortner * 2003: Doreen Massey * 2004:

Tim Ingold Timothy Ingold (born 1 November 1948INGOLD, Prof. Timothy
''Who's Who 2014'', ...

* 2006: Gunnar Törnqvist * 2007:

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...

and Jean Comaroff * 2009: Allen J. Scott * 2010: Ulf Hannerz * 2012: Don Mitchell * 2013: Paul Stoller

Gold Medal

* 2016: Didier Fassin * 2019: Emily Martin * 2022:

Thomas Hylland Eriksen Geir Thomas Hylland Eriksen (6 February 1962 – 27 November 2024) was a Norwegian anthropologist known for his scholarly and popular writing on globalization, culture, identity, ethnicity, and nationalism. He was Professor of Social Anthropolo ...

''Kritisk Etnografi''

''Kritisk Etnografi'' ( Swedish for "critical ethnography"), subtitled ''Swedish Journal of Anthropology'', is a bi-annual

peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

open-access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

, online-only,

academic journal An academic journal (or scholarly journal or scientific journal) is a periodical publication in which Scholarly method, scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. They serve as permanent and transparent forums for the ...

on the subjects of anthropology and

, owned and published by the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography in collaboration with DiVA, an online archive maintained by Uppsala University. Its first issue was launched on 15 August 2018.

References

Footnotes

Sources

* * * *

External links

* * {{Authority control 1877 establishments in Sweden Anthropology-related professional associations Geographic societies Anthropology and Geography Scientific organizations established in 1877