Lucy Philip Mair (28 January 1901 – 1 April 1986) was a British anthropologist.[1] She wrote on the subject of social organization, and contributed to the involvement of anthropological research in governance and politics.[2][3] Her work on colonial administration was influential.[4]
Career
Mair read Classics at Newnham College, Cambridge, graduating with a BA in 1923.[5] In 1927 she joined the LSE, studying social anthropology under Bronisław Malinowski, and commenced ethnographic fieldwork in Uganda in 1931.[2] At Malinowski's direction[6] she spent her time in Uganda studying social change,[5] returning to the UK in 1932 to submit her dissertation and receive her PhD. For her doctorate she did field research among the BaGanda 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.[7] 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) 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."[8]
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.".[7]
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.[9]
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, 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:[10] 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.[10][11]
